To want the "Peru Two" to stay in Peru?

[QueenOfConeyIsland]

I honestly don't know if IABU to want them to serve the whole of their sentence in Peru and not part of the UK?

They knew what they were doing and knew the risks. It would deter some people from doing in the future too.

But on the other hand they are young girls just starting to live their life and are going to have pretty much all of their 20s taken away from them.

I'm quite conflicted.

[yellowGiraffe8]

Yanbu. I understand that the drugs trade has massive costs to Peruvian people (and others in other countries) with corruption, drugs cartels, crime and violence. Why should these greedy criminal Brits get off lightly? Try explaining that to a local person trying to feed her family in an area run by drugs cartels facilitated by these foolish British wannabe drugs mules.

Make them serve their full sentence in Peru.

[Nerfmother]

Such a weird world on mumsnet. Nigella takes coke and prompts a thread full of right on I don't care types - if I was married to saatchi is take coke, haha - two 'chavs' snuggle drugs and we want the key thrown away.

[JohnCusacksWife]

Am seriously amazed that anyone would suggest that smugglers of class A drugs deserve any sympathy at all. Why should they be granted special treatment just because of their nationality? They broke the law so they should take the consequences. If that means 6 years in a Peruvian jail then so be it. And, yes, if it was my daughter I'd be devastated but I wouldn't have any credible argument as to why she should be brought home...other than that I wanted it to be so.

[MrsTerrysChocolateOrange]

I firmly believe that people in the future will look back and ask how we could allow child slavery to go on in chocolate production, violence in drug production, warfare in diamond mining, mercury pollution and poisoning in gold, sexual slavery in prostitution. They won't say, "look drugs are definitely the worst, I can see why you wear child slave produced clothes but lock up naive idiots for 7 years".

It's so easy to chuck the book at these plonkers and go back to wearing cruelty produced angora while munching slave slave produced chocolate. International inequality and trade poverty cause suffering, it's not because it's coke FFS.

[DirtyThree]

Sure the prisons have to take on responsibility for the welfare of its prisoners, my point is about those girls being responsible for their actions and everything that comes with that, good or bad and it just seems inappropriate to pay the human rights card... Oh hold on let me go break a huge law in a foreign country but I can swerve the shitty conditions there because I'm a Brit with human rights don't you know?

If a Peruvian committed the same crime there and went to prison there then where is their Get Out Of Shit Jail And Go To Not So Shit Jail card?

I get that the export of prisoners might be to do with politics and funding but to move the poor Brits who can't cope with the conditions or because it'll be easier for them to closer to family just doesn't sit right.

[MrsTerrysChocolateOrange]

Well I would argue that the Peruvians shouldn't be in shitty conditions either but I don't vote for their representatives or have any kind of power there.

[neverthebride]

We complain (correctly) if we are funding long sentences for non-UK residents. It costs a lot to imprison someone. The same should apply for other Countries.

Jail in Southern/Central American countries are often inhumane. If people want them to stay there for that reason then that is very wrong.

They should be punished (as per law) but serve their sentence in the UK if possible.

And people who seem to view UK prisons as easy/a holiday camp etc have clearly never set foot in one.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

If a Peruvian committed a crime in the UK, they would have the right to apply for transfer back to Peru, most foreign prisoners in the UK have that right, of course most of them choose to stay, but they still have the option.

I don't see why these two girls should be treat any differently to any other person locked up abroad. Most countries have this option for foreign prisoners.

[aciddrops]

They have put on weight, especially the blonde one so they must be being very well fed if nothing else.

[QueenOfConeyIsland]

Why chocolate is being constantly brought into this is just plain odd.

[NoArmaniNoPunani]

I'm with Zippey too

[MrsTerrysChocolateOrange]

Because, just like cocaine, chocolate production causes misery, death, injury and suffering but because we have decided it's legal, that's fine. I was trying to make a point about what actually causes the misery around the world. It's not the drug trade, it's all trade where the minority world consumes and the majority world produces. The drug trade is just compounded by illegality.

None of that is these girls fault. I struggle to see why they get 7 years for transporting something and we all watch garment workers (to get off chocolate) die in dreadful circumstances and don't see the link.

People are addicted, fund more rehabs. People in the majority world suffering, reduce the inequalities.

[Chippednailvarnish]

I don't recall being near death after my last chocolate binge.

[QueenOfConeyIsland]

So if I decided to smuggle £1,000,000 worth of heroin into the UK that would be ok seeing as I was just transporting it?

[Chippingnortonset123]

Whatever the rights and the wrongs, cases like these do serve as an awfully good deterrent.

