Law & Justice: June 2006 Archives
I'm amazed to read that police in the UK have been instructed to let serious criminals off with a "caution".
Burglars will be allowed to escape without punishment under new instructions sent to all police forces. Police have been told they can let them off the threat of a court appearance and instead allow them to go with a caution. ...Some serious offences - including burglary of a shop or office, threatening to kill, actual bodily harm, and possession of Class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine - may now be dealt with by caution if police decide that would be the best approach.
And a string of crimes including common assault, threatening behaviour, sex with an underage girl or boy, and taking a car without its owner's consent, should normally be dealt with by a caution, the circular said.
Eh, it's too much trouble to prosecute someone for "taking a car with its owner's consent" -- stealing a car -- so let's just caution them not to do it again. It sounds like the UK has a problem with overflowing prisons, but since when is the solution not to build more prisons?
The crisis of overcrowding in UK prisons has also prompted moves to let many more convicts out earlier.It emerged last month that some violent or sex offenders, given mandatory life sentences under a "two-strike" rule, have been freed after as little as 15 months.
It's sad that the Labour government doesn't have what it takes to protect the British citizens from thugs and criminals.
(HT: David Hardy and Clayton Cramer.)
It's astonishing that a criminal justice professor would blame an increase in violent crime on the National Rifle Association.
Criminal justice experts said the statistics reflect the nation's complacency in fighting crime, a product of dramatic declines in the and the abandonment of effective programs that emphasized prevention, putting more police officers on the street and controlling the spread of guns."We see that budgets for policing are being slashed and the federal government has gotten out of that business," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "Funding for prevention at the federal level and many localities are down and the (National Rifle Association) has renewed strength."
I know many NRA members, and every single one of them is the kind of guy who would shoot a robber dead, not be a robber himself. Blaming the NRA for violent crime in ludicrous and dishonest.
The murder of Augustine Contreras at Venice High School yesterday was, as best as I can tell, the first shooting near the school since Francisco Herrera was shot outside in 2001. I'm particularly interested in this story because my brother attended VHS and the school is one block from my church.
A 17-year-old Venice High School student was fatally shot Monday after a fistfight between black and Latino students spilled onto the campus parking lot, police and witnesses said.Police were unsure Monday evening if the student, identified as Augustine Contreras, had been shot in the chest or the face. LAPD officers were searching a section of Venice's Oakwood neighborhood for the assailant in the 3:10 p.m. attack, which authorities believe was tied to a gang dispute.
Two people were briefly detained and then were released, officials said.
There must have been dozens of witnesses considering the time of the shooting, so it shouldn't take long for the police to get people in custody.
A student, who did not want her name used for fear of retaliation, said she witnessed the fight, which began on campus just before 3 p.m. when the final period ended.Three black students and one Latino student started fighting, drawing a larger crowd, the 17-year-old sophomore said.
The Latino was bleeding from his mouth. Then four more Latino students entered the fray, taunting the blacks to fight. But the blacks tried to walk away, the girl said. She said she heard one of the Latinos shout the name of a gang.
The dispute drifted into the faculty parking lot, where someone screamed, "One of them has a gun!" she said.
The girl said she did not hear the gun go off but saw Contreras, who wore a white T-shirt, lying on the ground.
Gang violence has been dropping in the Venice area for the past decade or so, and it's worrying if the problem is getting worse again despite the "gentrification" of the surrounding neighborhoods.
