I think Andy Burnham is making a mistake with PC Harper’s killers

[SereneFinch]

Of course no-one wants to see them released early but to single out a particular case for political reasons undermines our justice system doesn’t it?

Everyone must be treated the same and to not will invite some sort of appeal from them and no doubt result in lengthy reviews and hearings about their treatment. Which costs money and gives them more attention.

Plus there will be many other cases where an early release is equally infuriating but those families won’t be heard.

Michael Howard did this with the Bulger case and it resulted in sentencing powers being taken away from the Home Secretary and put solely in the hands of judges.

I think this is going to be a huge problem for him if he’s not careful.

Why shouldn’t we have media coverage of these things? If we didn’t , then I’m sure they would have been out by now. The new PM wants to ‘ listen ‘ to what people want and this is a good platform to try and get these cases in the public domain. I don’t blame the news channels for bringing it up.

Yes. His death is a tragedy etc etc, but I'm not sure why his killers should be treated differently by the law to the killers of anyone else.

I understood that they were looking at changing the rules so that anyone with a sentence of more than 10 years for manslaughter would not be eligible for early release - I read that would impact about 800 people. I think that’s a balance between setting a precedent and also reflecting the severity of longer sentences.

They’ll offend again, it’s just a matter of waiting.

Regarding their understanding, it's likely that they didn't really take it in. These lads had very low IQ's, couldn't read or write and hadn't attended school past primary. From the age of 10/11 they were free to do exactly as they liked, and mostly this was criminal behavior. They likely have the mental ages of very young children hence the likelihood of them being rehabilitated is zero.

They'll be back inside as soon as they're caught on the rob again.

The argument seems to be that if they release these killers, then the same should be applied for all those guilty of manslaughter. Instead they should look at making a separate category for killers of the police and probably all front line workers.

Agree! Crazy decision, but yet again the media is behind it and won’t let it go and here we are.

This .
I think it’s time to consider the assaults / murder of emergency service personnel more harshly .

You're absolutely right, OP. Of course people are aghast at these criminals being released early- this reveals the problems with the whole proposal, and under it equally serious criminals will be released- it just happens that their crimes are less well known so haven't attracted public interest.

Disapplying the proposals in respect of one crime is just popularity-seeking. Wish politicians would be more honest with the country about the prison situation. We are in a complete mess after years of under-funding (from both labour and Conservative).

I agree that anyone in prison for deliberately dragging a police officer to their death behind their car should be eligible for early release.

Not far off half of the people released in the first waves are already back in prison having reoffended. The Early Release scheme isn't even reducing the number of people in prison since they get back do fast. All it is doing is increasing the number of victims.

Also - do you want only coppers or also firemen? What about ambulance people? So next step then would be Drs? Then who? Teachers? Admin staff in schools… what about off duty coppers?
undercover coppers on their way home so technically off duty but just having been to work - this way lies madness.

i really feel for his widow and family. I think what he’s said (AB) is that he wants to explore all the options - assume that means looking at who is in and what they are in for. One only hopes the parole / probation service are up to speed.

I feel that the politicians are being honest regarding overcrowding, the cost of keeping people in jail and lack of funding previously. However, to address a lot of this needs more money and people don’t like paying more taxes to build more prisons. It seems to be a circle we can’t square

Yeap anyone who kills anyone of those should not be released after serving just 1/3 of their already lenient sentence.

I completely agree OP. What a spit in the face to all other victims’ families.

Perhaps this could change what next though. I'd like it to be a 'victim' justice system, not a 'criminal' justice system.

Often the victims are forgotten. It’s so sad.
In this case his family have made sure he hasn’t been and that’s a good thing.

I think there'll be more cases like this. No one wants criminals to be released early. I think most people feel sentences are often too short in the first place. Anyone who's been a victim of a crime is going to (naturally) feel aggrieved if the perpetrator is released early.

I think the whole idea of early release is wrong. I understand prisons are overcrowded, but I think a simple solution would be to deport all the non-British nationals who are in prison.

We can't have a system in which prison time becomes so reduced that its function as a deterrent becomes diminished.

It’s appalling - police and emergency workers’ killers should be treated differently - otherwise arm the police like everywhere else

I think early release makes a lot of sense considering the crisis re prison places. I'm really surprised any manslaughter cases are included though.

The issue with doing is is they’ll start and then the right wing rags will pick up on the fact that these prisoners are sent home and not imprisoned at home, so then it’ll be “foreign people come here, commit crimes then get away with it!”

@whymewhynowwhy yes I agree that's an issue, but I still think it would be a better solution. Being deported would constitute a degree of punishment in itself, which would go some way towards compensating for their shortened prison time. And the threat of deportation may actually be a more powerful deterrent than the threat of prison anyway.

Doubtful.

“Commit a crime, get 0 punishment and get a paid flight home”. You surely can see how the press would spin it?

Totally agree.
There needs to be another category of manslaughter in law to allow for this

TBH, I wouldn't have a problem with that. I don't really care about the punishment and it saves us a fortune not to incarcerate them here.

I'm generally a soft liberal lefty, who prefer prison to be more a out rehabilitation than punishment, and not against immigration, but if you can't live within our laws, you're not welcome imo. Punishing/rehabilitating you can be someone else's problem, I'm not particularly interest in the how and where.

They weren’t just robbing, they killed a police officer in a horrific way and laughed/were disrespectful in the dock. There is no way they should be allowed out of prison and while clearly the law should apply the same for everyone, the fact that this was a serving police officer, the crime was particularly horrific and their behaviour in the dock provide enough mitigating circumstances for us to decide that release in this case is not appropriate.