Tuesday 7 February 2012

One MP Has Woken Up!

Philip Davies - awake


But the other 649 are still taking their sleeping tablets.

Tory MP for Shipley, Philip Davies has been asking a lot of questions regarding sentencing of persistent offenders. Despite what I and other bloggers have been saying for ages, he has been shocked by some of the answers he has received. Only a third of persistent offenders with 15 or more convictions are being sentenced to imprisonment on further conviction.

He also asked questions about those charged with assaulting police and was also shocked to find a man with 462 convictions and cautions, 31 for assault on police was not jailed for a further charge of assault on police. A similar offender had 241 previous convictions, 36 for assault on police, and he wasn't jailed either. A female offender with 78 convictions, 31 for assault on police, was not jailed.

The prisons are bursting at the seams. We don't effectively deal with persistent offenders and so they carry on offending until they do something so serious (murder, rape, GBH etc.) that we have to jail them for a long time. Community punishments are almost completely ineffective and are treated as a joke by persistent offenders. The 'Justice' Minister, Kenneth Clarke, has made it clear that we will be having more not less community punishments as we cannot afford to lock up any more offenders.

Readers of this blog will know that I do not adhere to a policy of just locking people up and throwing away the key. Everyone deserves a chance and fines and community punishments can be effective for some low level offending. Community punishments need to be far more effective with deterrent and rehabilitative elements. Offenders who continue to offend need to go to jail. Jails likewise should have punitive and rehabilitative elements. People with more than 15 convictions should automatically receive the maximum penalty for that offence unless there are exceptional grounds to reduce.

The Government says we cannot afford this investment. If you don't want crime increasing again. if you don't want to live in a society where there is no respect for anyone. If you don't want more riots a la last August, we cannot afford not to invest.

9 comments:

  1. Got to disagree here. Firstly I've seen myself that "political" offenders get custodial sentences, whilst a lot of yobs don't (check out Darren Burton the RIP troll on Panorama last night). Secondly plod used as a punch bag. Again I've seen you more than hapy to get stuck in if it is 10 to 1 odds in your favour. As a veteran of Brixton 1981 & 1985 (no, I was not in the police) you may garner more sympathy if you upheld the law for all not for some.

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  2. "The police are there to help people"
    "I don't know who has been filling your head with such thoughts young lad" Insp Truscott, "Loot" (Orton).

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  3. The police don't sentence, Ciaran.
    I was in Vietnam, Belize, The Falklands, The Gulf, Toxteth, Brixton and Winchester Hill. So there!

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  4. Phil Davis comes out with Police on patrol in West Yorkshire regularly.
    He earned my respect a few years ago when he queued in custody for four hours to book in a prisoner with a PC he was shadowing when the cells were mental one afternoon.
    He never complained and took it like a man. I'd vote for him.

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  5. Not much fun but I remember him as a modest fellow with a polite manner at the checkout.
    I will not here a word against him, Jaded.

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  6. Not sure why my name has been mentioned above,apart from a dig about a rare spelling mistake.

    This MP obviously does not want promotion at any point if he keeps asking difficult questions and actually representing the silent majority.

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  7. @ Jaded: so you mean, if he keeps on doing his job?
    I absolutely agree with the article, at any rate.

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  8. Surely it would be cheaper, as well as better for real people, if persistent offenders were locked up.

    In any area it is a small number of retards who cause most of the crime.

    Take them out.

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  9. When will the feeble brained Rehill get it in his thick head that their are no "political offenders" serving prison sentences. Of course what he really means is that people who lob bricks and fire bombs at Police Officers should have their State Benefits increased. Not that he has, or will be getting involved in any civil protests.
    One has to wonder why this Online pretend hero of the unwashed masses is given a platform. He is now banned from most decent sites.

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