The problem with IPP sentences is more complex than just "the government arbitrarily locking people up indefinitely". The IPP prisoners who are still behind bars are there for a reason - in every case I'm aware of, because they keep committing violent offences while in prison.
The psychological burden of an indefinite sentence is undoubtedly an obstacle to rehabilitation, as are the wider issues of understaffing and overcrowding in the prison estate, but let's not kid ourselves. IPP sentences were created specifically to deal with prisoners who habitually reoffend on release. These are people who were on a revolving door of offending and imprisonment before their IPP sentence, and who would almost certainly be stuck in that cycle again if their IPP sentence was quashed.
IPPs are unjust and the current government will almost certainly retroactively resentence most or all IPP prisoners within this parliament, but the underlying problem is still there. We could definitely do a better job of rehabilitating this cohort, but even the best-funded and most liberal systems have had fairly meagre success in actually breaking the cycle of reoffending; the much-heralded low recidivism rates in Scandinavia are substantially a reporting artifact rather than a meaningful difference in outcomes.
I wonder how much of that is "bad people" and how much of that is "Stanford prison experiment"
Or to put it another way, how much of this indefinite prison sentence due to reoffending is caused by prison guards assuming these people are bad apples and finding every fault they can with them to extend their sentence?
> the much-heralded low recidivism rates in Scandinavia are substantially a reporting artifact rather than a meaningful difference in outcomes
Headline recidivism rates aren't really comparable across jurisdictions, because there are so many variables - what kind of offences lead to imprisonment, what counts as "reoffending", how long you follow up for, how likely people are to be arrested, charged and convicted etc. One study found that recidivism rates could vary from 9% to 53% based on the same underlying data, simply by changing the definitions. The more you try to standardise the methods, the smaller the difference in apparent recidivism rates.
Ok so now you're saying we don't know. Before you were saying you did know.
I see what you did there. Convenient.
I do not understand your comment. OP explained his point about how the rates vary
Assuming prison is an eat or be eaten, survival of the fittest kind of environment can you blame the prisoners for being violent?
That assumption is based on cinema more than reality. Prison is just a microcosm of humanity, only slightly biased. Personal experience.
It is well known that levels and frequency of violence vary greatly by facility and by area within each facility. It sounds like you had a bit of luck with your placement. Sadly, this "penalization for survival" also happens regularly in juvenile facilities and schools.
That does not contradict brikym's comment.
Of course, a lot of people are lucky and able to navigate our everyday jungle, thrive and blablabla, but they - almost by definition - don't end up in prison, and those who do already - again, almost by definition - have problems.
Underfunded mental health systems inside and outside, piling on more traumatizing experiences here or there ... sure, for some people getting a few years gives them that wake up call, but in general the problem seems to be that the whole police/prison concept is just a shitty bandaid on wounds festering from all kinds of problems (economical, political all of them usually point to psychosocial/cultural issues).
> IPP sentences were created specifically to deal with prisoners who habitually reoffend on release.
The whole point about this situation is that the sentences were applied to people who do NOT fit that description (not my just view, also the view of the architect of this atrocity, David Blunkett), so in the majority of cases in question your reasoning does not apply.
HM Inspectorate of Probation's review on IPP prisoners released on license paints a very different picture - of people with complex problems, chaotic lives and a high and ongoing risk of reoffending.
IPP prisoners can't be arbitrarily detained forever. There has to be a reason for the refusal of parole or for a recall to prison. There are clearly significant shortcomings in how IPP prisoners are supported, but it's also clear that a cohort of people who are living with drug addiction, severe mental illness and behavioural problems are going to struggle to stay on the straight and narrow even in ideal circumstances.
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-cont...
Thanks for the link - will take some time for me to digest.
> people with complex problems, chaotic lives and a high and ongoing risk of reoffending.
Surely that applies to almost all prisoners?
I don't think that you have addressed my point though, which is that the people who have been given these sentences are not those supposedly targeted by the law.
I couldn't disagree with any of the points that you make, but I think we're talking past each other. There is a threshold at which these sentences might make sense, and we risk conflating discussion about those cases with the much larger number of problematic cases where the logic is - at least quantitatively - different.
> Surely that applies to almost all prisoners?
The slippery slope argument can be made that this power could be abused (and likely is to some degree anyway) and that justifications could be made to apply to just about anyone. But if we assume the best intentions here, then something like this does make sense. There will always be a small percentage of people in any large society who are just going to commit violent and criminal acts over and over again.
I think most prisoners are in the category where they are regular people who made a bad choice due to things like environmental factors, poor judgement, and the like. And there are a few prisoners who are just wired differently - they will never not be dangerous. The trick is correctly sorting between the two.
>But if we assume the best intentions here
Why would you do that?
It sounds like you're "just-so"ing a broken system that doesn't actually seem to be in the process of reforming (including implementing retroactive re-sentencing), and understating the role of the conditions such prisoners find themselves in in creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of re-offense. Ironically, you are kidding yourself, as to the defensibility of any part of this.
I'm an attorney barred in the US, so I'm not familiar with this kind of sentencing. However, I'm having a hard time understanding commenters trying to add nuance to IPP sentences simply by saying that inmates don't get released because they keep committing violent offenses while inside.
The reasonable thing to do in such cases is to give the inmate a new trial for each of those alleged offenses. This is very basic due process.
it is truly baffling... My personal theory is that society dehumanizes prisoners and felons constantly, especially through media and through cultural means. So I believe that bias plays a LOT into how people perceive blatant injustice against them. This is inherently denying a human being their basic rights to a trial and basic dignity.
