Martin determined to return home....

[spikegifted]

Originally posted by DaBeeeenster
You think there should be a (at least partially) specially selected jury?

Well, if the government of the day has its way, we'd soon be loose the right to trial by jury... Not any specially selected jury, just NO jury!

[Lead_Head]

Wow, what a read! This certainly has taken off!

Now how about a rating

Nick

[Punky]

jurys should be made up of impartial individuals with no specific interests in the case presented. only then can a fair trial occur.
zathros, you mentioned about how we would defend ourselves as against the law e.g. baseball bat to the head a few times, but here's a secenario for you : The government legalises rape. Your wife/gf/wotever, gets raped and you found out who the rapist was. would you :
1. beat the sh*t out the rapist with a bat or shoot them?
2. do nothing because rape is now legalised and you'd be breaking the law by punishing them for it?

[TiG]

First off, wow what a thread, some great points here and respect to Knox for taking the punishment, that he's taken.

I don't really know where to start, but i'll try and summarise my thoughts on the multiple questions raised here.

The first thing that really struck me was punishment to be decided by the victim, in the current context that would mean that TM would be at the mercy of the dead guys parents and he'd be a dead man.

Difficult to take this view from my own point of view as it would make me sick to think that the real villians of this whole escapade would be able to deal out vengance after his death. I can understand knox's point of view on running a small child down, i think if i did that i wouldn't be able to live with myself. However this isn't a common view - i think most people would leg it and hide and hope never to be caught.

Surely this is human nature to try and avoid punishment?. It really comes down to a sense of morals which is really what this whole discussion is about imo. What is an acceptable level of force in your own mind. Sadly TM's accepable level of force was coloured by his own bad experiences of being burgled so many times.

Sadly within the law its not his acceptable level of force that is how he is judged its the members of the jury and the media that colour this. Its difficult to come up with true guidelines for these sorts of things as each case needs to be judged on its own situation.

I think the last point to round off which is what i feel knox is trying to get across is that IF people didn't try and burgle him they wouldn't have died and TM wouldn't have committed any Crime.

If he was out of the house at the time he would not have killed them and would still be an innocent man, Its just circumstances that made him a killer, and can you tell me that you would know what you would do if you had just killed someone. Its alright saying you shouldn't do it, but if you had can you honestly say you'd do the sensible thing?.

Maybe Zathras would be dead if he tried to take someone out with the baseball bat instead of shooting them with the gun, as the guy stops the baseball bat and took it to you, and he didn't just want to immobilise you, he wanted you out the way as a witness.

TiG

[[R4A]Bigman]

Originally posted by tanman
All I can say is change many outdated laws and put the criminals to work for their crimes.

No workie no eatie

simple

I am in total agreement here, even though its a little off subject, I do think that would solve some problems.


DaBeeeenster: I'd just like to say how much I respect the way you talk through these situations. You really should be a diplomat or something, coz ur just like a exceptional bomb-defusing kit.


Now round to my argument.

I think that this thread is going off in the wrong direction. Is it really that important what you would have done in that situation, or how people would react? I don't think so. What has happened has happened. If we say as a country "TM was wrong, and should be locked up forever" then we achieve nothing. If we say "TM was right, and should be released and left alone" then we achieve nothing. In fact it really doesn't matter what happens to TM, we achieve nothing.

What we really should be discussing is why criminals do what they do, and what can be done about it. A constructive method which reduces the cost of crime on the whole of society.

I put to you, that British Citizens expect far too much of everything we have. We expect the NHS to be perfect, we expect to not have to pay for healthcare, education or indeed justice, and for them all to be the best they can possibly be, far better than they are at the moment. This really aint gonna happen.

For example, I believe that the Police force is understaffed and underbudgetted. If we pour more money into it, then we get more Police, better facilities, more protection. However, the side effect from this is that we then get more criminials caught, and less places to put them, and spend more money on prisions. The more cash we stick into the Police, the more we have to pour into Prisions. Then healthcare and education suffer, coz there really isn't enough money to go around as it is.

Why do criminals act the way they do? I'm not talkin about murderers, rapists and that class of scumbag (who imo deserve nothing less than a painful death), I'm talking about milk theives, and burglers. Maybe the key to it is education. I don't know.

If we can resolve crime in another way to beating the living daylights out of burglers with baseball bats and torturing milk theives (that made me giggle btw, I like that idea ), then the world will be a far better place and the Police can spend more of their precious time on things which really do matter like Class A criminals such as murderers, rapists etc.

Discuss

[tanman]

Ok ill have a go at this

I would say the biggest crime activity revolves around drugs

So with that nearly every country in world spends money on combating this problem. So why dont all the countries pull together and buy the drugs at source. Then destroy it.

I am sure overnight the drug problem would drop like a lead balloon. Sure short term the people who are depent on drugs would suffer,

but long term no supply = no usage

No cartel or crimelord can compete against so many countries.

