Crime and punishment in the New Europe
Fifty years ago there would have been no argument about the future of Learco Chindamo. He’d be dead.
Chindamo stabbed Philip Lawrence to death as the headmaster tried to save another pupil from being attacked by a gang of thugs.
Before the abolition of capital punishment, murderers were hanged. They didn’t return to haunt us 12 years later claiming their human rights have been breached because we don’t want them in this country any more.
Stunningly Chindamo, the child of an Italian father and a Philippine mother, cannot be returned to Italy, the country of his birth.
It makes perverse sense. As long as we’re in the European Union and every citizen is free to travel to every other member state then criminals are free to spread their poison anywhere they like.
So the courts declare it illegal to chuck out Chindamo and Mr Lawrence’s wife Frances is, to nobody’s great surprise, devastated.
Before they abolished the death penalty, the legal system was there to protect law-abiding citizens. Criminals were treated with the contempt they deserved.
The idea that they had “human rights” beyond the very bare minimum would have been laughed out of court. Today, it’s the murderers who come first.
Why, anyway, is Chindamo able to contemplate freedom at all? He’s only been in jail 12 years. When they abolished capital punishment, the Labour Government of the day promised that a life sentence would mean just that.
Now, though, the idea of punishment has been eroded to the point where it’s doubtful if anyone believes in it any more. These days, rehabilitation is all that matters.
Of course it’s a good idea to encourage criminals to go straight. But it’s also a good idea to keep them out of the way of their innocent victims.
And it’s not a bad idea to make them pay for their crimes. In doing so, you keep them off the streets and stop them committing more offences.
Tough sentences and a minimum of human rights may also deter others from committing similar crimes.
There is a great deal of agonising at the moment about the allegedly “feral” young men who roam our streets in knife-wielding gangs looking for people to stab.
They do it because they can. They may lack role models, come from broken homes and enjoy the bravado of a gang. But they’re not all stupid.
They know the difference between right and wrong. It’s just that the penalties for doing wrong are so minimal it doesn’t put them off.
In the past, old lags would declare: “I know my rights.” These days, it’s “I know my human rights.” So do the police, who seem only too willing to play the same game.
Indeed, now we are reduced to skateboarding 16-year-olds patrolling our streets and stopping motorists who play their stereos too loud, it’s questionable what role the police play any more.
They are good at blaming parents. They’re excellent at demanding higher taxes on booze and raising the age limit for drinking to 21.
They’re good at distracting attention from the fact that the police seem incapable of protecting innocent people. They claim crime is falling. Everybody knows from every-day experience that this can’t possibly be true.
Such claims discredit not just the Government but the police as well. It’s like the unemployment figures – they don’t seem too bad. But we all know there’s over five million people out of work.
Driven by targets which see police arresting victims as well as perpetrators – on the basis that this allows them to “clear up” two offences at once – common sense has disappeared. As David Cameron and Johnny Rotten say, it’s “Anarchy in the UK”.
Our politically correct PCs in their patrol cars are just glorified social workers only too happy to hug a hoodie.
In fairness, it’s not the police’s fault that Learco Chindamo has won the right to remain in Britain after he gets out of jail. That piece of madness was inflicted on us by politicians.
European-wide human rights were only introduced because most of the EU states endured brutal dictatorships during the 20th century.
We didn’t, so there was never any need for such protection here. Labour gave us human rights anyway. Just to seem more Euro-friendly.
The result is an entire industry (exploited by Cherie Blair QC among other lawyers) which has perverted our justice system and turned it into a mechanism to protect the rights of criminals and murderers.
There’s always a balance to be achieved between protecting the individual from an oppressive State and protecting the majority of the population.
But the majority has stayed silent too long. We have human rights too. They include being protected from murderers.
Long after her husband was cruelly taken from her, Frances Lawrence is once again suffering “utter devastation” at the news Learco Chindamo will be walking the streets of Britain again any day now.
If we can’t bring back hanging, the least we can do is consider this question: Whose human rights are more important, Mrs Lawrence’s or her husband’s killer’s?
Chindamo stabbed Philip Lawrence to death as the headmaster tried to save another pupil from being attacked by a gang of thugs.
Before the abolition of capital punishment, murderers were hanged. They didn’t return to haunt us 12 years later claiming their human rights have been breached because we don’t want them in this country any more.
Stunningly Chindamo, the child of an Italian father and a Philippine mother, cannot be returned to Italy, the country of his birth.
It makes perverse sense. As long as we’re in the European Union and every citizen is free to travel to every other member state then criminals are free to spread their poison anywhere they like.
So the courts declare it illegal to chuck out Chindamo and Mr Lawrence’s wife Frances is, to nobody’s great surprise, devastated.
