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Child Item

Another light sentence handed down by the courts

handlemaster

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/circuit-court/man-who-broke-skull-in-attack-gets-suspended-sentence-1.2298734

It seems unbelievable with such an attack on someone that the defendant will not see the inside of a jail.

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BattleCorp

Riskymove wrote: »

then why do the Saudis have to actually carry out these sentences?

why is there still serious crimes in US States with death penalties etc.

I think the Saudis only cut the hand off one person last year. They cut the heads off a lot more though.

America has the death penalty too but there's a big difference in the crime statistics between the US and Saudi Arabia

Total crime figures per 1000 people are 11 times higher in the US.

Neyite

captbarnacles wrote: »

I remember reading an interview with the cop who helped clean up NYC and he was asked what Ireland could do to reduce crime in the capital. His number one recommendation was "make criminals serve out their sentences".

I've never understood where someone gets 4 years and its automatic that they are out in 2 for good behaviour. If I had a say in it, they'd be sentenced to 4 years out in 4 for good behaviour, and double it to 8 if they do not serve their sentence with good behaviour.

Then, offer a choice to the prisoner - serve your four years in full in your cell if you like, or if you want to reduce your sentence by half, sign up for work detail (dependant on their suitability and nature of their crimes obviously) Give them the opportunity to show REAL remorse and to give back to the community they helped make unsafe by their actions - all sorts of civic projects could be involved. Not necessarily the mandatory chain gangs of old, but if inmates got drugs rehab, and got given the choice to work in areas like civil engineering or construction, learn a skill or a trade and get qualified in it while serving their sentence, then they might turn their lives around on release. Plenty of flaws in my plan I'm sure, but I like it.

I don't get suspended sentences at all. Like this guy with 50+ previous convictions, surely some of those had suspended sentences attached so in theory, by committing a violent crime while on a previous suspended sentence, he should have been yanked back into prison? Or is that not how it works?

El Weirdo

Neyite wrote: »

I've never understood where someone gets 4 years and its automatic that they are out in 2 for good behaviour.

That's because that doesn't happen.

Neyite

El Weirdo wrote: »

That's because that doesn't happen.

How do you mean?

BattleCorp

ken wrote: »

The Judge said “If you lift your foot or your fist to anyone you’ll do three-and-a-half-years and any sentence on top of that,”

I'll take bets, I'm offering 20/1 that that won't happen if Adams is up again.

We rarely see consecutive prison sentences in this country. I wouldn't take up your bet if you were offering 200,000/1.

El Weirdo

Neyite wrote: »

How do you mean?

Remission is 1/4 of the sentence, iirc.

[Deleted User]

BattleCorp wrote: »

America has the death penalty too but there's a big difference in the crime statistics between the US and Saudi Arabia

Total crime figures per 1000 people are 11 times higher in the US.

There's a big difference between crime statistics between the US and Ireland too.

America has the death penalty and a huge prison population. The US prison population is 730 per 100,000. The Irish prison population is 90 per 100,000.

Yet Irish homicide rates, as a benchmark for serious crime, are three times lower than in the USA

Does prison even work as a crime prevention tool? We have reason to doubt that it works at all.

Sources

http://www.iprt.ie/prison-facts-2
http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/crimejustice/2015/recordedcrime_q12015.pdf
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/preliminary-semiannual-uniform-crime-report-january-june-2014

BattleCorp

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Does prison even work as a crime prevention tool?

People in prison tend to commit less crimes against the general public so it is a crime prevention tool.

It's when we let them out that the problems happen.

jobbridge4life

K.Flyer wrote: »

So how would you feel if it did happen, and how would you feel if he had an armfull of convictions for all sorts of crimes including assault and how would you feel if the sent him on his way with a suspended sentence.

