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Topic History of: Pressure to remove bail to those accused of sex crimes
Max. showing the last 5 posts - (Last post first)
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veritas |
JK2006 wrote:
And the problem is - locked up on remand, without access to facilities, it's almost impossible to prepare or discover, a defence.
Which, of course, is what the police - only interested in gaining convictions, not in finding the truth - want.
There is a state election in NSW next March and I will be so pleased so see an utterley vile Attorney General booted out.
He removed laws giving bail and as a consequence hundreds are now routinely locked up for almost any offence only for 50% to be found innocent or given good behaviour bonds 6 months later.
The problem is the majority tend to be people already struggling on nil or low wages...they lose thir jobs and their rented or goverment housing and go back to the bottom of the pile and generally spend another 3/4 years trying to get their lives back in order.
Even the police hate this now as they get sick of having to fudge figures about 'solved crimes' for idiot politicians.
Again this is society run according to tabloid media who constantly invent campaigns and convince people that there will one day be a perfect society where there is no crime etc. |
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Locked Out |
SJB wrote:
Locked Out, you give a well balanced argument. BUT... in the real world, the "strong prima facie case" for locking someone up is presented in its untested form by the police and CPS. Do we trust them?
So unless and until we have a justice system which commands my respect and confidence (and precious little in life does that...) I must agree with BR that bail must always be granted to preserve the principle of innocent until proven guilt and to protect the right to a fair trial.
One final point arising from Locked Out's post: yes sex offenders are criminals but they ARE different to other criminals in a very important way. They have been convicted on a much lower standard of proof, greatly reduced (or no) evidence and are much more subject to strict liability provisions.[/quote]
Thanks for the reply, SJB. And on reflection I have to say that the police and CPS can, at least some of the time, be trusted to grant bail. There is manifest proof of that out there. It's something that, also, I have personal experience of. We must not fall into the paranoid trap of believing that either body exists solely for the purpose of removing as many people from the streets - guilty or not - as possible for no reason at all.
Bail and Remand must remain in place, and whoever carries the responsibility for the decision is always going to have someone claiming that the system is biased. Removing remand altogether would be a move entirely without perspective. Not, I hope you'd agree, a good thing. |
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SJB |
JK2006 wrote:
And the problem is - locked up on remand, without access to facilities, it's almost impossible to prepare or discover, a defence.
Which, of course, is what the police - only interested in gaining convictions, not in finding the truth - want.
Yes, absolutely. Well said.
Locked Out, you give a well balanced argument. BUT... in the real world, the "strong prima facie case" for locking someone up is presented in its untested form by the police and CPS. Do we trust them?
So unless and until we have a justice system which commands my respect and confidence (and precious little in life does that...) I must agree with BR that bail must always be granted to preserve the principle of innocent until proven guilt and to protect the right to a fair trial.
One final point arising from Locked Out's post: yes sex offenders are criminals but they ARE different to other criminals in a very important way. They have been convicted on a much lower standard of proof, greatly reduced (or no) evidence and are much more subject to strict liability provisions. |
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Locked Out |
I'm not quite sure I agree with you here, BR {which shouldn't come as any kind of surprise to anyone}. Recourse to remand must surely be an option open to any kind of civilised society. To throw every suspect back onto the streets regardless of the weight of evidence is not a sign of a free and just society, it's a sign of a society's law enforcement arm sometimes {and regularly} failing to apply common sense to its investigations and do its primary duty - ie "protection of the public". There may be a case for comparing policing to dirty water here, but why chuck the baby out as well?
While it's certainly true that a percentage of those arrested are stitched up or falsely accused, there are also cases which actually do merit a potentially dangerous suspect being removed from society immediately, although it must be stressed that a strong prima facie case be required.
What does worry me here, though, is the usual immediate resort to tabloid mentality suggested by the call for remand to be the only option when it comes to those suspects whose motive is sexual. Sorry, I'll put that into more familar {if less accurate} terms. We're talking about sex offenders, or at least alleged ones.
Crime is crime. And while we go out of our way to understand what motivates someone who robs, mugs pensioners, beats people to pulp because of their skin colour or breaks into houses in order to feed their drug habit {and don't get me started on football hooligans and drunken Saturday night gladiators}, all of whom society more or less tolerate without too much approbrium, we are less forgiving of those whose motivations stem from more primal urges.
Sure, sex offenders are criminals. But they're no different to any other criminals. They shouldn't be treated any better - or worse - than other miscreants. Either by society or what we laughingly call the Criminal Justice System.
End of sermon. |
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BR |
Bail should always be given. Remand should never be given. The principle of innocent before being proven guilty should be the over-riding principle in the justice system of a democratic country.
The prisons have many thousands on remand - hence they have become too full and too expensive for the taxpayer.
Only in a murder case ( such as terrorist attack or caught red handed ) should bail be denied.
I agree with JK that anyone in a prison on remand will find it impossible to mount any sort of defence. They may see their lawyer a couple of times but they have no access to getting witnesses or paperwork or alibis together. They "appear" in court with very little chance of winning.
That is why remand is fundamentally wrong. It denies a fair trial and should be stopped except in extreme circumstances ( as it used to ). |
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