Before they abolished the death penalty, the legal system was there to protect law-abiding citizens. Criminals were treated with the contempt they deserved.
The idea that they had “human rights” beyond the very bare minimum would have been laughed out of court. Today, it’s the murderers who come first.
Why, anyway, is Chindamo able to contemplate freedom at all? He’s only been in jail 12 years. When they abolished capital punishment, the Labour Government of the day promised that a life sentence would mean just that.
Now, though, the idea of punishment has been eroded to the point where it’s doubtful if anyone believes in it any more. These days, rehabilitation is all that matters.
Of course it’s a good idea to encourage criminals to go straight. But it’s also a good idea to keep them out of the way of their innocent victims.
And it’s not a bad idea to make them pay for their crimes. In doing so, you keep them off the streets and stop them committing more offences.
Tough sentences and a minimum of human rights may also deter others from committing similar crimes.
There is a great deal of agonising at the moment about the allegedly “feral” young men who roam our streets in knife-wielding gangs looking for people to stab.
They do it because they can. They may lack role models, come from broken homes and enjoy the bravado of a gang. But they’re not all stupid.
They know the difference between right and wrong. It’s just that the penalties for doing wrong are so minimal it doesn’t put them off.
In the past, old lags would declare: “I know my rights.” These days, it’s “I know my human rights.” So do the police, who seem only too willing to play the same game.
Indeed, now we are reduced to skateboarding 16-year-olds patrolling our streets and stopping motorists who play their stereos too loud, it’s questionable what role the police play any more.
They are good at blaming parents. They’re excellent at demanding higher taxes on booze and raising the age limit for drinking to 21.
They’re good at distracting attention from the fact that the police seem incapable of protecting innocent people. They claim crime is falling. Everybody knows from every-day experience that this can’t possibly be true.
Such claims discredit not just the Government but the police as well. It’s like the unemployment figures – they don’t seem too bad. But we all know there’s over five million people out of work.
Driven by targets which see police arresting victims as well as perpetrators – on the basis that this allows them to “clear up” two offences at once – common sense has disappeared. As David Cameron and Johnny Rotten say, it’s “Anarchy in the UK”.
Our politically correct PCs in their patrol cars are just glorified social workers only too happy to hug a hoodie.
In fairness, it’s not the police’s fault that Learco Chindamo has won the right to remain in Britain after he gets out of jail. That piece of madness was inflicted on us by politicians.
European-wide human rights were only introduced because most of the EU states endured brutal dictatorships during the 20th century.
We didn’t, so there was never any need for such protection here. Labour gave us human rights anyway. Just to seem more Euro-friendly.
The result is an entire industry (exploited by Cherie Blair QC among other lawyers) which has perverted our justice system and turned it into a mechanism to protect the rights of criminals and murderers.
There’s always a balance to be achieved between protecting the individual from an oppressive State and protecting the majority of the population.
But the majority has stayed silent too long. We have human rights too. They include being protected from murderers.
Long after her husband was cruelly taken from her, Frances Lawrence is once again suffering “utter devastation” at the news Learco Chindamo will be walking the streets of Britain again any day now.
If we can’t bring back hanging, the least we can do is consider this question: Whose human rights are more important, Mrs Lawrence’s or her husband’s killer’s?
posted by nigel hastilow at 4:45 AM
4 Comments:
Brilliant analysis, Nigel, as it really is tragic when, as you say, the human rights of the victim have become inferior to those of the criminal. It is no wonder that teenagers go around killing with impunity - as they did, heartbreakingly, in Liverpool last week - because they know their 'rights'.
Nigel,
Can I ask a question, please?
Howcome people like you can talk such good sense, but when elected, seem totally unable/unwilling to do so?
Excellent post Nigel. The rights of the victim have slowly been transferred to the criminals since hanging was abolished.
At the risk of presenting an incoherent argument of unrelated ideas, we now have the police acting as executioner without having to gain evidence for a conviction, or even the inconvenience of a trial: viz. several mentally deranged people shot and later found to be carrying harmless items, Jean Charles de Menezes and the latest two bank robbers shot today.
Unfortunately, the word appears to have gone out from the collective Nebuchadnezzar in Brussels to all their obedient Common Purpose quislings in all British Public Institutions (of whom Cressida Dick is only one of many) that they need not worry about the outmoded ideas of democratic accountability or the ancient rights enshrined in English Common Law. They are busy hollowing out all our Institutions from within so that they can usher in the 'post-democratic' era that they so fervently wish for.
Given that the State (whether British or EU) has broken its side of the Lockean Social Contract with the law-abiding citizen, we are released from our obligation to obey their laws. It is high time that 'we, the people' rose up to remove them by whatever means necessary to restore the ancient rights and freedoms that we enjoyed before Heath's act of treason in 1973.
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