Does the justice system actually deliver justice ?

This is a spin-off threadstart from the "Vengeance" thread started by Babyrs and as it is a bit off that topic Treebee suggested that maybe we could discuss this point on it's own thread.

Well, what do you think:

Do you think that your local system of justice actually delivers what it attempts to deliver ?

I have noticed recently that this is not happening for two main reasons:

1). Sometimes the senile old judges are so out of touch with life that they don't have a clue what "punishment to fit the crime" means.

And...

2). There seems to be far too many miscarriages of justice these days too where a few years after a person or persons have been convicted the prosecutions are found to be unsound and the experts like fingerprint-specialists and forensic science experts are getting it wrong time after time.

I mean, if this happens so often as it seems to do we can all worry that either we may get convicted while being innocent or the guilty may go unpunished.

What do YOU think ?

I think the number of cases where justice is served appropriately far outweighs the others. But we tend to here only about those others because it makes better news.

I think the law has become too intricate. It appears to be based on previous cases, following what has been done before rather than making a precedent.

As for cases being thrown out due to legal red tape that makes me so mad. That a criminal can walk away simply because he has good representation.

It seems if you have the money for the legal representation you can get away with almost anything.

My brother is becoming a Magistrate soon, and locally they are looking to recruit more people from ordinary walks of life, people who grew up on rough estates, who have beans on toast for tea. People with a sense of reality, who realise the difference between genuine cases of hardship crime and the piss takers.

I certainly think this is an excellent idea, putting more power to the common man rather than an Oxford Grad.

I really would like to see recurrent sex offenders castrated or in women given hysterectomy. Now this sounds inhumane but what a deterrent!! Its not a death sentence but bloody harsh enough for them to think twice about tampering with kiddies.

I wish the punishment fitted the crime more, and i wish more judges would get thier thumbs out of their arses and think for themselves.

The Law and justice are distinctly different.

In Northern Ireland I know of a case, my wife's only aunt was shot dead by a British Army foot patrol. She went out her back door and was killed. She left behind a husband and six wee childen.

The Law said the soldiers did nothing wrong. The police did NO investigation of the shooting. The Coroner's Court said if she hadn't gone out her door she wouldn't have been shot.

Can anyone tell me that this is justice for those children who had their innocent mother torn away from them.

It definately isn't working.

It isn't just senile judges with no grasp of reality though, it's the whole justice and legal system.

If we think that the punishment should fit the crime, then we are going to be sorely disappointed by the legal/justice system, which is yet another thing that has been taken over and written by liberals who seem to be more interested in the welfare of the "poor victim of society" the criminal - and sod the old woman who has been mugged by this thug.

It's all very well for the so called "do-gooders". They will all too often be living in leafy safe middle class suburbs, or out in the middle of the rolling countryside - so little Tarquin can ride his pony when he's home from private school (No sink comprehensive for their children - that other part of their failed but ongoing experiment is just for the rest of us).
In their ivory towers they sit, putting forward their views, putting into place ideas that are so far removed from the reality most of us live in that it's unreal.

It makes you wonder - if the lawmakers, the politicians, the members of the pressure groups - if they had to live on a council estate, surrounded by lots of "poor victims of society" - would they be then so happy to hand out soft sentences, and to handicap the police in their work? Would they hells like.

The last thing on the liberals minds is making the punishment fit the crime - that is anathema to them. It would be against the criminals human rights to treat them in the way they would and do treat other human beings.

What liberals always seem to conveniently overlook though, is that with rights come responsibilities.

So why do their unpopular and failed ideas get put into place? Well it's because they shout loudest. They are the ones most likely to become politicians - and the rest of us will just moan, but won't do anything about it.

Ultimately, we get the government, the politicans and the justice system and ultimately the society we deserve.

I think the justice system in any country is flawed... but it is not without its merits as well.

There have been (and still are) numerous people who have been sentenced wrongly; due to a lot of factors. Money and influence is perhaps one of them. In places where corruption is a daily event - it is not uncommon to see the poor bear the brunt of his social status, and not his so-called 'crime', if there was even one to begin with.

