He gets my vote

What has often amazed me, is that the USA is known as "the land of the free", with much mention of the constitution (sorry, can't remember which amendment is quoted oft - 5th?) yet criminals and wrong-doers seem to get punished a lot more severely than here. Almost as though its a given that if you break the law of the country, you give up your rights as a citizen of the country, for as long or as short as your punishment is.

So why don't we have that attitude over here? Victims of crime are increasingly feeling victims of the very systems designed to protect them, not the criminals.

On the other hand however, we need to stop the rise of "trial by media". Innocent until proven guilty needs to be upheld, regardless of what crime has been committed.

 

I was once summoned as a witness for the prosecution, and had to go to court. I had no objection to this, and told the copper that first took my statement that I would do whatever was required. While I was in the waiting room at the court, waiting for my turn to give evidence, I overheard several coppers, who were there for other cases, talking. One asked something like "How did you get on with that lad that robbed the shop?", to which the other would reply "the case collapsed, none of our witnessed turned up, how did you get on with your car thief?" to which the first copper replied "my case collapsed too, nobody bothered to turn up". The conversation went on, and it became clear that the coppers were feeling really despondent having caught the criminal, prepared a case just for it to collapse because people couldn't be bothered to do their bit. From what I overheard, the car thief and the robber both walked free because the witnesses failed to turn up to give evidence. It would be easy to blame 'the system' for letting them walk free, but the system was let down by the people it is supposed to protect.

I tell this little anecdote to make a particular point. We all blame 'the system', and often have the right to do so, but at the same time we all have to shoulder some responsibility sometimes. When I went to court, I think the lad was expecting to walk free because of the same type of scenario (I know the lad, I know he will have had that attitude), but to his dissappointment he had robbed the wrong people, and everyone who was summoned as a witness turned up, and he went to jail.