Im genuinely repulsed by the general sentiment here (and in general) regarding incarcerated people. It doesn't help that crime based reporting has been flooding social media and news channels at disproportionate rates post 9/11's 24 hour news cycle. Its almost always an obvious attempt to evoke an emotional response too, despite crime steady decreasing over 50+ years by a fairly large margin.
Correct, It's trivial to both maintain that humans deserve some rights and the prisoners do not, if you conclude then that prisoners are not human. They must be subhuman, beings of lesser worth.
This is particularly evident in American systems of modern slavery. In states like Georgia, prisoners are forced to work 40+ hours a week in places such as fast food establishments (McDonald's etc). They make well under minimum wage, and they're not allowed to miss work. Simple missteps result in punishment, loss of "good time". This means no phone calls, no visits, no venturing outside.
Such a system, if employed on everyday people, would be unthinkable. But for prisoners it's not only prevalent, we view it as a privilege. The right to work and earn money is so gracious to give to these dogs, and they should be thankful. Parole, too, is a reward, and they should be so lucky to endure 20+ years of slavery for the mere chance of getting out.
Does it really surprise you that normal, law-abiding people don't like criminals? Them being allowed to re-enter society at all should be seen as a privilege.
Wrongful convictions happen, should normal law-abiding citizens that get thrown in jail just suck it up and expect no due process because they are now a "criminal"?
That's completely unrelated. Maybe we should just abolish the law entirely because it gets misapplied sometimes.
That's quite a knee jerk reaction. There are meaningful steps to making sure the law is applied more fairly.
The fair trial and "due process" was the initial conviction. The punishment for that is imprisonment until they prove to a parole board that they no longer pose a risk to the public.
That's the thing about "due process", isn't it? It's just a phrase that basically means "the law", and the law can be changed by legislation and judges, and the law can be unjust. The phrase is nothing more than giving airs of being impartial or some check and balance against the law. This hapless fellow got his "due process".
I hear you, but the problem is that the alternative is much worse. These indefinite detentions lend themselves to all manner of corruption. Maybe a prison guard doesn't like you and falsely claims you committed a violent offense, just to keep you inside. Maybe a fellow inmate attacks you, and when you defend yourself, it gets registered as a violent offense.
The first element of due process is that a citizen be notified that the State is mobilizing its resources with the intention of depriving them of their life, liberty, and/or property.
Another core tenet of due process is that, once notified, you get a chance to submit evidence in your favor before an impartial adjudicator, precisely to avoid the issues in my first paragraph.
New Zealand has the same concept, called preventative detention, which means kept in jail until they deem the risk of danger to the public meets some threshold.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preventive_detention#New_Zea...
I'm having trouble understanding if he received an 18 month sentence or an indefinite one: "was jailed for 18 months but is still trapped in prison 18 years later under a cruel indefinite jail term".
That's in the first paragraph.
From Wikipedia:
> [IPP] was intended to protect the public against criminals whose crimes were not serious enough to merit a normal life sentence but who were regarded as too dangerous to be released when the term of their original sentence had expired. It is composed of a punitive "tariff" intended to be proportionate to the gravity of the crime committed, and an indeterminate period which commences after the expiry of the tariff and lasts until the Parole Board judges the prisoner no longer poses a risk to the public and is fit to be released. [1]
That last bit is even worse than it sounds: the burden of proof is on the prisoner to prove that they're no longer a danger to society, instead of requiring the Parole Board to prove that they're still a danger. Between that burden and the rest of the Parole Board's workload, it's taking forever to get anyone released.
IPP was eliminated in 2012 because it was unjust and overused, but politicians made the conscious decision to not retroactively undo it because of the bad PR it'd cause if some violent offender was released and killed someone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprisonment_for_public_protec...
On the point that the prisoners have to prove that they’re no longer a danger: in some cases that means completing courses which are completely inaccessible to the prisoners due to cutbacks.
> politicians made the conscious decision to not retroactively undo it because of the bad PR it'd cause if some violent offender was released and killed someone.
So it's ok if a violent offender jailed after 2012 gets released and kills someone. Typical politican logic.
politicians are choosing instead to kill these prisoners via indeterminate detention
To be clear, my comment was sarcastic and I'm not defending the indeterminate detention option. Just pointing out the hypocrisy.
I'll take that option tbh
I hope you reflect on why that is.
Isn't it the opposite? They don't want to be blamed if something happens so they uphold a blatantly unjust ruling. To be clear, thats not how any of this works. You can't just imprison someone indefinitely because they "might" do something.
> Isn't it the opposite?
It is. My comment was a (failed) attempt at sarcasm. If the new ruling is thought to be more just, it should be retroactively applied.
> IPP was eliminated in 2012 because it was unjust and overused, but politicians made the conscious decision to not retroactively undo it because of the bad PR it'd cause if some violent offender was released and killed someone.
I can tell you that violent offenders causing subsequent problems is very common, at least in the US. Over the last decade many coastal cities have adopted policies where criminals are released with little to no consequence for many crimes, or relatively short sentences/early release even for bigger ones. And there are just so many cases of them reoffending or escalating the type of crime, that it’s almost a given these days that anytime you hear of a serious crime, some judge or prosecutor helped let them off previously. Many of these cases are absurd - someone with a record of 50+ arrests previously or a long list of felonies. But they were still released so they could prey on the public.
