He was given an indeterminate sentence, known as imprisonment for public protection (IPP). This meant that while he could be released after 19 months and 27 days, he could also be jailed for up to 99 years. IPP was first used as a sentence in England and Wales in 2005, having been introduced by Labour in 2003 to detain in prison people who posed a significant risk of causing harm to the public. It was a controversial sentence. Critics said that jailing people for what they could do, rather than what they had done, contradicted the basic principle of justice: that people are innocent until proven guilty.
I can almost understand the idea when applied to extremely dangerous individuals. There should absolutely be some kind of separate system for people who are too dangerous to be able to reintegrate into society.
A one size fits all justice system is a terrible way to run a society
In most cases, though, you can get those individuals on actual charges. People aren’t usually violent completely out of the blue and a suspicion of future violence might come from prior acts of violence or securing materials for mass violence (like building explosive devices)…
The rationale for detaining someone for public safety is almost always coming from prior acts that we have laws for. We should force law enforcement to actually use those laws since they’ll have a burden of proof to enact enforcement… the IPP loophole is awful because it leaves no legal recourse - there was no trial you can appeal or at least argue against.
It’s definitely a fucked up sentence and he should have been released by now, but this headline is very misleading. He didn’t get arrested for “stealing a cigarette”, he got arrested for strong arm robbery. He was also a repeat offender who had previously been arrested for assault and theft. He for sure needed to go to jail, just not indefinitely
Do racist bigots deserve a good punch in the nose? Sure they do! Can we just walk around punching everyone who makes us mad though? No. That would result in everyone getting punched twice a day at least
Cool, cool… So I can just punch anyone in the face I want as long as you think they’re a bad person? I’ll make sure to tell that to the police when I get arrested 🙄
You completely ignored my point. We shouldn’t build a society where anyone can assault strangers on the streets because they perceive they might hold socially regressive views. Because that society would be one effectively void of rule of law.
Anyone who disagrees or dislikes someone else could violently attack them then claim they said something offensive.
This system could even enable racism. For example an Asian man (who is prejudiced against Latinos) could bash and Latino he saw then claim they called him a slur to justify their racial violence. Should an KKK member be able to fatality batter and black man he hears says a slur?
If we are playing the logic game this facially fails. And not that the burden for disproving your hypothesis with statistics would fall on me when you’ve yet to back it with any yourself.
Reread my earlier comment. I take issue with public violence between members of a society as a means of social change.
This logic works well until someone stumbles along with the opinion that QuantumSpecter is a racist bigot and a clenched fist.
Yes he punched for being a racist bigot.
My point was that the fundamental error in that perspective was that it assumes that violence would be applied against exclusively the targeted group. And that while you typed your original comment you hadn’t considered that because different people have different perspectives, someone might construe something you due as bigoted (even possibly at no fault of your own).
The problems in this idea pop up way before we get to address whether it’d even work.
And even if this was my point
No your point was that racist bigot should be prosecuted
Why do you take issue with that in the context now of hate crimes?
Do you really think Hitler wouldn’t have started WW2 if someone had punched him in the face? Would that have actually changed anything?
You still keep ignoring the biggest point here, who dictates who is a racist and deserves punishment? If someone thinks that you’re prejudiced against them then is it fine for that person to punch you in the face?
considering that he had, per that article, a criminal history of “dangerous driving, assault, theft and burglary”, in addition to threatening assault, and theft again (plus self harm & suicide attempts)? doesnt seem like the most stable guy - he’d be in prison for something else or in a psych ward if it wasnt for the IPP
Imprisonment for public protection was abolition in 2012 because it was being overused there are currently over 2500 people locked up whose sentences ended over 10 years ago.