It is a sad situation, but I think justice - so long as its dealt by a human hand... can never be flawless. There are just too many external factors that we have to contend with. In any case, I'd rather have a semblence of it, than none at all.

Another thing,
There was a high profile case a few years ago, where a farmer - Tony Martin - was plagued by criminals.
The police and society failed to protect him - and to cut a long story short, he armed himself, lay in wait for a burglar to try to rob him - and shot him dead.

For this, he was obviously jailed, but he has ever since been looked up to by probably most of the country - and possibly is a bit of a hero to his cause.

Now this guy was a 24ct fruitcake. You don't go doing that, and it was pretty premeditated, however in a society weary of seeing the criminal "get away with it", of the criminal being pitied, whilst the victim is ignored - this sort of behaviour is held up as some sort of wonderful thing.

It is precisely due to the out of touch attitudes of supporting the scumbag at the expense of the innocent, that leads to people almost canonising people like Tony Martin. The moreso, then the more the backlash.

The law in most countries is flawed. The punishment usually does not fit the crime and sometimes goes to the wrong person. You've seen how rich guys can get away with anything while poor people cant even get representation that will save them even if they're innocent.

A great man named Jose Rizal wanted to educate people instead of punishing them. What good is punishment if they do not know the lesson from their crimes? And if they go back in the streets from jail will they learn anything from their crimes?

The justice system of any region delivers justice according to the laws of that region.
The laws of any region are always a little outdated when it comes to the Peoples opinion of what is justice, simply because it is the peoples opinion that determines them. And that opinion can only be read AFTER the fact.

It is a naturally occuring "slow down" in the law giving system, and it is one of the prices of democracy.

It is amply demonstrated when the public outcry changes the law after a particularily "hot" case. It would be foolish to expect the laws to behave differently in a democracy, and if you wish to change it you will have to find some alternative to that polical system.

Of course, there are those that are better at listening to the peoples advice than others..

Then there is the infrastructure that is non-existent too !

Up until about four years ago I served on my local Childrens Hearings Panel ( A Scottish speciality ), where a group of three ordinary people with a legal advisor sit in judgement of child offenders and children offended against. The basic idea is brilliant as it takes children out of the court-system and puts them closer to the people. The problems with the Children's Panel - as it was also known - was that it was virtually toothless when children needed some strong deterrent and it was almost completely useless in the cases where children were offended against.

I could only stick it for three years and then I had to leave as I felt that I was unable to do what needed to be done. Now we see young-people running amock and terrorising the elderly and causing mayhem on the streets of the inner-cities and small towns where no-go areas are now becoming the norm and the spectre of gang warfare is raising it's ugly head on too many occasions.

I think that our system now is a warehouse.


I am a big proponent of shorter sentences, but in total isolation. The only recreation being virtual classrooms.

There are a few of these in the states and prisioners will do anything to never have to go back. The staff is safe. The prisioners are safe.

As it stands prisions are making criminals worse and not better.

No! it works for the criminals!

Two recent court cases, have earned the attention of newspaper readers in South Africa.

One person was fined R1 000 for not having a TV license.
? Another was released on bail for R500 after being arrested for murder.

The moral of this South African story: If you do not have a TV license and the inspector comes round, kill him.

You'll save R500.

It's the Right Thing To Do...

f*** all governments, i believe people should do as they please without penalties. Think for yourself, your own self-government. You control you-Anarchy. f*** all machienes and systems of organizied greed and political bulls***. . . im sick of it

WOW!.....

That's a good plan. Stupid governments. Building roads, and water systems, and schoold. You're right. To hell with those bastards!!

Sorry, but cannot subscribe to anarchy as that would just take us all down to the levels of the animals where the powerful would destroy the weak. Humans are better than that if they are given a chance.

No, even although I am suggesting like many others here that the justice systems do not work, what we need to do is FIX THEM not destroy them !