From my perspective I am happy to choose public safety instead of releasing inmates and subjecting everyone to risk. I don’t think it is fair, once someone has been convicted, to simply assume they’ll be a better person. There needs to be a much higher bar for release. Maybe it is unfair but it is more fair than the alternative, where there are more innocent victims.
The data shows that violent crimes are lower today than they've been in decades. Ever recorded, technically in the US.
Crime is enormously politicized. Whichever politician is in office can be attacked with any crimes that happened in their jurisdictions. Its easy to see it in alt-right propaganda bringing up horrific stories.... from years ago. As in, they had to go back years to find a story horrific enough of a story to resonate with people. I see this pattern common in European and American conservative news.
Between the media's "If it bleeds, it leads". Private prisons ties to politicians. Companies benefiting from slave labor. Many people's personal preference for excessive punishment. The data supports one story, and more and more people feel another one is true.
Around 40% of inmates in the US will reoffend, many finding themselves back in prison (and subsequently released) within the year. Violent crimes can be at a low and repeat violent criminals can still be a problem. Most crime in the US is done by a fraction of the population, and we are doing nothing to actually address rehabilitation. We simply let them go and watch as they hurt more people.
You can try to hand wave this away as “alt-right propaganda” all you want, but the government’s statistics don’t lie.
> Around 40% of inmates in the US will reoffend, many finding themselves back in prison (and subsequently released) within the year.
Why?
Having served their time are they dumped without resources and the stigma of a criminal conviction with limited ability for employment and support?
The US is outstanding extreme in the per capita imprisonment rate which speaks to some systemic issue, however to be fair the US is about middle of the pack for G20 recidivism rates after (say) four years.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...
~ 40% seems commonplace.
Considering this story, this 18 year old was in a robbery and a fight. Nobody was murdered.
He got 18 months and has been in for 18 years. The article makes no mention of justification for the board's decision to keep him in prison or his behavior while in prison, but they are continuing to do so. They could be keeping him in prison purely out of spite, power trip, or actually be protecting society from him. We don't know.
Is this justice? Is this how it should work? Jailed for life for relatively minor crimes that resulted in a grand total of 18 months prison sentence. Hand waving someone's life away is different than hand waving obvious propaganda.
Reoffend how, specifically?
Obligatory context: the monetary value of wage theft alone (not including other types of white-collar crime, like embezzlement, tax fraud, securities fraud, etc.) is greater than that of every type of "violent" theft or burglary. Combined. Priorities.
It's a lot less mentally stressful to get a lower paycheck due to some white collar criminal's fraud than it is to get violently robbed for $20 or burgled, raped etc. Some of these crimes aren't even about money but destroy lives.
So I think it's definitely with reason that violent crimes are receiving heavier sentences.
Getting mugged or held-up are very different things from being raped, particularly for something like $20, and it's a problem that you and others conflate them as if they aren't.
As for the relative stress of high-value white collar crime versus low-value "violent" (I put that in quotes because many of these crimes only involve threats, and sometimes even no contact between parties, e.g., pick-pocketing)... Yes, it sucks to feel violated or to be injured. That's on a completely different level from the all-encompassing, debilitating effects on one's life that not being able to pay for food or medical treatment, or getting kicked out of your home, or living in a culture of hopelessness that actually encourages violent crime, has. All are effects of the unfettered economic corruption in this country. White-collar crime is WAY worse, and further, fixing it often goes a long way towards ALSO fixing violent crime.
Again: priorities.
> The data shows that violent crimes are lower today than they've been in decades. Ever recorded, technically in the US.
Homicides are indeed lower than they were in the height of the cocaine boom of the 70s and 80s and crack wars of the 90s. But they're about 20% higher than they were a decade ago[1], and that's really bad. Murder is one of those things that should be zero tolerance don't you think?
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/187592/death-rate-from-h...
The data isn’t trustworthy and underestimates the true count of crime. For one, cities and states have highly variable rules on what they record and report. Second, the trend of releasing offenders and understaffing police departments has led to citizens simply not reporting many crimes - what’s the point of reporting anything and losing time if no one investigates and even convicted offenders are just released. Third, the west coast of the US has run the experiment on an alternative approach, restorative justice, and it obviously doesn’t work. The last 15 years are evidence of this - leniency induces crime.
This has nothing to do with the “alt-right” or “conservative news” you brought up. Ironically it seems like you’re making this political, despite complaining about politicization.
> The data isn’t trustworthy and underestimates the true count of crime.
OK, so on one hand we have crime data going back decades and on the other we have HN user blackeyeblitzar saying "Trust me, bro". I know which one I'm going to believe.
> The data isn’t trustworthy and underestimates the true count of crime.
You’ll need to back that up with facts, not “it seems to me…”. It’s easy to say “the data are wrong, think about it,” but that doesn’t make it true. That’s just a nice way of saying, “of course those people are criminals, just look at them, but there’s a conspiracy making reality say different.”
Exactly. FBI gathers crime statistics from every police department across the nation, and most States also do an independent set of statistics on crime. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that they are lying, and their personal incentive is to the exact opposite, as they receive more funding in times where crime is higher. These institutions already make up the majority of most City and State budgets, its well into the billions. But good luck ever trying to reason with people, crime has been used for emotional manipulation on social media and news for decades now, facts don't matter to most people on this topic.
