Saturday - March 07, 2009

Serial teenage criminals to escape with a slap on the wrist.  Like Always. Great message here.

Cool way to fight crime and thugs in the street. Not.

Must be a comfort to victims here reading this.  This will all one day end in a Mad Max society. I know I’ve said that before. Thing is, I really believe it unless and until people do something to reverse things.  But I doubt that will happen.

Junkie burglars ‘cheat justice’: Serial teenage criminals to escape with a slap on the wrist
By James Slack
Last updated at 10:43 AM on 07th March 2009

Serial teenage burglars and muggers could escape with a caution if they have a drug habit, it emerged last night.

Even when a tearaway commits a string of crimes, a ‘conditional caution’ could be handed down instead of a court trial and possible jail sentence.
The conditions could involve simply saying sorry to victims or repairing damage. The Tories called the controversial Government proposals ‘cheating justice’. Critics fear they remove a significant deterrent to repeat offending.
Last year, under-18s committed more than 6,500 house burglaries and 6,300 robberies and were involved in 47,000 cases of theft and handling stolen goods.

The new guidelines will allow burglars to escape with a caution if they have a drug habit
Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve said burglaries, thefts, robberies and muggings would all be covered by the new rules.
He added: ‘People will be rightly shocked at the idea of serial offenders receiving a single caution for numerous offences. Labour’s reliance on out-of-court measures is cheating justice.’

The plan is at odds with recent directions from the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge.
He told the courts to give tougher sentences to housebreakers to reflect the fact that people’s homes should be their ‘safest refuge’.
Youth Conditional Cautions, which will be introduced later this year, are designed for young criminals whose offence is considered too serious for a warning or a final reprimand or who have already had both of these softer ‘punishments’.

Conditional cautions were originally supposed to be issued for one or at the most two offences, a plan which was controversial in itself.
But new guidelines published by the Ministry of Justice say prosecutors may use the caution for a string of crimes - if they were each considered suitable for out-of-court action.
The document explains that this may apply to ‘similar offences related to the same underlying problem (for example acquisitive crime to fund a drug habit)’.

Shocked: Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve said the measures mean offenders can cheat justice
It also discloses that a young offender who misses a compulsory drug rehabilitation appointment - a possible condition of the caution - may still be treated as having complied.
The document emerges on the day after the Daily Mail revealed huge increases in crimes such as robbery in Labour’s ‘decade of juvenile delinquency’.
Figures from the Youth Justice Board showed the total number of offences carried out by 10 to 17-year-olds in 2007/08 was 277,986 - or more than one every two minutes.

Lord Judge had called for jail terms for burglaries with aggravating factors such as stealing sentimental items or preying on the elderly.
He said: ‘The principle which must be grasped is that when we speak of dwelling-house burglary we are considering not only an offence against property, which it is, but also, and often more alarmingly and distressingly, an offence against the person.’

He said the home should be our ‘safest refuge’ and burglary, by any starting point, was a ‘serious criminal offence’.
Handing young burglars a conditional caution would effectively set aside this guidance, as the thief would not even appear before a court.
Prior to Judge Judge’s intervention, the Sentencing Guidelines Council had been suggesting that burglars and thieves who steal to fund an addiction to drugs, gambling or alcohol could escape a prison sentence - even if they targeted a vulnerable victim.
Youth Conditional Cautions were introduced by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.

For more on the story, go here.

JUSTICE?

Posted by peiper     on 03/07/2009 at 07:50 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Stoopid-People • UK •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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