Ah, law. My area of expertise. (Most of you probably know by now that I'm one year through a three-year Law degree.)
One thing which really gets on my nerves is prison. It's often said that prisoners have an easy ride, and repeatedly offend to go back there because it's a better life in prison for them than outside. This may be true in some cases, but in others, it can be really tough for them being away from people they love. In the early hours of this morning, I was watching a programme I'd recorded from March called 'Crime and Punishment', being presented by Louise Minchin and Gethin Jones. Gethin went to HMP Bristol to go through the process that prisoners would go through upon arrival, and was left in a cell for just a few minutes. He didn't like it much (although he may have been playing it up for the camera, but the cell didn't look all that wonderful). Perhaps if conditions in prison were tougher, it would make people think twice about re-offending. Alongside this, as has been pointed out, education programmes should be implemented to help inmates have a better chance at life when outside prison, and to try to stop them from re-offending, perhaps more towards the end of their sentences to serve as the rehabilitation part of their sentence. (There are six recognised theories behind sentencing: retribution (punishment); denunciation; deterrence; reform & rehabilitation; incapacitation; and reparation. The purposes of sentencing were confirmed and brought into law by section 142 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.)
On a little bit of a side note, I've actually been inside a prison van, and was locked in one of the cells in there for a few minutes. (Don't worry, I hadn't done anything wrong - it was as part of a court visit to Bodmin Magistrates Court in 2007.) It was small and cramped, and I wouldn't have wanted to be in there for a terribly long period of time at all.
Another bugbear of mine is that people don't seem to understand the 'life sentence'. It is true that the sentence is a life sentence, but it doesn't necessarily mean life in prison. (For purposes of clarity, I'm going to use murder as the example, which is the one area where people seem to get most annoyed.) With murder, the sentence is a mandatory life sentence, and has been since the death penalty was abolished for murder back in 1965, but the judge sets a tariff (that is a period of time before the person can be considered for parole) of a certain number of years, the minimum being 12. After the tariff is up, the person can be released into the wider community again, but they are monitored very heavily, as the 'life' portion of the sentence is still hanging over them, and if they put a toe out of line, they can be recalled to prison at any time. This seems to act as a deterrent part of the sentence, in that prisoners should (hopefully) be scared into not re-offending, which - let's be honest - doesn't always work, and it's never going to work for 100% of criminals. There is also the option of a 'whole-life' sentence, where a criminal can be sentenced to be in prison for the rest of his/her life, which is what Mrs Justice Rafferty sentenced Levi Bellfield to back in 2008 for two murders and one attempted murder. (He was later found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler, and was given another whole-life sentence - not that it would have mattered very much.)
A little bit of history for you regarding criminal trials. Normally, trials will take place in the court which is closest to where the crime took place. For example, if a murder took place in Penzance, then the trial would happen at Truro Crown Court. However, if circumstances dictated otherwise, then the trial could happen at another Crown Court - perhaps even the Old Bailey (formally called the Central Criminal Court). This was made possible back in 1856 with the passing of the Central Criminal Court Act, all thanks to one man from Rugeley in Staffordshire - William Palmer, a doctor who was accused of poisoning and murdering several people. It was alleged that he would not receive a fair trial due to public revulsion regarding the alleged crimes, so this Act of Parliament was passed to allow the trial to take place in a more neutral location. (He was found guilty and executed.) I don't have any statistics for this, but I would assume that this power is very rarely used today.
Now for the big one. Capital punishment. Just imagine that you're in the dock in Court 1 of the Old Bailey in the 1950s, having been convicted of murder. The judge places a black square of fabric on his head informs you that you are to be taken to a prison and shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. Imagine how the defendants must have felt upon hearing those words, knowing that they only realistically had a few weeks left to live. I for one can't imagine that. I'm firmly against the use of capital punishment. I find it illogical to execute people to show them that killing others is wrong. Also, some criminals actually want to be executed to make themselves martyrs. Look at Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot. He's said that if he gets executed for what he did, then he'll be happy with that, as he'll be a martyr. The best thing to do in this case would be to lock said person up for life in solitary confinement. That way, the convict would be punished for what he/she had done to a standard that most people would probably find acceptable without the person actually being executed. The world is generally becoming more abolitionist with regard to the death penalty, with 140 countries being abolitionist in law or practice, and 58 retaining it, with about 20 of those retentionist countries using the death penalty in 2011. (Sourced from Amnesty International's latest report on the judicial use of the death penalty, available from their website. The report only covers the judicial use, and makes for some quite interesting reading, if it's the kind of thing you're interested in.) The country with the most executions is China, who allegedly execute more people than every other country put together, although the number of Chinese executions is a state-guarded secret. I believe that no matter what a person has done, they should not be executed, as they could be seen as martyrs, and they would have no chance to change who they are and become better people. (The one case which started an interest in capital punishment, and formed my opinion that it doesn't work, was that of Stanley Tookie Williams III, who was executed in 2005 in San Quentin Prison in California, despite pleas for clemency and that he had been a strong critic of gang culture whilst in prison, despite having been in a gang [The Crips] beforehand.)
William Blackstone, a famous 18th Century juror, wrote that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" - a principle which goes back many more years, but still stands true today. A person in English and Welsh law is regarded as innocent until proven guilty by the prosecution, who must do so beyond all reasonable doubt. Whilst this is a long-standing principle, the case which confirmed it is from 1935. It is, perhaps, the single most important principle in criminal law today. Despite this, people who are found innocent of crimes are quite often still considered guilty by the general public - Michael Jackson being the perfect example of this, as he was found innocent of all the child molestation charges against him back in 2005, yet so many people still thought he was guilty. This can ruin people's lives to an extent.
I could go on about changes that I think need to be made to the criminal justice system, but I think I'll save that for another post when I've had a chance to go through my notes from college and uni.