That's a voluntary program that most large cities have declined to participate in since 2020.
And the 'standardized' form has been messed with so much that increase or decrease for any particular line item is meaningless.
Personally, I know that shootings and other crimes I've reported on my property have been white-washed and don't show up in our city's 'open data' system.
Being 'open' with statistics just means they're much more careful about manipulating them first, or about what data is allowed in.
You got a source for that? Because ive heard it before but never seen any evidence for it and it screams political propaganda to me. The US has not been soft on criminals in a long long time, that is why it has near 25% of the total world prison population.
> The US has not been soft on criminals in a long long time
You should read more about SF, Portland, Seattle, and LA (while under district attorney George Gascon). Being soft on crime is normal in some parts of the US, and it predictably leads to lots of crime. These soft on crime policies have come so far that my local retail store locks up detergent behind glass now, and this is common on the west coast at this point.
What about all the people who don’t reoffend that you don’t notice? As a resident of a “coastal city” I’m happy we value liberty over safety.
I would much rather be harsher on violent criminals in general. If you even attempted to murder someone once, especially a stranger, I have no reason to assume you are incapable of a second attempt. And sure, I’d be fine with giving people a first pass in some situations, but we’re talking about career criminals. Do you think it’s okay to let people with violent rap sheets 50+ charges long go free because you value their “liberty”?
I'm not sure what you consider to be violent or what you consider to be a crime. Do you think speeding through a school zone is violent or criminal? What about drunk driving? What about a fist fight?
I am willing to bet that you routinely violate the law. Somehow in your culture that is acceptable. Maybe you ignore a speed limit. Maybe you fail to disclose some income. Maybe you pay a kid to mow your lawn in violation of Child Labor laws. Maybe you take a swing at somebody during a pickup game of basketball. In U.S. culture these are tolerated and even encouraged.
If you arrested people for these things and sent them to jail do you think they would re-offend when they got out of jail? If you haven't changed the culture into which you return them, there is a high probability. Is there anything about prison that changes the culture outside prison in a positive way? I don't ask that in a "See how pointless prisons are?" kind of way. Mostly my attention there is on the environment outside prison.
> I'm not sure what you consider to be violent or what you consider to be a crime
Yes, this right here is the key people are missing. This varies from person to person, from political affiliation to political affiliation. But it also varies within a person. Someone black is not going to be viewed in the same light as someone white. As much as we like to believe this isn't the case, it just is, and we have to account for that.
The problem with IPP is that we start with the assumption the violent are violent and they must prove otherwise. When we begin at a baseline of disadvantage, the potential for corruption is strife. Racism is trivial and invisible in such a system.
idk, don't you find jailing people for crimes they have not committed (but likely to I guess) a bit... insane?
I didn’t understand it as well (not from the UK, but US), so I had to lookup the gist of it in Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprisonment_for_public_prot...
Basically, the “18 month sentence” is a minimum sentence for the crime(s). But after that period, a parole board is supposed to rule on whether this person is fit to rejoin society.
What I don’t understand:
- are parole boards just denying for any reason? Why are people serving such long sentences?
- is it a backlog of cases to review to blame?
- or is this similar to “cash for kids” scandal in the US? Basically, teenagers were sentenced harshly under the pretense of “zero tolerance” and sent to prison. But, in reality it was motivated primarily by the need for private prison systems to fill the cells and many judges getting kickbacks.
> are parole boards just denying for any reason? Why are people serving such long sentences?
Yes. There's guidelines for parole but they're just guides. Personal bias, as well as potential monetary values, keep prisoners in prison. For example, Georgia, based on statistics, should have a parole rate of 80% for non-violent offenders. The parole rate is 8%. This is for non-violent offenders. That's an order of magnitude of difference.
The culture around parole and personal biases fuel this. Ultimately, the community and parole judge can only LOSE by allowing parole. In the best-case scenario, they break even - nothing bad happens if you let someone loose. In the worst case, they commit a crime. They're heavily biased to preserve the interests of themselves, the prisons, and their community. The well-being of the prisoner is least important because they are a criminal.
> motivated primarily by the need for private prison systems to fill the cells and many judges getting kickbacks
There's some of this as well. Some of these prisoners in (again, Georgia) are being coerced to work. Parole is a carrot above their head. They're paid less than minimum wage to literally flip burgers at McDonald's. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved. The prison makes money (garnishes half the wages), local shops get cheap labor, and "dangerous" people are kept locked up. Only the prisoners lose.
The onus is put on the prisoner to show they will successfully reintegrate into society, rather than on the parole board to show they will not. Of course, I'm sure the guidance or help given to said prisoner is nonexistent.
He received an indefinite sentence (for a crime that absent this statue doesn't allow for life sentences) with an 18 month minimum where it was later ruled that indefinite sentences were torture and driving prisoners to suicide.
But the gov't has been slow to review people's cases and so folks are stuck.
Wow, and you don’t do anything productive for a year and you think you wasted your life... absolutely cruel. Even if he were released today, he would need another 15 years of therapy.
In the Netherlands we call this "TBS" (Ter beschikking staat, translated "available for the state, something like that).
It means you are classified dangerous and not curable. I guess this is the same in England. So there must be something seriously wrong with the guy. Mother doesn't see that obviously.
> I guess this is the same in England. So there must be something seriously wrong with the guy. Mother doesn't see that obviously.