The reason incarceration doesn't really work in this country is because it is too light, and is not a detterent. Suspended sentencing, concurrent sentencing, revolving door court rooms, it's a fcuking joke. And don't get me started on the free legal aid.
How the fcuk can it be called justice letting this scumbag out after being found guilty of what can only be described as attempted murder.
As for overcrowding, if there is not enough room then lets build more prisons, create employment building, maintaining and running them and put these cnuts away for much much longer terms.
Then our streets could be safer and these litttle toe-rags might think twice before trying to smash someones head in.
The judicial system is a joke, and this type of cr@p makes me so fu@king angrry.
/rant.

You see this feels like it should make sense. But we have seen the effect of ratcheting up criminal sanctions and penalties in other countries and they do not result in lesser rates of recidivism. As I have said if removing the chance of re-offending is the aim then we either look to the actions that work best, or frankly we permanently incapacitate them.

nxbyveromdwjpg

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

There's a big difference between crime statistics between the US and Ireland too.

America has the death penalty and a huge prison population. The US prison population is 730 per 100,000. The Irish prison population is 90 per 100,000.

Yet Irish homicide rates, as a benchmark for serious crime, are three times lower than in the USA

Does prison even work as a crime prevention tool? We have reason to doubt that it works at all.

Sources

http://www.iprt.ie/prison-facts-2
http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/united-states-america
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/crimejustice/2015/recordedcrime_q12015.pdf
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/preliminary-semiannual-uniform-crime-report-january-june-2014

Don't come in here with your facts!

We're OUTRAGED don't you know! Throw away the key!

BattleCorp

Criminals should have to work while they are inside. Sitting around does nobody any good.

I would reduce sentences for prisoners who behave well and take part in work programmes.

Those who don't take part or keep reoffending, stick them on an island far away from me and forget about them.

jobbridge4life

BattleCorp wrote: »

Criminals should have to work while they are inside. Sitting around does nobody any good.

I would reduce sentences for prisoners who behave well and take part in work programmes.

Those who don't take part or keep reoffending, stick them on an island far away from me and forget about them.

Wouldn't that displace jobs for law abiding citizens? Is there also a potential danger of creating an indentured labour force for the Government?

Idleness is definitely not good but I think personally education and skills training would be preferable followed perhaps by work experience/apprenticeships for those prisoners who have demonstrated a real commitment to reform and are nearing the end of their sentences.

gumbo1

Sickening! But then again, if ever i get charged with anything serious, i know what my defence will be "sorry your honour but I was off me head on drink and drugs at the time, I feel really bad about it now that I'm here in front of you. Square it won't happen again."

Absolute joke of "justice" system!

K.Flyer

BatisleCorp wrote: »

There are plenty of people going around with 100+ convictions. Jail obviously isn't rehabilitating or deterring them.
[...]
There are little or no repercussions for illegal behaviour.
[...]

Of course Jail is not rehabilitating or detering them, because they are not locked up for long enough, or often enough.
The system is very weak and the criminals are running rings around it.
They are laughing at the Garda, who, after working to catch them, are left standing there like fools as the Judges let them walk free.
Its all so wrong.
Nobody with that many convictions should be out free after an assault like that.

jobbridge4life

K.Flyer wrote: »

Nobody with that many convictions should be out free after an assault like that.

Okay that is a policy decision for government and by extension the public at large. So lets think about what it would mean. In this case it would mean holding this 22 year old in prison for the remainder of his natural life. The costs involved in this are astronomical, circa 70euro a year. OR would we execute him? Assuming a relatively efficient system it would be far cheaper in the long rule and perhaps less cruel.

[Deleted User]

BattleCorp wrote: »

People in prison tend to commit less crimes against the general public so it is a crime prevention tool.

Not if there's someone on the outside ready & willing to replace that prisoner's criminal enterprise, e.g. a small town drug-dealer or thief will quickly be replaced by his deputy or a new competitor.

You have to remove the conditions that lead people into lives of crime. Locking up prisoners as a preventative tool is an approach that seems to have very limited utility.

Nevertheless, I do agree with you about how we employ prisoners. It seems to be to be another tragedy that once we have these prisoners in custody, we letb them languish in their beds instead of doing more to give them vocational training or even psychological help: the idea of the prison as a "school of industry and virtue" is today seen as antiquated, but it cannot be much worse than the current model, where prisons are schools of criminal technique, networks of vice.

