Anyone feeling slightly uncomfortable with the scale of the sentencing after the riots?

[TiredWife]

Firstly, in no way do I support the disgusting, racist behaviour we've seen over the last couple of weeks, and I fully believe the major perpetrators need to be found and punished.

Given his background Starmer has obviously been able to pull lots of strings to process a huge volume of offenders through the courts, and there is clearly a directive to name and shame in the media to send the clear message that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated. All good, and in the past I would have been firmly in support of this.

However there's something about the scale and speed of the court response which is making me uncomfortable. It feels as if they are highlighting specific cases to 'send a message' and it doesn't seem consistent with how the police and courts have handled previous similar cases.

So for instance an 18 year old has just been sentenced to 26 weeks in a young offender institution for 'possession of a bladed article in a public place'. I live near a London suburb and I reckon about a third of men out on the streets on a Saturday night would fall foul of this! But the police seem reluctant to stop them, let alone charge them?

Similarly the 53 year old woman, first offender, jailed for 15 months over Facebook hate post. Again, I don't condone what she did, but when you look at all the hate that women get online, or the death threats sent to JKR or MPs, there are few instances of people being jailed in the same way?

Justice needs to be applied fairly and consistently, across all groups, but this feels like a response at a level which cannot be maintained/applied across the board? Is that fair?

He wasn’t the Prime Minister then. He may well have advised the coalition government to take a hard stance on the 2011 riots.

Perhaps they should have thought twice. I read about an older man getting his prison sentence and being all, 'I can't cope!'

Fucking don't riot, then. I have zero sympathy.

No, I'll tell you what. Wait and see how you feel when your parent is stuck in a care home being deliberately dehydrated by the State because that's the sly method of euthanasia, and you have to go in daily to give them drink to stop them dying, and Surrey's Adult Safeguarding go after you to exact revenge because you take a failing care home to the press, and they do this with complete impunity, using your elderly parent as bait.

I don't have to wait for that, but don't expect anyone to get into trouble - the perpetrators are all still in their job and our local MP Chris Grayling whom we consulted and eventually treated me with sarcasm and contempt has since stepped down and now has a peerage!

But some woman mouthing off on Facebook just the once is sentenced for over a year!

FFS- Chris Grayling is a Lord ? He’s going to the House of Lords ? What on earth ? It’s bloody cronyism again !

A large proportion of them had lists of previous convictions.

Yes, it should have done. It doesn't mean you don't intensively treat and support them, and that that is likely to mean restricting their freedom for at least some time, it means you try to do just that, instead of punish, because they are kids and by definition can't understand, think or reason as an adult can be expected to do.

In point of fact we studied that case as part of my degree - it was a youth offending paper - and our response in holding them criminally responsible was hugely out of kilter with the other nations. All countries have kids who kill, on occasion. They are almost always treated, not punished, in countries without the death penalty, and intense efforts made towards rehabilitation. Because a child is not an adult, and they don't magically become one just because they do something truly horrific.

I don't pretend I would want that if it were my child - I would be out for blood - and that is an especially horrendous case, because of the scale of what they did to that little boy. But sometimes following the evidence of what actually works flies in the face of what our gut instincts want to do. And the whole point of being a civilised country is to try to do what works and is effective, instead of venting the very human and comprehensible urge for revenge. It's why we no longer execute even the worst murderers.

These thugs are lucky that police offers didn’t lose their lives during these riots. They would have been facing much more serious charges.
I have often been very critical of the police. However, i was alarmed at the blatant disrespect and recklessness exhibited by these vile thugs attacking police officers who were simply doing their job
It is also not an exaggeration to say that many

POC feared for their lives after witnessing the break down of law and order.
My niece works at an international Summer school . The students were afraid to leave their accommodation during the riots. Parents were frantically phoning the school as they were concerned about the welfare of their children.

Name, shame and jail all these racist thugs.

Hopefully he will go to prison. If people plead not guilty there has to be a trial and that takes longer - however, if found guilty after pleading not guilty they are likely to receive longer sentences.

@perfectstorm

I agree with you
Many people wouldn't though.
He was found on the railway line just behind my mum's house, it's always been a difficult one for me, so close to home

I've always struggled with it. There's a large part of me that wants to throw away the key. But we studied this - how seriously offending kids across Europe are treated, and it's pretty undeniable that they aren't cognitively developed enough to understand properly what they have done, and that outcomes societally are better if that is accepted and they are treated and worked with. I was haunted when the boys were freed, as I had a child the age James Bulger had been and it was so awful, realising what he had suffered and looking at a three year old. And his mother's suffering, too. But I'd want the death penalty if it were one of mine, too, and I know that's not logically right or effective. You have to separate out the two.

I'm so sorry for your mum. She must have had so much wish she'd realised and been able to intervene. I remember feeling that way, living miles away and only being a teenager myself, so God knows how someone close by felt.

But some woman mouthing off on Facebook just the once is sentenced for over a year!

It wasn't mouthing off. She posted this:

"It’s absolutely ridiculous. Don’t protect the mosques. Blow the mosque up with the adults in it.”

Minimising what she typed - inciting murder - is abhorrent.

Nope. I for once think Labour are doing a great job here.
And I’m not a Labour voter

No, I'd call that mouthing off. She made no plans to do any such thing. Yeah, she should get punished, and I'd be interested to learn her form - I understand she has none on this issue. It's like the person joking about having a bomb when going through customs. Don't do it, but the OP says 'is anyone a bit uneasy about the sentencing'. I don't mean, don't sentence them at all.

You see what other people get away with. And they do. They actually do the thing, but someone mouthing off gets the jail sentence.

I think she might be careful what she puts on Facebook in future. I’d also like to see Yaxley-Lennon in jail for a long time.

Exactly.

“He jailed her for 15 months, telling her: “You should have been looking at the news and media with horror like every right-minded person. Instead, you chose to take part in stirring up hatred.
“You had a big audience. You threatened a mosque … It truly was a terrible threat”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/14/woman-53-jailed-over-blow-the-mosque-up-facebook-post-after-southport-riots

She has the nerve to use the “ I’m a carer for my husband” line of defence.

Not the main issue of course but it’s adding insult to injury when people like this often don’t contribute anything positive financially, creatively or morally to society but instead choose to use their time to just sit at their keyboards spewing hate.

If they have kids they usually won’t be raising them to be kind or productive members of society either.

But weren't they just a few weeks ago letting dangerous criminals out of prison because there was no more room?

But weren't they just a few weeks ago letting dangerous criminals out of prison because there was no more room?

apparently!

I get they needed to stop the riots & set examples but people get low sentences for rape or killing someone in a car etc. so this seems disproportionate.

If someone said Trump should be shot etc would that count as inciting?

Of course it would, especially if it was in the midst of a campaign to off him.

I think it depends on the context, the audience, the timing.

The woman mentioned above was in a FB group of 5,000 people. I often wondered who writes those barely intelligible, “nostalgic” kind of posts, some overtly racist, that one idiotic friend of mine used to mindlessly re-post. I probably have the answer.

No, they were releasing non-violent prisoners early with probation conditions and/or electronically tagged. They specifically stated they were only releasing non-violent prisoners.

I totally agree with you

Just repeating this for traffic!

I agree it was well handled. Let the police and courts do their thing, without adding to the drama with unnecessary focus on Starmer or updates of the Stop.The.Thugs type.

It's always been this way for people who have been caught on camera (CCTV), plead guilty and go through magistrates court.

It's just that when it's local and a few people - rather than national mass riots - you only hear about it locally, if at all.

My local police FB page has people caught and tried within days regularly.