The indefinite sentences were abolished in 2012 because they were being overused. They just didn't retroactively eliminate the existing sentences and the Parole Board has taken forever to sort through the problem.
In 2016 the head of the Parole Board said they wanted to reduce the number of IPP sentences to 1,500 by 2020 [1], but you know... Tories happened.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-on-ipp-prisoner...
The reason is that resentencing people is a low priority when the justice system is falling apart in so many other ways.
The authorities also don't want to be held to account for traumatising these people and any crimes they subsequently commit. 12 years is a murder tier stint, so pretty much all of them should just be released. However releasing a lot of dangerous people looks bad even if it's morally justified.
> It means you are classified dangerous and not curable
No it doesn't. It means you've got some sort of mental issue. Curable or not. TBS is more focused on treating the underlying issue instead of simple punishment or rehabilitation.
I think TBS is a bit different as it has to come with a psychiatric evaluation. It's meant specifically for mentally unstable people as a form to coerce them into treatment.
No, that's a different tihng. TBS comes with a psychiatric diagnosis, and is intended for psychiatric treatment. There is no such diagnosis or treatment with IPP.
TBS also doesn't mean you're "incurable" That's just flat-out wrong. The entire point of TBS is to treat (i.e. cure) people.
Everything about your comment is wrong. There's a reason IPP got shot down for human rights violations and TBS hasn't been: because it's fundamentally different.
the sentence in the article "The jail terms were scrapped in 2012 amid human rights concerns, but not retrospectively – leaving almost 3,000 people languishing in prison with no release date." tells me that there is not an amount of danger which justifies this behavior from the state. if we have been able to live without this law since 2012, then there are other answers available which do not include this treatment.
Additional details:
"guilty to two robberies and two common assaults, while asking that a further four robberies, one attempted robbery and one assault occasioning actual bodily harm be taken into consideration."
Also:
"2020 - Luke Ings appeared over videolink from HMP Long Lartin at Worcester Crown Court yesterday where he denied four counts of administering a poisonous or noxious substance with intent. The 31-year-old was arraigned by the clerk, denying four counts of administering 'human excreta' unlawfully and maliciously with intent to injure"
No mention about this in the article, looks like a very biased source.
That last part sounds to me, reading between the lines, like the guy who's been stuck in prison for 18 years past his sentence and has been rug-pulled at least once on the subject of being released on probation had a breakdown and smeared poop on something, which the administration then treated as a deadly assault.
Of course, the whole situation may as well be designed to literally drive people crazy, so nobody should be surprised when things like that happen.
An indefinite prison sentence is unethical - the article is quoting people calling for a review of all indefinite prison sentences. Presumably Mr Ings hurling feces at someone or whatever it is he did would be taken into consideration.
Idk about you but I think a fight in McDonald's and hurling poo at someone don't deserve decades long prison sentences.
I agree that a fight in McDonald's and hurling poo at someone doesn't warrant locking someone away forever.
But the comment you're replying to is also mentioning seven robberies and several other assaults, which you conveniently ignore just like the biased article that makes it sound like he's in prison only for a fight in McDonald's.
He's in prison to keep him from victimizing more people, and I think there's a huge difference whether that is done after one fight, or a history of crime after crime after crime.
Don't you think at some point ordinary non-criminal people deserve an assurance that this person won't be allowed to hurt them?
I'm not defending any specifics of this case. I would like to mention, though, that somebody who got in fights when they were 15 is less likely to do so when they are 30. And somebody who committed robberies when they were 22 is less likely to do so when they are 40.
If your argument is that they have a criminal nature and will therefore commit some other crime because it is in their nature, that's a bit hard to accept. If your argument is that they are acting out against their prison environment and therefore can't be trusted in a completely different environment, that is also hard for me to accept. If your argument is that they have been moved into a halfway house but don't seem to be able to cope with normal society, I would probably probe that. Have they committed robberies while in the halfway house? Have they assaulted someone there?
I hate to paint all prison guards with a giant brush, but I have experienced first hand how normal people act out against mild authority like parents or teachers or coaches. I think many non-criminal people would fare very poorly in an environment of prison-style authority. Activists are often viewed poorly in regular society. In more authoritarian climates they become indistinguishable from criminals. That is not a good indicator of their expected behavior in less authoritarian climates.
> Don't you think at some point ordinary non-criminal people deserve an assurance that this person won't be allowed to hurt them?
No, I don't, because that's a false assurance. Governments, and especially the American and British governments, don't lock away sociopathic murderers, they lock away weed dealers and kids who make mistakes, mostly. Plenty of those mistakes have victims and those victims deserve justice - but locking up someone for 20 years and turning them into a hardened convict in torturous conditions isn't justice.
Last I read, something like 90% of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. Similar to kidnappings (it's usually one of the parents). It would be incorrect to believe you're safe, or safer, from harm because people are being locked in prisons. If anything, this system creates more harm.
If you're not British or American maybe it doesn't apply to you, but I think people seriously underestimate how life-ruining a chance encounter with the justice system of those countries can be, for things that "everyone" does, or for things that genuinely could happen to anyone. It's a common misconception that these justice systems are keeping people safe from, idk, roving bands of criminal drug pushing rapists or whatever.
It is not like prison prison, more like a mental hospital with prison. So you have more freedom and get treatment and evaluation. He probably doesn't improve or gives the correct answers.
I would be unsurprised if at least part of that comes from expecting an autistic person to give 'correct' (i.e. non-autistic) answers. It's pretty typical for autistic people to be treated harshly by courts and other institutions because they don't emote in the "normal" manner.
