Prison Kills

I found an article by Mark Johnson about the death of his friend Craig Morrison incredibly sad. Craig fitted the profile of so many of those incarcerated by our criminal justice system, he came from a working class family, his father left home, his mother was an alcoholic and he ended up at 12 being put into 'care'. At 16 he was left to fend for himself he soon drifted into drug use and petty crime. Craig's account of his own childhood can be read in a Guardian Article published in 2008.

Like so many young people who are failed by society and damaged by its institutions it was his fate to end up in court where a man in fancy dress and a wig will have told him it was his fault and what was needed was that he be subjected to pain. This he would have been told was "justice".

Despite the criminal justice system's best attempts some convicts manage to escape its clutches and found outlets for their humanity and talents, sometimes a section of the criminal justice system actual helps them. This appears to have been Craig's experience at Grendon prison ten years ago which proved to be a turning point in his life.  Following release he appeared to be the very model of a reformed prisoner, he got a degree and followed this up with employment in a number of criminal justice agencies. He became a sought after speaker at reform conferences and seminars.

On New Year's Day he killed himself.

I never met Craig but his story didn't surprise me.  I have know far too many ex-con's kill themselves. I have read a few of their suicide notes. The damage done to individuals in state institutions, children's homes and prisons is immense. The suicide rates for prisoners are five times the national rate (and 18 times the national rate for 15-17 year olds. For male ex-prisoners they are over eight times the national rate and for women ex-prisoners they are 36 times the national rate. (source: See Page 21)

Just being in prison reduces life expectancy, the average age of male prisoners who die from 'natural causes' is 56.

So we do still have a death penalty, just not one handed out explicitly. Prison Kills.

Whose Law? What Justice? No charges after killing of Ian Tomlinson

A visit to the website of the Crown Prosecution Service reveals their proud slogan "Fair, fearless, effective".  Their announcement today that there will be no charges over the killing of Ian Tomlinson makes a mockery of these pious platitudes. The assault of Ian Tomlinson has thanks to the internet been viewed by millions of us. I am sure it will be shown again today at regular intervals on all the days news programmes. As we watch it we are being asked to believe that there is no case to be answered by the thug that carried out this attack.  We are also being asked to believe that if this attack had been carried out by anyone other than a police officer the same decision would have been taken.  It is a decision which is grossly unfair, exposes the CPS's total lack of courage and displays their incompetency.  Problems which would have never been allowed to compromise any other homicide investigation have been callously used to pervert the course of justice.

Update (13.12)


I have now read the CPS Press statement. The reasons the CPS has given for their decision are:

No Manslaughter charge

Is justified because "there is a sharp disagreement between the medical experts" with the original pathologist, Dr Patel reaching different conclusions from two other pathologists who carried out subsequent postmortems. They concluded that Dr Patel's conclusions that Mr Tomlinson had died from natural causes made a prosecution impossible.  They however make no reference to  Dr Patel's current appearance before the GMC charged with conducting not one, not two, not three, but four other autopsies incompetently.

Obviously we need to await the GMC finding in this case.   However the findings are likely to be relevant to Dr Patel's credibility as a witness. 

Having waited so long to make a decision couldn't the CPS wait a few more days in the hope that the main hurdle to a successful prosecution is removed by the GMC?

No Assault Charge

Apparently you have according to CPS guidelines charge someone with assult within six months.  They are satisfied an assault took place buts opps its to late to charge the thug ... oh dear!!

Further Update (13.28)

This is from the Guardian earlier this month concerning the credibility of Dr Patel on which the CPS has made its decision today

FFS couldn't even a CPS lawyer see there may have been a way to challenge his credibility in court?

Crimes and Time

It is often claimed "don't do the crime if you cant do the time".  Such a statement, as well as being morally dubious, presumes that the criminal justice system rationally allocates prison time on the basis of just deserts. In fact sentencing is both more random than that and far more bias.  More often than not it is the person rather than the crime that attracts the sentence.  This can be personal but is often a response to the lawbreakers age, class and race.

Everyday through google alerts I get a couple of hundred news stories delivered to my inbox and today I got the following two stories one after the other in an e-mail.

St. Peters secretary gets prison for stealing $573K

Teen sentenced to prison under new spitting law

The theft of $573K was deemed to require six months in prison whilst the young woman who spat at a policeman got a year in prison and two years post prison supervision. Both pleaded guilty - to do anything else is to risk far more severe penalties- so we only hear the states case.  But the idea that courts (or lawmakers) can in any meaningful way weigh up crimes and allocate, as if by science, an appropriate amount of prison time which justly correlates to the specific crime is clearly total nonsense.  So both sentencing law and practice develops its own logic and the white collar criminal who carries out a fraud in a calculating way is deemed to need six months whilst the young woman, who lip is cut in a struggle with a police officer and then spits gets a year. 

Of course the whole idea of using prison as the standard response to almost all lawbreaking is silly and pointless but the way when it is used it is used disproportionally on the young, social excluded and powerless displays the inherent injustice of the criminal justice system.