Legal response to looters

[Applespider]

Wasn't trying to tar all bankers with the same brush and well aware that many of the shenanigans weren't against the law even if they were, to those outside looking in, a tad shady (moving money around is one thing, some of the gambling in the futures markets seems reckless and only concerned with making money for funds without any consideration of the real world implications). I was more referring that at the point where the banks were bailed out, there was a lot of talk about limiting bonuses until the banks had paid back the taxpayer and yet, the country is still making cuts while there are some large bonuses around even in those banks bailed out. Now, while again that's legal so there's not much we can do about it, it doesn't entirely feel right.

Still... it's an entirely different conversation to what the thread is about. Two wrongs don't make a right so just because there are perceived injustices out there, it doesn't mean we shouldn't throw the book at those who took part in last week's lootings.

[Huguenot]

Agreed.

[Loz]

OK, I'll play devils advocate here.

What we saw last week was the complete break down of law and order. People looting felt the law was beyond them - why else would they have brazenly broke into shops knowing that press and cctv cameras were focussed on them. This is the law trying to reassert its authority. Not only is the crime being taken into account, but the circumstances around the crime - i.e. if you were out there, then your crime is considered as part of the general violence.

There are going to be anomalies - the woman getting 5 months for receiving the looted shorts being one - but I hope the appeals process will right those wrongs.

I can see people's arguments, but I am really, really struggling to have any sympathy to any punishment dealt to anyone who had an involvement with the looting.

[DaveR]

" And the Judiciary do take note of guidance on sentencing, so if you have a Government line that says 'we will get you and there will be no leniancy', then some Judges will interpret that to mean maximun sentencing and no bail. "

Sentencing guidelines are not issued by the govt.

"Except that how the judiciary are seeing it is that even those who 'just' looted opportunistically are responsible 'art and part' for the bigger situation"

Public order offences (affray, violent disorder etc.) explicitly make each individual responsible in law for all the consequences of the associated behaviour, and I can't see any reason not to extend the logic to the 'passing looter'.

There is no conspiracy. Sentences are not, as far as I can see, generally out of step with what you would expect for offences committed in the context of serious widespread disorder, even if there is the odd particularly harsh one. Linking it to MPs and/or bankers is just nonsense.

[Undisputedtruth]

RBS chief Stephen Hester admits taxpayers' money 'leaks' into bonuses

[Loz]

Undisputedtruth Wrote:

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> RBS chief Stephen Hester admits taxpayers' money 'leaks' into bonuses

Can we have one thread on the looting without someone slipping a banker non-sequitur in?

[Undisputedtruth]

Really Loz, there have been 6 posts or more on bankers in this thread alone.

Moving on, would tough sentencing on our youths reinforce their beliefs that they are unlikely to be treated fairly in society?

[Huguenot]

That's not really relevant. Most criminals claim they're innocent and have been treated unfairly.

In this sense the belief in 'unfair' treatment is only as valid as it actually being unfair.

[Loz]

Someone posted this up on the Guardian comment site, which I thought was interesting:

"I'm not a lawyer but have had it explained by a lawyer and I understand this to be the case: in riots, anyone convicted gets an automatically higher sentence because, in addition to the crime they were convicted for, they have ridden on the back of someone else's violence. Basically, a looter uses the violent crowd as a weapon (intimidation, distraction, actual physical violence) the same way that a getaway driver gets charged the same as those armed robbers who actually waved the guns."

[Undisputedtruth]

Huguenot, I'm not saying the rioters are innocent. Rather that some/most do not have a stake in society and that the tough sentencing, just throws good money after bad, doesn't solve this problem.

[Huguenot]

I agree in a way. I've seen how pub fighters with minor gripes and feed themselves into an unreasonable fury if only one 'reasonable' person mentions in passing that their gripe may be justified.

It's not the crim's sense of injustice that feeds this social rage, it's the general public's (albeit muted) justifications of it.

I'm not saying that this justification is unfair either - multiple political scandals over the last decade have led the general public to distance themselves from normal social acquiesence, and they have unwittingly unleashed this turmoil upon themselves.

Incidentally, I don't think the answer is acquiesence, but I'm staggered at the actions of the public at the ballot box. They voted for more of the same.

[mockney piers]

It doesn't surprise me at all that they did.

There is a massive conceptual disconnect between our occasional tick at the ballot box and the nature of our politics.

I think this disconnect widens exponentially the farther you get from the local to the central, hence we might think we have a huge say about the residents association, some sort of say in whterh the bin men or speed humps in our ward are prioritised, and I think that noone believes they have any say about westminster, harldy surprising when party machines make the grassroots feel like that, leave alone your average relatively apolitical voter.

I've mused over how we can change this in the past but had all my proposals pooh-poohed.

[mockney piers]

Mind you, we had an opportunity to set the ball rolling on political reform (or minor tinkering) and the nation pooh poohed it, so no wonder my radical solutions are scoffed at.