It would appear this is just one of the flock of homing fowl released by the Blairista faction. It is early days yet, but I suspect the current executive may undo much of the mayhem that was foisted on an unsuspecting, or indifferent, electorate by the previous inhabitant of number 10.
I was interested to learn from an interview with David Blunkett on the wireless yesterday lunchtime that the problem has been caused by the judges getting it wrong.
Phew, that's a relief. I had thought for one moment that it was the result of an insufficiently flexible, poorly thought through, headline-grabbing Government "quick fix".
Bystander is of course absolutely right but I must just stop and ponder one thing - why the hell do they need to go on a course to get parole in the first place - is it anything like courses on how to pass your A levels or how to get into university?? Or should that in fact be how to pull the wool over the eyes of the Parole Board.
By all means they should have an idea about the process they will face (should take about half an hour) but why should taxpayers pay their hard earned taxes to teach these people to fool the system??? Either they are rehabilitated and fit for release or they are not.
Give Brown a chance to get his feet under the table, and I fully expect the Offence Per Day creation to continue. He's a soor ploom control freak; why on earth would you expect the rate of meddling to decrease?
I think those parole courses are a bit more substantial than that, National Enquirer - designed to tackle offending behaviour (although whether they're effective or not is another debate). But it's no matter - if the gov't says you're locked up until you go on a course, be it in anger management or in advanced burglary skills, and the gov't then makes it impossible for you to go on that course, then that's inherently unjust.
If they wanted to pass a law saying they can lock some people up and throw away the key, then they should have said so openly, not do it by the back door.
I was not questioning the justness or otherwise of the judicial decision. It is clearly correct. If a condition precedent can never be met then that condition is clearly void and unreasonable.
What I am questionning is why it should be necessary to go on a course in order to be ready for facing a Parole Board. That is nothing to do with rehabilitation courses or retraining (which would appear to be available) but is everything to do with being coached on how to get through the Board in the first place. This would appear to be the condition that has been set by the legislation establishing indeterminate sentences. It should never have been in the legislation in the first place.
But perhaps I have simply misinterpreted the usual rubbish BBC report.
Consideringthat his first legislative foray is to try to double the length of time one may be imprisoned without all the troublesome interference of courts, charges trials etc. I would expect that magistrates and judges would very shorty become civil servants who will rubber stamp The Great Gordon's edicts without question.
A much more efficient judicial process.
Not sure about the Mail/Sun axis
Considering how much taxpayers money he clawed in from English taxpayers and distributed as largesse north of the border I suspect his target audience will be The Scotsman.
Thankyou for putting this up as requested. (I'm sure you would have got round to it anyway)
The chicken has not roosted yet; I understand its circling the House of Lords before landing.
So the question in my mind is: "What happens to all those peeps who have completed their tariff and not done said courses if the House of Lords upholds the decision?". Will this be a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, a compensation award, or what?
I'm out of the loop. I thought indeterminate sentences applied to Guantanamo! What's a fella gotta to do to earn one of these?
Wasn't the old sound byte for this the words 'at Her Majesty's Pleasure'?
And don't think we don't appreciate the link in your earlier posting, Roger!
national enquirer - apologies, I didn't read your post properly before submitting mine, mea culpa. I see that Bystander has put up the Guardian link that makes it clear (assuming the Grud is right) that they're not courses about parole, but about tackling things that may prevent them from getting parole...
"seem to lack Blair's obsession with law'n'order as defined by the Mail/Sun axis."
I question whether they have been following the policy according to the Mail. After all, the Daily Mail wants ALL the criminals locked up.
The government wants to lock up just the 80,000 worst criminals. You can commit as much crime as you want as long as you're the 80,001st or later on the list...
"You can commit as much crime as you want as long as you're the 80,001st or later on the list..."
Well, actually, if you start to commit a lot of crimes you will move up the list, and eventually enter the ranks of the big boys, for whom jail is seen as appropriate. In jail, we may assume, your capacity to commit crimes is more limited, so you will tend to fall down the list.
Perhaps we could adopt a policy whereby a league table of offenders is published each week, and individuals are called in or out depending on where they are in the ladder? If treated like football, I can see it becoming quite a spectator sport!
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