Increase Mandatory Sentences

I'm beginning to get tired of our legal system and i think we need to start upping the maximum sentences of certain crimes. The crimes i have in mind are :-

Carrying a knife
Carrying a gun
Rape
Murder
Paedophilia convictions

The sentences should apply to anyone, regardless of age. If they are 8 or 28 it should apply.

The belief i have had for many years is that anyone carrying a gun should get a 20 year minimum sentence, without any reduction for good behavior.

When it comes to knives i think maybe a 10 year minimum sentence would be good. I think this would greatly discourage these crimes.

Rape must be treated carefully, but any person who goes out and rapes a person at random should get life, meaning life.

Premeditated murder should also get life, meaning life.

Paedophilia is truly an easy one. If an adult commits a sexual act with a child then i think they should be held under the mental health act for the duration of their life. They should be held in a secure institution for life, plain and simple.

Anyone who downloads indecent images of children should be given maybe 10 years in prison and then implanted with an electronic tag for life. If they even come close to a place that has children they should then be locked up for the rest of their life. If they aquire anymore indecent images then the same should apply. Life in a secure institution.

I am sick and tired of the liberal view of such crimes. If the labour government actually implements these ideas then i would happily vote for them.

Flagged, Star, couldnt agree with you more ImaginaryReality1984. The UK Justice system is a complete joke nowadays, more people are being put in jail for petty crimes than the more serious crimes. Not paying your council tax for one should not lead to someone being imprisoned. Maybe community service.

Instead off letting out murders, phedophiles, rapists after 10 or 20 years on good behaviour, they should never be considered for release at all. Nor should they deserve some of the special treatments either. You kill someone not matter what age you are. That killer should get life. The same goes for Rapists or Paedophilles.

But are we prepared to pay for the increase in the prison population? And who wants a prison built in their back yard?

In essense, I agree with you 1984, but we have judges who are independant of political control and public pressure, and that is something we should cherish.

A sentence should be for the term handled down by the judge. If it is life, then the prisoner should die in prison and not be released after 20, 30 or 40 years.

Of course, increase sentences leads in my mind to two more questions:

Should we bring back the death sentence for some crimes

and

What to do with all these prisoners.

Me, I am in favour of chain gangs and doing work to improve the community

Originally posted by spencerjohnstone
The UK Justice system is a complete joke nowadays, more people are being put in jail for petty crimes than the more serious crimes.

I wouldn't call our system a complete joke though, there are plenty of good sentences handed out. It's just i think some sentences need to have a longer minimum sentence.

Originally posted by Freedom ERP
But are we prepared to pay for the increase in the prison population? And who wants a prison built in their back yard?

Should we bring back the death sentence for some crimes

Me, I am in favour of chain gangs and doing work to improve the community

No the death penalty is a bad idea becuase it isn't a deterrant or punishment. I can honestly say i would rather die then spent 50 years in prison if i did something wrong. Life in a horrid, dank, terrible prison without entertainment is my view of punishment.

Chain gangs are a good idea.

Also i would say that if someone is locked inside for a knife crime for example 10 years. We take away any form of entertainment, including radios and give them the option to learn something useful. After 2 years of doing nothing i'm willing to bet most of them will succumb to boredom and pick up a degree or at least some kind of mechanical skill. Hoepfully this would give them a chance to actaully work in the future, the prison system woudl have to set them up a job when they leave. If they can't hold down a job then further measures would have to be explored

Special priviliges would be offered to people who took the courses and did well. Of course some woudln't want to even with this, but i think it's worth a try to hopefully rehabilitate some prisoners.

Very good thread!
Some points,
IMO: the death penalty would be a good idea and something that would deter even the most hardened criminals?
The problem we have is that whilst i agree with what you said "IR1984 That the thought of spending 50yrs of my life in a "dank horrible prison" would be a horrible thing, is quiet simply we dont have those type of prisons in this country?

Chain gangs & putting something back into the community are another good idea, for the "lesser" of the crimes commited.

Paedophilia & rape of any kind!..well how about this,
how about we rip the human rights act up and start with the scum who commit these type of crimes and sentence them to......
Insted of testing all sorts of things on animals why not give them 15yrs of testing on the scum and then life in prison and i mean life or just the death penalty!
Paedophiles CANNOT be rehabilitated..

Whilst i would not enjoy the thought of a prison in my back yard, funnily there is going to be built about 2 miles from where i live a holding prison for whom we dont know, and there has been various demo's against this, it will get passed and i would prefer to have criminals behind bars than walking the streets, ready to offend again. At the end of the day it will have to be built somewhere.