BattleCorp

jobbridge4life wrote: »

Wouldn't that displace jobs for law abiding citizens? Is there also a potential danger of creating an indentured labour force for the Government?

Idleness is definitely not good but I think personally education and skills training would be preferable followed perhaps by work experience/apprenticeships for those prisoners who have demonstrated a real commitment to reform and are nearing the end of their sentences.

I don't see the danger of creating an indentured labour force for the Government. We are forced to pay to keep society safe from these criminals so why can't they be forced to pay some of their costs back through work.

I've no problem in providing education/apprenticeships to prisoners but I'd get them to work first. Demonstrate that you are willing to start to make ammends for your crime and then we'll try give you better skills to find a job out in the real world.

Barely There

It's very unfortunate that the criminal justice system we have in this country has resulted in one of the safest societies on Earth.

I'd much rather we had a "lock 'em u" attitude like the US or a 'chop their hands off' system like the Middle East.
Far nicer places to live.

BattleCorp

gumbo1 wrote: »

Sickening! But then again, if ever i get charged with anything serious, i know what my defence will be "sorry your honour but I was off me head on drink and drugs at the time, I feel really bad about it now that I'm here in front of you. Square it won't happen again."

Absolute joke of "justice" system!

Don't forget to say that Jimmy Saville "queered" you too. That should get you off.............. :pac:

BattleCorp

jobbridge4life wrote: »

Okay that is a policy decision for government and by extension the public at large. So lets think about what it would mean. In this case it would mean holding this 22 year old in prison for the remainder of his natural life. The costs involved in this are astronomical, circa 70euro a year. OR would we execute him? Assuming a relatively efficient system it would be far cheaper in the long rule and perhaps less cruel.

Get him to work, for no money, just for his room and board while in jail.

No work, no food.

BattleCorp

Barely There wrote: »

It's very unfortunate that the criminal justice system we have in this country has resulted in one of the safest societies on Earth.

We are ranked about 50th in the world when it comes to crime. Loads of room for improvement. And I agree with you, I wouldn't like our society to be like the US or Saudi Arabia.

If it was your mother or father that this scumbag kicked the head off of, I doubt that you'd feel the way you feel now.

Barely There

BattleCorp wrote: »

If it was your mother or father that this scumbag kicked the head off of, I doubt that you'd feel the way you feel now.

Which is why we don't allow victims to decide on appropriate sentencing.

It's called vigilantism and would not be a justice-style I'd favour.

We're actually one of the safest countries in the World - comfortably inside the top 20.

fullstop

handlemaster wrote: »

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/brave-garda-hit-in-face-with-a-rock-thought-he-would-die-in-attack-31408382.html

Four years is not enough... he will probably be out in two

Ah sure it's his culture :rolleyes:

Gbear

frostyjacks wrote: »

Judges are living in some sort of fantasy land where criminals like this can learn the error of their ways. They can't; they will always be law-breaking scum. If it was a fellow judge that was kicked in the head you can be damn sure the guy would have got 40 years without parole.

Are they, or are they just applying the law as is required of them by the guidelines set out for them by the state?

These threads pop up all the time and you constantly hear this stuff in every form of media.
It makes me wonder why at no stage of the legal process are any changes ever proposed.

I never seem to hear about changes made to how judges interpret sentencing.
I never hear a party proposing a change to legislation, despite there apparently being a mandate to do so.
I never hear of a proposal for a referendum, if the problem is down to the constitution.

The constituents who make up the biggest proportion of violent criminals are also less likely to vote, so I don't see political expediency being the problem.

They don't even seem to pay lip service to the problem. It's all a bit puzzling.
I think there was some stuff in the 90's with the creation of the Criminal Assets Bureau, but I never see any coverage about how run of the mill scumbags should be dealt with.

BattleCorp wrote: »

I agree with you, but it would be an effective deterrent.

Does anyone know what effect the justice system has as a deterrent in any country?