We're also talking about the difference between 17 and 35 years old. That alone I think would be grounds for parole, he's a completely different person twice over in that amount of time.
A 17 year old knows the difference between right and wrong. Obviously physically harming others is not acceptable. If they don’t know that at 17, they’ll never know it I bet.
I mean this genuinely, if you believe this shouldn't we just execute anyone guilty of a violent offense? If someone can't be redeemed and they'll never not be a danger to the public what do you gain locking them up forever?
I don’t think we gain anything from locking them up forever to be honest. But I am not saying they “can’t” be redeemed - simply that the chance is low and all the time and expense we lose to investing in those individuals (even if only by jailing them) seems like a massive waste when it could go to someone else who hasn’t broken he law. I realize this stance is cruel in a way, but I am simply weighing the trade offs between the different ways we could deal with criminals, and I think it is better for the rest of society to be highly intolerant of violent crimes. For me, violent offense includes any act involving physical violence - including most property crimes. People put their life into obtaining their property - taking it away is the same as taking years of their life away.
He doesn't seem reformed...
https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/18158037.prisoner-accus...
In a perfect world, we would have actual rehabilitation programs that work, but since we don't, that type of person should absolutely kept away from public. If you assault someone with (i.e intend to injure them through physical means), you don't belong in society, period. A fight could end up with life lasting damage should someone get struck in the head with enough force.
This guy did it multiple times.
It could have lasting effects but did it? Only the actual harms matter to me.
Life penalties didn’t prevent these assaults. So the penalty is vengeance rather than deterrence.
> Only the actual harms matter to me.
Like you, I'm also a consequentialist. Not everyone else is!
> So the penalty is vengeance rather than deterrence.
It is neither vengeance nor deterrence. It is (supposed to be) protection of the public from this (supposedly) dangerous individual.
This is a bad excuse for drunk driving, which everyone knows is wrong because of the risks involved even most of the time you get home without killing or maiming someone.
>It could have lasting effects but did it? Only the actual harms matter to me.
Dude come on. I know that you know this is a shit argument, so Im not even going to entertain it.
>So the penalty is vengeance
The "penalty" is not a penalty, its a removal of that person from the rest of society. Like I said, I would be for full reintegration centers. Put that person on LSD/Shroom/MDMA/Ketamine therapy, put him to work, build out reward systems for normal human behavior, and when he has demonstrated that he can hold down a job and resolve conflicts normally, put him back into society.
You're in support of life imprisonment as punishment for somebody who gets into a couple fights?
Yes. This is the reasonable position to take. Fighting isn't normal. Nobody should be able to use physical size/strength as a way to impose their will on someone else. Fighting should be treated exactly like rape.
You can also find plenty of examples where in fights, someone got thrown to the ground on their head, and got a concussion. That shit can be life altering.
By your logic, half or more of all children would be in prison before they even hit 10 years old. Fighting and violence is very normal, and it takes a lot of teaching and social pressure to make it as rare as it is.
The difference with kids is that you have a way higher chance of them being able to change their behavior, and you can also do things like go after their parents, so you don't have to jail them. But again, juvenile detention centers are thing, with kids as young as 10 years old being able to be put in there, and plenty do.
>Fighting and violence is very normal
Yes, I understand this. People make irrational choices all the time.There are very little things that prevent someone from drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car or a truck. And yet, the support for mandatory breathalyzer devices standard in vehicles to be able to operate them is never going to be high. So people are making the irrational choice to risk getting killed by a drunk driver rather than lose some fake "freedom". And people like the commenters here also make the irrational choice to view fighting in a way less serious light then it should be.
In this case, though the problem is solved - a person who should not be in society is not, and it should remain that way.
I'm with you 100% on this. Fighting is way more tolerated than it should be. If you're a grown adult and decide to go hands on with someone, for whatever stupid (non self-defense) reason, you should go to prison for a long time. I don't know about life, but at least 10 years. There is no justifiable reason for a grown adult who can use words to solve his problems to get physically violent with someone. This is true for the whole spectrum from beating someone senseless, to hitting your wife, to getting drunk and shoving someone in a bar. We don't need belligerent assholes in society.
If someone has absent or irresponsible parents, or parents who are violent themselves, when will they have a chance to learn anything else if you punish them with life imprisonment the moment they get into a fight past the age of majority? Your pacifist ideals are not bad, but the actual effect of sending people to prison for life from one fight would be horrific and incredibly cruel, not to mention that it would invariably be abused to target the poor and minority groups while the lawyer-on-retainer class get to avoid the consequences. To stop people from victimizing others repeatedly, the common method is to increase sentences for repeat offenders. Maybe that doesn't currently exist in the UK, but it's a much more a humane solution than life imprisonment without a realistic chance of redemption.
The way to not go to prison is pretty simple - don't attack people. Don't even know why we are debating this. Once you do, you clearly aren't fit to be in society, and things like "humane" no longer apply to you. Poor or minority status doesn't matter. There is nothing about those two things that compel a person to go on the assault.
It's feels you simply don't have empathy or even imagination.
Your "cut and dry" philosophy flies in the face of reality.
A kid is raised in the hood, beaten by their parents, watches someone get shot to death in a drive by one day and the next week someone shot in the back by cops. In school they quickly learn that bullies leave you alone if you punch back. On the street doubly so, they learn demonstrating a willingness for violence mostly gets you left alone.
