Letters – Our justice system is failing victims.
It is reported that a young mother was attacked by her boyfriend
who forced his way into her home, threatened her with an iron bar, dragged her
from her house, drove her to an abandoned quarry, made her strip naked and tied
her to a tree – because she said she wanted to go home to bed and not spend the
night with her attacker. The attacker even threatened her life by
saying ‘there’s already a hole dug for you.’ Unbelievably the attacker was
sentenced to a mere 20 months in prison, a sentence of which it is likely only
half will actually be served.
Leaving aside the obvious point that the punishment doesn’t even
come close to fitting the crime, one of the key principles of the justice system
is that it should adequately protect the public from further offences. If this
were a single, isolated example of a failure within the system then it would be
too much, but it is not: it is symptomatic of a much wider problem of victims
being failed by our soft-touch sentencing policy for such violent
offences.
We need to get a grip on the shattered justice system in this
country. We need to make sure that punishments fit the crime – and that
sentences are meaningful, with an expectation that time will be fully served so
that countless criminals do not get released without serving the sentences they
were given. Parole should be available on a case by case basis, not an expected
aspect of the system.
Rehabilitation should always be a core priority for our justice
system, but punishment and protecting the victim should never take a back seat
role. In the UK, the right-wing have traditionally been pro-tough sentences and
the left-wing have been pro-rehabilitation. In my view, and that of my Party,
they should be two sides of the same coin. The criminal justice system should
be tough enough to act as a deterrent, making sure that no-one who has been to
jail wants to go back. Within that framework, every possible support should be
provided for those in prison who wish to turn their lives around. So I was also
disgusted last month when a criminal released from jail, who had found an honest
job on the outside, was returned to jail because of an administrative mix-up on
the part of the prison relating to his job. Our system is failing victims and letting them down badly. It is failing
in attempts at rehabilitation during and after sentencing. Society must not
continue to sweep these issues under the carpet. Jonathan
Arnott MEP.