[sooperdooper]

They made a stupid naive mistake but I think the hate towards them is misplaced - they aren't the ones running the drugs trafficking business, they aren't they the ones continuing to make vast sums of money from that business!

They're were very small cog, in a vast, hugely illegal, massively profitable business - and the business continues over and above them, probably quite pleased they got caught rather than a larger load that was undoubtedly being moved about, because that's how it tends to operate, men convincing young, easily manipulated young girls into doing something silly for what seems to them something they can get away with.

Its hideously sad the hatred on here towards them, it's massively misplaced, they did wrong but they weren't and aren't the master planners behind international drug smuggling and if you think they were then sadly you're as naive as they were

[MrsTerrysChocolateOrange]

Chipping I used to see people every day close to death from alcohol abuse. Their 'dealers' aren't getting 7 years.

[QueenOfConeyIsland]

Chipping I used to see people every day close to death from alcohol abuse. Their 'dealers' aren't getting 7 years

People have free will, if you decide to drink yourself to death why is it everyone elses fault but your own?

[BillyBanter]

I don't think they should for their own sake. Prison is hard enough, despite what the daily mail might tell you, without having to serve your sentence so far away from home. But also their parents have not committed a crime but having to go to Peru to see their children is cruel.

[olidusUrsus]

People have free will, if you decide to drink yourself to death why is it everyone elses fault but your own?

So why isn't it acceptable to apply the same logic to other drugs? Is it purely because they're prohibited? Because I would argue that alcohol is a very dangerous drug, legal or not.

Agree entirely with Nerfmother, personally I think this thread really highlights how easily the media can manipulate us and our opinions.

[MrsTerrysChocolateOrange]

What I am trying to do which is obviously failing is to point out that all the reasons people are giving why these young women are bad enough to rot in a Peruvian jail for 7 years are spurious.

They were transporting a dangerous drug (so do brewers). They are causing harm to the majority world (so are any number of cash crop multinationals). They are no different to Peruvians (I also think they shouldn't be languishing in jail for 7 years). They are criminals (because WE decided they are). Drugs kill (so does alcohol).

Everyone wants to bay for their blood. All I see is two very stupid, probably greedy, young women who are paying very dearly for their idiocy and if they want to pay in the UK, rather than Peru, let them.

[Pixel]

They are criminals (because WE decided they are)

And they knew it was illegal before they did it, so they decided it too. If alcohol was illegal and they smuggled that it would be the same, they would still know they were breaking the law. WE didn't make them do it.

[wannaBe]

it's very simple, if you don't want to serve a prison sentence in a Peruvian jail then don't try and smuggle drugs in peru. I apply the same logic to countries where the death sentence exist and where these British idiots cry inhumane treatment when they're caught breaking the law knowing full well what the consequences are.

So they'll be thousands of miles away from their families, well that's a shame for their families but the responsibility for that is theirs not that of the British authorities.

And the reference to chocolate and alcohol is irrelevant - chocolate isn't illegal, drugs are. People may not agree with it but that's how it is, and the penalties for smuggling drugs in south America and countries like in Southeast Asia are well known. so if you don't want to get caught smuggling drugs and sent to a south American jail or put to death in Thailand then there's a very simple solution - don't smuggle drugs. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to grasp?

[DirtyThree]

Completely agree wannabe.

I do get your points mrst but your views don't change the laws. I don't agree with businesses (legal or otherwise) exploiting communities who have very little choice. Whilst I dot know the full ins and outs of the girls decision making process the chances I suspect they had a choice to not do this.

I backpacked through South America about 8 years ago. My DH worked a couple of summers in Ibiza 10 years ago - he says the majority of people know about or are involved wont drugs scams/deals of some kind. You make that choice, you get greedy, you're foolish. You take on the potential risk. It is shit that those higher up the chain didn't get caught (or that we don't know about it) but whether you or I think that's right or wrong ain't gonna change anything.

I looked at a pp's link re transferring prisoners home and also at the Prisoners Abroad charity website and maybe I'm just not compassionate but it IMO came across as if the prisoners were victims. I'm sorry I cannot sympathise to that extent. I've read The Damage Done and Forget You Had A Daughter and Marching Powder, seen Banged Up Abroad and the conditions look shit. But I cannot help thinking "you shouldn't have done it then". Respecting other countries customs, religions, laws and rules is part and part and parcel of visiting or living in another country. I don't get that you become exempt from the conditions of that country in any respect just because of your passport.

Yes we only get to have a say in the elections in this country but it feels inappropriate you can flaunt the rules elsewhere and then get your home country authorities to "protect you". IMO you forgo that support when you commit the crime surely??

If you can't do the time don't commit the crime.