When the scum know that if they are caught with a gun , knife, that they will be spending the next 10/20/30 yrs in jail , no early release (coz your solicitor is a member of the "happy clapping tree hugging brigade) then they will think before picking it up ?

The problem with this arguement (increase minimums) is that mandatory sentences are an exacerbation of the problem - not the solution.
The reason being is that mandatory sentencing guidelines apply to more and more crimes. Therfore, the system is overcrowded and unable to handle the really important issues with alacrity.
Secondly, they take away the ability of judges to use discretion and true justice in many instances. Ask a judge about how they feel about mandatory minimums. The ones that I know all oppose them. This is because in many instances, sentences are handed out arbitrarily, without regard for the circumstances surrounding them. Not every crime is equal and not every criminal is as evil as the rest of his ilk. Judges I know have told me that they have sometimes cried (literally) when forced to hand down oppressive sentences that they knew were unjust, given the cirumstances.
Oppose mandatory sentences. They are simply brutal dictates from bureaucrats that undermine the foundations of our justice system.

[edit on 28-8-2007 by passenger]

It could be, passenger, that we have mandatory sentences for too many crimes. Looking at the list of crimes the OP detailed that should have increased sentences, why would a judge be in tears imposing a sentence on anyone convicted of those crimes.

I can see your see your point, passenger, that in the short term, increased sentences will increase the load on the prison system but we can built prisons more quickly that we can solve the social issues that led some to commit serious crimes.

Sentencing policy should be dictated by Government and not by unelected judges. We have the ability to vote on the performance of a Government and if we choose, we can remove or elect a government with a better or planned record on crime and as judges are paid from the public coffers, we, the people should, via our elected officals, should determine the framework on sentences that judges should hand down. I am more than comfortable for judges to use their discretion within the sentence framework determined by Government and the people who elect them.


With the death penalty, it is defining crimes that will carry at the top of the sentencing this penalty. And there should be a range of crimes that can carry this sentence from serious murder, rape and sex crimes against children but I think there are other offences that should at the top end carry the death penalty. People who have more than 2, 3 , 4 convictions for drunk driving and kill some one should have the ability to face the death penalty.

Today, there are some blockers to the UK returning to the death penalty, and for serious crimes, I agree with you, spymaster, we should rip up the human rights act. Why do we keep the Yorkshire ripper alive? How much money is being spent on keeping these very serious threats alive when our health service, public services and troops on active service are crying out for additional funding.

WE, have the ability to influence the way our country is run, by getting involved in politics and making sure the current elected officals are very aware of how we want to country run and if we want to have tougher sentences, then we have to tell our leaders and those who wish to run for office, this is one of the conditions that we will cast our vote for me.

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
I'm beginning to get tired of our legal system and i think we need to start upping the maximum sentences of certain crimes. The crimes i have in mind are :-

Carrying a knife
Carrying a gun
Rape
Murder
Paedophilia convictions

Forgive my ignorance but could they make laws like that in the UK?
Do yall have the rights to bear arms and carried concealed weapons?
Like in a Constitution or something?

Uniceft17,

There is no ignorance in asking questions. I do it all the time!!

There is no written constitution as you have in the US. Our laws have been created and to some degree refined over hundreds if not a thousand years or more.

And there is no right to bear arms. We have some of the strictest gun laws in the world and over the last 20 years, the type of weapon that can be kept has been eroded by public outcry after killing sprees in the UK.

I could keep a shotgun and some smaller calibar pistols at home but to hold them legally I would have to have a license and an approved gun safe to house them.

There are laws to cover the procession of knifes and guns, and not wanting to out guess the reason for the OP starting the thread, this has been a summer of gun and knife attacks around young people. Only last week, an 11 year old boy was shot and killed in Liverpool.

Actually i'v been saying this for a long time, this summers events caused me to start the thread though you are correct there.

Uniceft17

According to the law (i think it's the crimal justice act, section 129), you are allowed to carry a certain kind of knife. That being a 3 inch folding pocket knife that doesn't have a lockable blade. Anything else is illegal to carry, and the police may give you a hard time over even this.

Our gun law i actually don't agree with, all the handgun ban did was penalise the law abiding responsible owners. Their was the occasional person who owned guns and went nuts but it's the illegal guns that cause the majority of crime.

I actually sold my air rifles a few years ago because i thought at some point a ban would come into place. I'm still expecting it in the years to come as lots of kids get shot with them. Idiot parents buying them and leaving them in a house full of teenagers, what do they expect?

So anyway that's our law at the moment.

EDIT

Originally posted by Freedom ERP
I could keep a shotgun and some smaller calibar pistols at home but to hold them legally I would have to have a license and an approved gun safe to house them.

