Rough Justice? They Deserve All They Get!

by Chris Sabian⁽⁴¹⁾
Kute Fine Art

If you ask the average man or woman in the street about the justice being dished out to the looters and rioters who were caught breaking the law recently they would respond “they deserve all they get and some!” So why are the PC brigade crying yet again?

The courts in England are resolute in their determination to crack down on disorder. But needless to say, the severity of some of the sentences has been roundly criticised by the usual conga-line of hand-wringers and ‘criminal justice professionals’.

They protest that ministers have put undue pressure on the courts to hand down exemplary jail terms, and insist that sentencing should be left to the discretion of magistrates.

Bullshit – giving the magistrates a mandate to punish properly is way overdue.

What makes me howl with anger is the bleeding hearts who were shocked by the four-year sentences handed out to two so-called Facebook rioters.

Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were each jailed for four years at Chester Crown Court on Tuesday after setting up Facebook pages encouraging riots in their neighbourhood.

Blackshaw set up an event called "Smashdown" in Northwich but no one apart from the police, who were monitoring the page, turned up at the rendezvous outside McDonald’s. (That was the official line – unofficially the police were there having supper.)

Sutcliffe-Keenan set up a page called Warrington Riots. When he woke up the following morning with a hangover, he removed the page and apologised, saying it had been a joke. No rioting broke out as a result of his message.

The two are clearly bird brained Billy No Mates, but anyone questioning whether their misdemeanours merit such sentences must be on a different planet. What if several hundred people had turned up? What if £millions of damage had been done? What if someone had been killed? They were inciting violence and as a consequence should be punished severely. And if the punishments are more worthy of repressive regimes such as China then so be it!

It is reassuring that the police are monitoring every subversive tweet and Facebook page but the question of “does the judiciary need to mete out such excessive punishment when the individuals concerned are clearly not bombers or rioters?” is very easy. Yes it does because sooner or later Silly Billys might stop posting subversive text and allow our coppers to do there coppering on the streets not on a social network site.

I remember Call me Dave saying “I believe in giving people a second chance" and that is right, but most of these mindless morons are way past a second chance. And quite frankly those people who should know better (the millionaire’s daughter, the teacher etc) don’t deserve a second chance because they have absolutely no reason to have one.

It is imperative we don't overreact to the riots or else we risk becoming more authoritarian, with the connivance of the Government, the police and the judiciary. But in reality the Government has reacted to the overall public opinion. For whatever reason the judiciary has been soft on criminals for years because the prison population is so high and there is little capacity. Build more prisons and give inmates hard labour not plasma televisions and snooker tables. The prison service should be a profit making organisation – a huge work force, no wages and a bill for bowls of rice – I bet the Dragons would invest.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Article submitted Sunday, August 21, 2011 & read 14 times.

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