AIBU to think that a mum of two should not be jailed for

[Mitmoo]

taking a pair of shorts that her friend stole in the riots.

She's got six months.

A young man who took £3.50 worth of water from a ransacked shop got six months.

I want justice, I want those who terrified my family even though we were fortunate enough to only view it through the television screen to be punished but I want some kind of proportionality.

Do we remove mum's from their children for six months because she took a pair of shorts from a friend who had been in the riots?

It was wrong of course, she should have shopped the "friend" but six months????

menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1455638_mum-jailed-for-six-months-for-wearing-pair-of-looted-shorts-

yanbu

She was guilty of more than taking a pair if shorts. Every item if clothing stolen was in her constructive possession and she was only wearing one pair possibly as wearing more than one pair would just be stupid.

As previous posters have said, riot was an aggravating factor and the fact the dozy cow slept through it all means naff all. She was well aware, I'm sure, of the circumstances in which they were obtained.

I think its a massive waste of taxpayers money, she deserves a massive slap on wrist but to imprison her!

not everyone in the riots acted the same

there is a difference between bashing down a window with a baseball bat, and terrorising the people that work

then following in later on your 13 year old mountain bike to steal, alerted via the gangs messages

to this this silly woman

sad

Sorry but I think YABU. I live in Enfield, my friends have lost jobs from the Sony fire, we are getting leaflets about toxic fumes from the damned thing and we had to evacuate in the night because the rioters were under our flat burning things.

Everyone involved should be punished.

knittynoodle sorry to hear that, my church was robbed they took the money for the roof and the projector, also burned the trees out the back which stared a fire in the flat next door

I hope your mates find something soon

Porcamiseria, didnt you start a thread about a mum who stole a pair of trainers the day after the riots, implying she had no right to be a mother, no right to benefits and a council flat and adovacting she should be sterilised?

(i didnt read it properly and might be wrong)

I hope so too, its so sad. Our lovely town was rampaged. I cant believe they took money from a church, that just shows that everyone of them needs to feel the full force of the law. I have no sympathy at all for any of these criminals.

I hope your church recovers :)

claw

weeellll. I did start an angry thread, and then I apologised later in

I was very angry and in reaction when I started that thread, its no excuse but has been up all night scared etc

and whilt the thread post was inflammatory, I was more angry that she had been GIVEN the flat in the first place, and angry she had left her kid to blaze it up

and I never said she should have been sterlised

but it was a shitty thread not my proudest moment

Ok i have just been reading the thread and you were already flamed, i will say no more

claw I googled eugenics later that day and read about the awful aborigine programme that took place, SHAME ON ME , for even suggesting it, even for smack heads...

what bloody came over me, honestly....

At least you got the info and changed your mind, we all make mistakes.

The rights of individuals are being put to one side for the moment in pursuit of political expediency.

It does sound like a Dickensian court scenario tho' at least no-one has been hanged/transported for stealing the equivalent of a sheep. Not that lives aren't being ruined.

justice has to be blind, regardless of your dependants.

the law is the law.

this is why i hate victims families talking at trials. it influences sentences which means heavier penalties for those with someone to speak for them. So if you have no friends or family your tragedy is less than those who have someone to speak for them.

one pair of shorts, one pair of diamond earrings, it does not matter. She was happy to handle stolen goods, and that is what matters. Why should I care more about her children than she does? Clearly she did not consider them when getting her hands on the shorts. The shorts were clearly more important.

I think it is great that Britain is finally getting its act together and getting tough on criminal behavour. Enough is enough.

Perrycombover, are you suggesting more Women go to prison than Men?

A "Primary caregiver" should expect a non custodial sentence?

And I see the foil hat brigade are in again cramming the word rape into a thread about something completely different.

Jeeezz..

Understandably, there is a great deal of raw emotion here rather than measured thinking.

And seriously doubt that the moral absolutism above will be possible to maintain when the focus of attention encompasses a wider demographic.

I am suggesting that the number of women sent to prison over the last 10 years has increased massively in terms of overall offender numbers. I am suggesting that the number of women imprisoned for non violent crimes has massively increased comparatively

I am suggesting that women are not well served by the criminal justice system

I am suggesting that by percentage, more women offenders are given custodial sentences for non violent crimes than men

I am suggesting that the entire package needs to be taken into consideration when sentencing nonsensically.
If that package includes dependent children that really needs to be considered. Sub six month custodial sentences don't really have any effect other than disruption. A non custodial punishment would be more effective and more humane to children and parent involved in the process.

