Public talk, 2011-09-14, 8pm, "The benefit of doubt for the criminal justice system"

robindch

On Wednesday week, the ISS begins its Autumn/Winter lecture series with a talk by Paul O'Mahony entitled:

Rights, rites and riots: The benefit of doubt for the criminal justice system

Date:Wednesday, September 14th
Time:8:00pm
Where: Davenport Hotel, Dublin 2
Admission:€3 for members and concessions; €6 for non-members.

Dr. Paul O’Mahony is a renowned criminologist and forensic psychologist. He has written six books on Irish criminal justice policy, and is a founder member of the Irish Penal Reform Trust and the Drug Policy Action Group. Here's his abstract for the Wednesday talk:

"Many aspects of criminal justice demand a skeptical, even frankly cynical, response from citizens. Some of the more urgent problems are: the use and conditions of imprisonment; the class bias of the system and its failure to tackle the crimes of the privileged; the ‘war’ on drugs; and the failure to establish a reliable, genuine culture of human rights and accountability. These issues revolve around our values and principles, how honestly they are held and how effectively they are implemented. This paper critically examines the risk factors theory on the roots of criminality, which currently dominates academic thinking and government policy and spending. Despite its scientific credentials, this theory is deeply flawed and distorts perceptions in a manner that makes it easy to continue neglecting the fundamental mistakes in our approach to crime and punishment."

expectationlost

the ISS?

robindch

Irish Skeptics Society.

BTW, there's a skeptics-in-the-pub book-swap this saturday evening for anybody interested:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=214327885290358

Mistress 69

Criminal Justice is great in principle. However I personally know of a recent case where two Gardai had a day out driving 100 miles from Dublin with an arrest warrant for a very decent citizen for non payment of a parking fine. The poor guy even offered to pay at the time, but was shoved into the car and driven to Clover Hill in Clondalkin where he spent the night. Really bad and horrible scummy conditions inside. He has still not quite recovered from it. Could the guards time not have been better spent chasing real criminals as opposed to a junket and putting a decent guy in jail overnight away from his family.

MagicMarker

Mistress 69 wrote: »

Criminal Justice is great in principle. However I personally know of a recent case where two Gardai had a day out driving 100 miles from Dublin with an arrest warrant for a very decent citizen for non payment of a parking fine. The poor guy even offered to pay at the time, but was shoved into the car and driven to Clover Hill in Clondalkin where he spent the night. Really bad and horrible scummy conditions inside. He has still not quite recovered from it. Could the guards time not have been better spent chasing real criminals as opposed to a junket and putting a decent guy in jail overnight away from his family.

Instead of blaming the guards for doing their job, why not blame your friend for not paying his fines and, presumably, failing to show up at court?

liamw

Mistress 69 wrote: »

Could the guards time not have been better spent chasing real criminals as opposed to a junket and putting a decent guy in jail overnight away from his family.

I don't really know what outcome you would have preferred, given the information you have provided -

1. Get rid of parking fines and let people park anywhere?
2. Don't bother following up on unpaid parking fines and make the fines pointless?
3. Accept the parking fine at face value after the person fails to show up in court and you have to go to him/her personally?
4. Another?

UDP

Mistress 69 wrote: »

Really bad and horrible scummy conditions inside. He has still not quite recovered from it.

The question is has he learned his lesson?

Mistress 69 wrote: »

Could the guards time not have been better spent chasing real criminals as opposed to a junket and putting a decent guy in jail overnight away from his family.

Or maybe this "decent" guy should be forced to pay the cost of the wasted time of the two gardai, the courts system and the cost of putting him away for the night and all the other administrative costs that go with it.

Mistress 69

A little more info

1 A Parking fine arrives by post.
2 My friend goes down to the parking fine office saying this must be issued in error as not only did he not get a ticket but he was not even in the town on that day.
3 Parking fine office say fine issued and pay up, which he refused to do.
4 No summons ever arrived. I think they no longer have to register the post.
5 Guards arrive and arrest him.

Big lesson for anybody reading this. Dispute the fine, pay the fine, and continue disputing it afterwards if you wish.

Delirium

I know I'm OT but, why didn't he ask for the info about the car that got the parking ticket?

I got a fine for parking ticket which was mistakenly noted with my reg. The make, model and colour of the car were wrong on the ticket. The warden had put down the wrong reg.

magicbastarder

koth wrote: »

I know I'm OT but, why didn't he ask for the info about the car that got the parking ticket?

i've heard plenty of stories of unco-operative gardai - including from other gardai - so sometimes asking doesn't get you anywhere.

UDP

Mistress 69 wrote: »

2 My friend goes down to the parking fine office saying this must be issued in error as not only did he not get a ticket but he was not even in the town on that day.

I dont think they normally give parking tickets in many places. They normally take the details then take a photo if im not mistaken. He should have asked them for more information and asked them what the appeals process is.

Mistress 69 wrote: »

3 Parking fine office say fine issued and pay up, which he refused to do.

What did he expect they would do? Just say "ok, sorry to bother you". Of course they were going to take it further.

Mistress 69 wrote: »

4 No summons ever arrived. I think they no longer have to register the post.
5 Guards arrive and arrest him.

He tried to ignore the problem which was a stupid mistake.

Mistress 69 wrote: »

Big lesson for anybody reading this. Dispute the fine, pay the fine, and continue disputing it afterwards if you wish.

Exactly, never ignore a fixed fine as it will result in a summons automatically.

robindch

UDP wrote: »

never ignore a fixed fine as it will result in a summons automatically.

Not out in Dun Laoghaire, at least, where there is or was problem with non-payment and little obvious public will to do much about it (possibly related to several incidents in which clampers and other tickety-related people were refused service in some of the shops whose customers were getting clamped/ticketed outside).

Last time I heard, which was two/three years back at a high-temperature, high-pressure meeting in a hotel in DL, the town council had dumped (or sold) its collection of unpaid tickets to some local legal type and left them get on with it. Which they did not.

Things may have changed since then.

Zombrex

Mistress 69 wrote: »

Criminal Justice is great in principle. However I personally know of a recent case where two Gardai had a day out driving 100 miles from Dublin with an arrest warrant for a very decent citizen for non payment of a parking fine. The poor guy even offered to pay at the time, but was shoved into the car and driven to Clover Hill in Clondalkin where he spent the night.

Your definition of "very decent citizen" seems a bit off. This guy failed to pay his fines or properly dispute his fines (the typical Irish response of lets just hope this goes way) which resulted in two Gardai having to waste a day driving 100km down to him to make him.

Ignorant dick seems a more appropriate term...

magicbastarder

he never got a summons. which is not the first time i've heard of this happening, so you cannot lay the blame for the arrest at his feet.
i know a couple of gardai. some of the **** they have told me colleagues of theirs (whom they hate) pull on the public is, well, probably illegal.
they'd love a proper disciplinary system, cos gardai like that usually get away with it.

magicbastarder

http://twitpic.com/6hbo2r

robindch

Bump -- this is on tonight.