I dont' know if that's correct anymore, our olympic shooters can't practice their events in england due to the law. Most of them fly to Switzerland, the Isle of Man etc.

The shotguns and certain rifles can be used with a license if you can show "proof of need".

[edit on 29-8-2007 by ImaginaryReality1984]

[edit on 29-8-2007 by ImaginaryReality1984]

I know this moving off topic slighty IR1984, but I will claim a defence in your last post

Our gun laws are strict yet I can keep a paint ball marker at home. These fire .68 calibre paintballs as standard and those on this board who have been paintballing with know howmuch they can hurt. I worked for a company that had an indoor range and decided to fire a .68 calibre hollow steel ball bearing from on of my markers. It bounced around this range a couple of times and scared the living daylights out of me.

My point, it is legal to own a paintball marker but can cause serious injury.

If I had the choice, I would own a firearm and be more than happy to be accountable for its ownership.

we have suffered these gun laws because of a few "nutters" and the fire of public opinion. Strange how Government listen to some public opinion and ignore others.

I know I can keep a shotgun at home in a gun locker and pistols can be kept but the ammo has to be stored in a locked container.

And you point of air pistols and rifle is a interesting one. How many times have we seen reports of pets being shot at with air weapons.

And if we had the opportunity to own a weapons legally, how many of us would exercise the privilage?

Not sure we should move off topic but........

Yes i would exercise the right to shoot because i love shooting. I used to love going out with the air rifle and bagging a bunny for dinner, or a pigeon, or even the rooks (not my favorite meat though). Target shooting was also fun, clay pigeon shooting is a great one. Pistol shooting would i'm sure be a great sport for a weekend.

At the moment firearm certificate holders are reviewed each year and in my view this would be a great way of doing it. If anyone remembers why handguns were banned here it was because of the dunblane shooting. the thing is the police didn't follow the vetting guidelines very well for the nutter that went out and did it.

So the honest responsible people got blamed for bad vetting procedure, because the public hears gun and not police mistake.

If you want to continue this i suggest one of us make a new thread

I am bumping this thread becuase of recent happenings in the UK. It seems me and more attacks with knives are occuring daily, the media coverage is increasing but that can't account for the amount of attacks.

I think it is imperative we start increasing maximum sentences for knife crimes. My humble view is that it should now be an instant 5 year prison sentence for anyone found carrying an offensive weapon. If a weapon is used on another human being and it's not fatal then i think it should be a mandatory 20 year sentence regardless of the age of the aggressor. I don't care if they're 12 years old, give them 20 years inside! If the victim dies then give them life in prison.

I get tired of it, some people have died in a knife attack and their attackers have been charged with man slaughter. How is this correct? If you attack someone with a knife then you mean to kill them in my book, no excuses, no leniency, prison for life.

We need to send a very hard message to kids, a government campaign should be televised and put in every possible media with the new sentences. Get people to go around schools telling them of the new law and scare thehell out of them. Make it clear that if you carry a knife you're going to prison for a very long time, and if you use one, then you're finished.

Alas, the prisons are all but full. Where do we send the criminals when there's no prison places? Keeping them in police stations is ridiculously expensive (working out at hundreds of pounds per night... it's cheaper than most decent hotels in the centre of London), so it's not a viable or sustainable alternative.

Originally posted by Ste2652
Alas, the prisons are all but full. Where do we send the criminals when there's no prison places? Keeping them in police stations is ridiculously expensive (working out at hundreds of pounds per night... it's cheaper than most decent hotels in the centre of London), so it's not a viable or sustainable alternative.

Well we could free up a great deal of places by releasing people imprisoned for marijuana offenses. I've long wished that dope was legal, even though i've never smoked it in my life i don't quite get why it is illegal. Especially considering it was voted below alcohol and tobbacco in it's danger to health.

Legalise marijuana and you release a lot of prison spots, but yes we should build an absolute ton of prisons, make them more cramped, reduce the recreation prisoners have so we have even more space for cells as well.

I just hate the entire concept of Judges with brains. I mean, not that our Founding Fathers wanted this, but we should be able to amened the sacred binding Constitution of less government any time some Fox News anchor makes us mad.


Know what I'm saying?

Originally posted by RANT
I just hate the entire concept of Judges with brains. I mean, not that our Founding Fathers wanted this, but we should be able to amened the sacred binding Constitution of less government any time some Fox News anchor makes us mad.


Know what I'm saying?

Erm this is more a UK issue, it's afterall posted on the UK forum (at least it should be). I know you have problems in the US but i was hoping to keep this one UK only as the american constitution can't really be used here, thanks.