At 17 years old they're at a McDonald's and someone shoulder checks them. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it wasn't, but the kid tosses a "what the fuck?", and the other person had done it by accident but is mad at the reaction so on a whim says "fuck you bitch." Our main character throws a punch, a fight ensues, the cops come, he's arrested.
This person should be jailed forever?
This makes no sense to me from any analysis angle. Ethically, practically, capitalistically, no matter how I slice it I can't square it. If you argued for him to be immediately executed it would at least make a little bit of capitalistic sense and be logical within the context of a fucked up ethical system (a non evidence based one) but no instead you want them locked up for life.
Why? And why not argue instead for summary execution of the undesirables?
I think it's very weird to say that fighting should be treated the same as rape. Come on, everybody has had some kind of fights in their life. Everyone is angry sometimes and has at least the urge to do harm to someone else that they're very angry at, because they feel unfairly treated for example. And some people might actually have very difficult lives or psychological situations, and the chances for them to have such feelings and the chance for them to snap is higher.
The solution in many cases I would say is not punishment / imprisonment, but rather help, in the form of therapy or education or something. Of course some restrictions and some kind of warning and period where you are watched more closely are suitable, but it doesn't have to be hard punishment right away.
Fighting is unethical, but many prisons and law cases are much more unethical than most fights.
Ings, now 18, was given the DPP at Reading Crown Court in April, after pleading guilty to two robberies and two common assaults, while asking that a further four robberies, one attempted robbery and one assault occasioning actual bodily harm be taken into consideration.
Not just a couple fights.
It wasn’t a couple. It was seven.
This person has a longer record than a “couple” fights. I’m not the person you replied to but I support life imprisonment unless there is certainty of there being no future victims. It could be you, or me, or our family members that suffers due to an irresponsible release of a dangerous person. And it happens all the time, unfortunately.
As an example, in Seattle there was a documentary called “Seattle is Dying” that covered the trend of crimes and repeat offenders, due to the city’s lenient restorative justice policies. A person featured in that documentary had been arrested nearly 50 times and convicted more than 35 times. But he was nevertheless released back into the streets, due to progressive restorative justice policies. He ultimately murdered his girlfriend before killing himself, inside the infamous CHAZ/CHOP autonomous zone:
https://komonews.com/news/operation-crime-justice/travis-ber...
After reading a many comment on HN, I might struck my head against the wall in such manner that I cease to live.
I mean, if you can't reason through the morality, thats fine, but don't assume that your position is the reasonable one if you can't.
Your rightousness assumptions speak of little thought and tolerance it is just pointless to argue with you so why even bother writing in more detail.
Cause its fun :)
Fighting is something that can cause lasting damage, so it should be treated seriously.
When someone is found guilty of an offense, its based on intent, not the outcome. Judging people based on outcome would lead to people thinking they can get away with crime if nobody gets hurt, which you don't want because people make bad choices all the time.
As such, if someone is found guilty of fighting, or otherwise any action that could result in life lasting injury to someone, regardless of outcome, its absolutely reasonable to expect that the punishment should be prison for life, both as a deterrent, and as a way to keep that person permanently out of society.
The solution to not being in that situation is simple, don't assault people. Its not that hard.
Did you vote my comment down?
There is a saying eye for eye and tooth for tooth. It is just disproportionate to lock someone up 20 years for a brawl and misdemeanour. Also there is a big difference between thinking and saying, saying and doing. What you are talking about is Deterrence Theory. If people escalate violence immediately the outcome will be bad, similarly the state shouldn't escalate violence. I mean to say that if you said something mean to me, I would escalate the situation if I hit you in response. Being mean back to you would keep it down or better yet I don't engage.
Similarly I could argue all car drivers should expect prison for life, because their driving could result in life lasting injury or even death.
It's not violence if it's the state doing their duty to protect the public. It's just called force.
The state has self interests in that manner and its subjects are a tool for self-preservation. We have a social contract with the state where the state exhibits socially accepted violence/force/power in exchange for order and security.
You seem to think that when someone is assaulting someone, it somehow turns into a mutual MMA match where both fighter are trained enough to to harm each other permanently. I hope you realize how ridiculous this sounds. And even in actual MMA, strikes to the head can make you concussed, which carries an increased risk of dementia and other ailments.
So fighting is still the "eye" no matter which way you look at it, and should be punished accordingly, no matter what the actual outcome is. "Tooth" would be yelling and shouting, which is how normal adults should express anger
It doesn't matter if this type of punishment is a deterrent or not, the most important thing is to remove people like that from society, permanently.
Is not fun talking with you. Say a parent hits his child of course the child can't hit the same way back but thats another story. The point is violence has different degrees and can escalate.
Eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth is to say that if you hit my eye black or if I lose a teeth, its not enough to apologise.
I mean on paper it sounds reasonable but in the context of this story its wrong to jail someone infinitelly for a brawl. If it was a serial killer I would agree with you. A murder? Idk maybe it was in self defense. Its complicated and there is no easy solution.
...so he should be in prison forever?
No, only until it's likely that he won't continue committing crimes.
It's a balance between his right to freedom and the rights of everyone else to not be made victim of his crimes. I think after a certain number of crimes, it's appropriate to weigh the latter over the former.
Edit: And I think the threshold should be less than ten violent crimes
It is a gross abuse of the state to hold a person past their sentence. The whole point of criminal law is presumption of innocence. If that wasn't the case you would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to the state that you didn't commit the crime they're charging you with. This is exactly what is happening here.