I think people need to calm down and remember that most of the people being tried aren't murderers or rapists but are sometimes simply opportunists. The crimes some of these people have committed are very or fairly minor and they are being spoken about and treated with a level of contempt that is uncalled for.
I think that the legal system should be separate from the politics of the day to ensure that we have fair sentencing and not mob rule as often displayed here.

We're all human and all make mistakes. Why are we suddenly acting like a baying mob over fairly minor offences?

Maypole I am not disagreeing with you, I feel very strongly that everyone involved should be punished. But I was a bit about the story of the boy yesterday, who went on the train to watch the riots (I bet loads of kids went to 'watch' and ended up involved in the whole exciting thing) and he and his friends gots a bit scared, so left. On the way back to the station they passed a shop that had had its windows bricked in. Apprently he was caught on camera (so unmasked) just reaching in and taking a packet of chewing gum. His parents saw his photo and turned him over to the police. He has been given a nine month youth offending order of some sort.

Now, for all we know, he may have been up to far worse than that, and that is just the line he fed the court because he knew they couldn't prove any more than that. But assuming that is all he did, then I cannot put him in the same bracket as the people who bricked the windows in in the first place, and those who have burnt buildings and used physical violence and intimidation. Those who turned up masked and armed with sticks and bricks etc, intent on doing serious harm.

perrycombover thank you for your last post. There are major differences between how women are punished, and how men are punished by the courts.
Women are more likely to get a custodial sentence for a first offence.
Men, if their crime even gets reported (most rapes aren't because the raped women feel there's no point if their rapist is a powerful member of the community, for example) get less. An average of 4 years for wife-murder is just not on , especially when women get much more than that for retaliating against their abuser, or when a woman gets 6 months for stealing chewing gum.

There is no sense of proportion.

As a woman, I do not regard the justice system as democratic. I see it as being a way for allowing rapists and other criminals to get away with their crimes. I've often heard women say that they felt that the point of the court was not to convict a rapist, but to convince the woman she hadn't, in fact, been raped (she was asking for it, could have done something to avoid it, hadn't said no loud enugh etc)

THe courts exist to exhonerate men, and let them get away with the minimum punishment possible. THis is my opinion.

Fellatio there have been a few sentences now that have made me go I'm worried this will cause more unrest which will be the opposite of what everyone wants.

For sure bang up the violent offenders, the mobs, the gangs, the looter but's let differentiate between a kid nicking bubble gum, a woman and a pair of shorts, a man and some water from those who burned torched and terrorised our people.

WHere are people getting their stats for more women being jailed for first time offences and women getting longer sentences upon conviction than men for smilar offences?

I'd like to know that too.

mitmoo: here's a spreadsheet from the Guardian showing who has been before the Courts so far. I haven't spotted any for arson yet, so I don't think anyone would be able to make comparisons about sentencing.

"this is why i hate victims families talking at trials. it influences sentences which means heavier penalties for those with someone to speak for them. So if you have no friends or family your tragedy is less than those who have someone to speak for them."

In ireland we have only recently enough introduced the 'victim impact statement' and while I can see the motivation for it I would share your worries and don't think they should be part of court room trials.
It instills far too much subjectivity and also could be drawn to infer that an empathetic victim who bares the traditional stereotypes of someone affected by crime (tears,visible distress etc.) deserves to be vindicated by justice more than someone who may be uncomfortable with public speaking or who wishes to internalise their suffering and show a brave face to the world.
Also it further excludes the most vulnerable and marginalised of soceity, for example the homeless, if I kill a loving father/mother of 2 who is a corner stone of the community and they have a heart-wrenching statement from his/her spouse about the devestation I have caused their family finishing off with a poem written by one of their young children about how they miss mummy/daddy do I deserve to be punished more than if I killed a homeless person (in similar circumstances) who has nobody to speak about them at the sentencing hearing?

Agree with kungfupannda - this sets a really dangerous precedent where the law is dancing to the whims of politicians.