Given how much more strongly crime seems to correlate to things like poverty and other related factors, and how crime seems to be worse in countries with more stringent judicial systems, it really doesn't seem like the deterrent effect exists.

The sort of person who's a big enough scumbag to kick someone half to death probably doesn't give a **** about going to prison. They have nothing to live for on the outside and they'd probably wear their conviction as a badge of honour.

It might deter me or you in a moment of insanity, but we're unlikely to commit crimes of that seriousness anyway. 1) We have something to lose. 2) We were raised with a modicum of empathy.

Purely looking at it from a moral, and not necessarily practical basis, something akin to the "3 strikes and you're out system" from the states for violent offenders would make sense to me.
No more of this bollocks about people with 50 convictions breaking into peoples houses and kicking the head off them.

But with such a tiny prison population and capacity, it's hard to know where to put them.
It'd be interesting to see what proportion of prisoners are locked up for non-violent crimes.
It's almost certainly always a waste of time and money to be locking people up like that, and even if there were only a couple of hundred of them, it'd free up a bit of room for the serious scumbags who actually pose a threat to society.

Ireland is almost a ludicrously safe country, so these crimes need to be put in that context - they stand out because of how rare they are.
But with that said, if there's so few serious cases like this, we really should be capable of handling them better.
We seem to have built a country that people want to live in peacefully, but every now and again the kid gloves need to come off.

Guy:Incognito

jobbridge4life wrote: »

Okay that is a policy decision for government and by extension the public at large. So lets think about what it would mean. In this case it would mean holding this 22 year old in prison for the remainder of his natural life. The costs involved in this are astronomical, circa 70euro a year. OR would we execute him? Assuming a relatively efficient system it would be far cheaper in the long rule and perhaps less cruel.

What are the associated costs with say, the last 30 of his crimes? How much would have been saved had he been in prison rather than out commiting them? Everything from social welfare he received, Garda time, court time, probation service etc. Then the costs to the people he stole from etc, plus the emotional and physical damage to the victims.

Any figure for that?

The cost to house a prisoner shouldn't be considered as a mitigating factor.

jobbridge4life

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

What are the associated costs with say, the last 30 of his crimes? How much would have been saved had he been in prison rather than out commiting them? Everything from social welfare he received, Garda time, court time, probation service etc. Then the costs to the people he stole from etc, plus the emotional and physical damage to the victims.

Any figure for that?

The cost to house a prisoner shouldn't be considered as a mitigating factor.

I didn't say that it should be a mitigating factor. I was asking a question about what alternatives do people favour but instead of answering it you had your little rant at me.

Little CuChulainn

El Weirdo wrote: »

Remission is 1/4 of the sentence, iirc.

And they get TR before then.

Guy:Incognito

jobbridge4life wrote: »

I didn't say that it should be a mitigating factor. I was asking a question about what alternatives do people favour but instead of answering it you had your little rant at me.

No little rant. The costs of his crime spree are perfectly valid figures to look for.

I dont care about the cost to lock him up tbh. But seeing as you seem to be so concerned with it, whats an acceptable cost to pay to house a guy rather than have him burgle say, 20 houses?

Muahahaha

That 4 years for hitting a garda in the face with a rock is an awful sentence, wtf was the judge thinking? The guy already has some 30 convictions and now after leaving a garda partially blind he gets an easy four years? And out in three? Unbelievable stuff, you couldn't make it up

jobbridge4life

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

No little rant. The costs of his crime spree are perfectly valid figures to look for.

I dont care about the cost to lock him up tbh. But seeing as you seem to be so concerned with it, whats an acceptable cost to pay to house a guy rather than have him burgle say, 20 houses?

That is a nonsense comparison.

The quantum of costs involved in the justice system is a real issue and in jurisdictions where heavy rates of incarceration have been employed it is having a profound impact on state budgets. Education bugets have been cut to fund some state's carceral regimes. If we are talking about a better way to deal with criminals then we have to look at the costs. At a macro level at the very least.