He’s not innocent. He is a repeat offender. And he will almost certainly victimize another innocent person. This isn’t about “beyond a reasonable doubt” - we are well past that. It’s about sentencing based on historical record, to keep the public safe. Think of it as being similar to a sentence that is longer but with the possibility of early release. This just has a default of earlier release, if there is evidence that there wouldn’t be danger to others.
He is not innocent for the crime he committed (encroaching on someone else's entitles, and freedoms), how-ever you cannot (assume) or induct that he will commit a crime which you have no evidence that a crime has been committed (presumption of innocence). Yes the offender has history of repeated offences but those offense would be weighed accordingly if he offended again for another crime and would be sentence accordingly.
What is the reason he shouldnt?
So let's get this straight. The guy got into a fight in a Macdonalds 19 years ago. Noone died. He has autism. He got an indefinite prison sentence, which was seen to be so unjust it got abolished.
So he is still in jail indefinitely for his original crime.
The crime you mention doesn't allow him to be kept in jail indefinitely, not for the original offense.
I think it's pretty clearly manifestly unjust.
So let's get this straight. You see the post stating that he committed seven robberies and three assaults, i.e. was persistently victimizing people, and you choose to completely ignore that.
He isn't in prison to punish him for one specific crime, he's in prison to keep him from victimizing people, because his history of crime makes it likely that he will keep doing that.
> Noone died.
Sentences are based on intent, not outcomes. Fighting can result in life lasting injuries.
It’s not unjust. People with these records of several crimes almost always go on to victimize others. Why should law abiding society have to take on that risk?
I'm a little surprised this is compatible with habeas corpus, which (IIUC) is one of those rights that the Brits have beheaded kings over in the past.
Why is nobody sharpening an axe over this kid stuck in jail?
Habeas corpus allows you to challenge the legality of detention. If a writ were sought in this case the prison governor would present the original order of the court authorising imprisonment and the application for habeas corpus would be dismissed.
There are routes to challenge 'wrongful' detention authorised by a court, but not via habeas. Some IPP prisoners have been released by the Court of Appeal criminal division on a (very late) appeal against sentence where other factors appeared after the original sentencing. You can also challenge the refusal of the Parole Board to release you by judicial review, though this is a fairly high bar to clear.
He was sentenced to "imprisonment for public protection", which is life imprisonment by another name. I don't understand why they would use such an euphemism instead of calling it what it is.
Because it's intentionally distinct from imprisonment to punish and/or rehabilitate. He already served his punishment, but because he has shown to be a danger to society, he is removed from it until he is no longer a danger (which may be only when he's dead or too frail to commit more violent crimes).
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so just let them out? why is british politics so boring
Stuff like this is proof that any and all politicians who do not vigorously act to end these kinds of things... all, no exception, are psychopaths or otherwise rotten terrible people
Like who the hell of a fucking idiot comes up with these stupid ass laws is beyond me
Just goes to show, if you give people power to ruin peoples lives and torture them with impunity, there is no shortage of "people" willing to fill such a role
And such lack of empathy is basically everywhere in society, though they conglomerate into business leadership roles in higher proportions
Protecting the public is the point of these sentences. What needs to be correct is the support and evaluation incarcerated people get.
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Do you think anyone would be willing to bet their life that this guy isn't going to victimize someone else when he gets out? Obviously not. We don't have to gamble with anyone else's life either to see if he's going to keep robbing and assaulting people until his victims are permanently physically or mentally damaged.
Uh, yeah? I think most people? Including me???
Everyone makes mistakes. If he hasn't damaged anyone beyond repair then he doesn't deserve to have his life ruined beyond repair
Its about justice, not fear
6 months is fine unless he hacked someone's arm off or something
I don't know. If someone violently robbed me I would be very happy to never see them free again. Especially if they would be very likely to do it again.
Even if they didn't do any lasting physical damage, I would never be the same again mentally.
Yeah, the lingering mental aspect from being robbed is a good point. I personally doubt I would have trauma if someone held a gun to me and asked me for my merchandise, but who knows, I've never actually experienced that irl
Body language would probably be a bigger factor in that than the gun though
But also, robbery is often driven by trauma or desperation itself
Maybe I don't know enough to take an exact stance exactly on the appropriate punishments, but I do feel like the different factors need to be weighed and balanced
I'm also actually not allowed to get involved in political stuff though, so yeah I probably should have kept my mouth shut on this from the outset
But I will say that justice isn't about my or someone else's wants, its about whats fair for everyone involved, including the one who done the robbery
E.g. giving them a chance to demonstrate they can change. If not, then harsher punishments
> I personally doubt I would have trauma if someone held a gun to me and asked me for my merchandise, but who knows, I've never actually experienced that irl
You should watch a few robberies where an armed robber popped the clerk after getting the money just because he could. Every armed robbery comes with the implicit threat of being shot, obviously, which is what the gun is for. When you talk about what's "fair" for the robber, it used to just be death. E.g. preventing them from reoffending.
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Canada has the same designation, "dangerous offender". It's what is keeping Paul Bernardo in jail (Canada has 25 years max sentence)
Bernardo should have probably best been executed. Or given a proper life sentence.
But this way, Canadians get to keep their progressive pieties vis a vis the US (no death penalty! No life in prison) and keep Bernardo in jail.