A penny for them

tan

[TiG]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An All-Party Group of MPs investigating alcohol and crime was advised by the British Medical Association that alcohol is a factor in:

* 60-70% of homicides
* 75% of stabbings
* 70% of beatings
* 50% of fights and domestic assaults

The Police Superintendents advised that alcohol is present in half of all crime.

The National Association of Probation Officers advised that 30% of offenders on probation and 58% of prisoners have severe alcohol problems and that alcohol is a factor in their offence or pattern of offending.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fraid not Tan Man. Alcohol is worse. see the thread called Dabeenster on here for more info...

Thanks
TiG

[tanman]

Ok
Point taken but drug cime is also a major burden on the uk budget directly / indirectly

Tan

[[R4A]Bigman]

Again, why do people take drugs and why do people do socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol?

If people are drinking themselves to the point where they are commiting crime, that suggests to me there is a serious problem. Everyone likes a drink, but to take it so far so you cannot remember the next morning, that is the fault of someone/thing.

As has already been pointed out, drugs arent a huge problem, and I personally don't see anything wrong with people taking drugs. If they want to, then let them. Doesn't harm anyone else does it? You talk about drug-related crime. I'm willing to bet that somewhere in the region of 80-90% of drug-takers do not break the law to find the money to feed their lifestyle.

The media is to blame for the stereotypical drug user who steals, kills and causes as many problems for society as possible everyday. The fact of the matter is that the criminals who are caught and have alcohol problems, or are addicted to heroin [sp?]or something were going to do it anyway, as that is their nature.

Maybe I shouldn't say nature, coz I don't believe that murders are just born. I believe it is the nurture [sp?] of the people and they are 'trained' into the mindset. In which case this throws the blame on education, their upbringing and their parents / guardians.

Maybe if drugs were not against the law, and there were special places to go and get stoned or whatever with ur mates and have a good time, all supervised to stop people from abusing the system, there would not be a problem? Who knows?

Anyway, in a very roundabout way of getting back to the argument, I think that TM should be left well-enough alone, and people should take this event (and many many others) and try to find the route of the problem, and have a good go at fixing it.

Just before anyone comments, I do not take drugs, I drink sensibly, and I have never touched a ciggarette or bong. However, to validate my argument, I know a great many people who take drugs, cannabis esp, and none of them are criminals (other than taking the drugs of course).

[Punky]

Originally posted by [R4A]Bigman

Maybe if drugs were not against the law, and there were special places to go and get stoned or whatever with ur mates and have a good time, all supervised to stop people from abusing the system, there would not be a problem? Who knows?

one word for ya mate - AMSTERDAM. and only 5 days till i go there

[fondie]

when someone is intruding in your property, your clearly not in the best position to make rational descisions as to what reasonable force is, it's also much easier to shoot someone than to restrain them! if 2 men were robbing my property and i wished to stop them, how would i go about it with 'reasonable force'? i can ask them to leave, tell them i'll call the police then am i suppose to except that the probably isn't a way in which i can make them leave using reasonable force and just call the police and hope that they catch the burglars and return my belongings. starting a fight would probably be the best idea if you did want to stop them and get away with it because if they fought back you are then just defending yourself, but then that just puts you at risk, rather than incapacitating them with 'unreasonable force' to begin with.

[THCi]

"An Englishmans home is his castle"

So, therefore, everyone in this country has the right to defend his home, and his very life, with every available means. Even if it does lead to severe punishment from the state.

[Knoxville]

Originally posted by [R4A]Bigman
Why do criminals act the way they do? I'm not talkin about murderers, rapists and that class of scumbag (who imo deserve nothing less than a painful death), I'm talking about milk theives, and burglers. Maybe the key to it is education. I don't know.

These criminals you speak of, burglars, thieves etc steal for the most simple reason in the world. Nessecity.

They either need to steal to survive (no money/no home etc) or they steal to fund the life they want or think they need.

There are very few ways of stopping this, education and punishment don't work well in these cases as they are being implemented in todays society with little sucess.

[Knoxville]

Originally posted by THCi
"An Englishmans home is his castle"

So, therefore, everyone in this country has the right to defend his home, and his very life, with every available means. Even if it does lead to severe punishment from the state.

Thats already been said, the argument was the level of punishment that should be recieved from the state based on the situation.

[Knoxville]

Originally posted by not_your_punk
jurys should be made up of impartial individuals with no specific interests in the case presented. only then can a fair trial occur.

It may be fair on the criminal but is it fair on the victim?

zathros, you mentioned about how we would defend ourselves as against the law e.g. baseball bat to the head a few times, but here's a secenario for you : The government legalises rape. Your wife/gf/wotever, gets raped and you found out who the rapist was. would you :
1. beat the sh*t out the rapist with a bat or shoot them?
2. do nothing because rape is now legalised and you'd be breaking the law by punishing them for it?

Thats an extrememly hypothetical situation, quite absurd tbh, what government would legalise that???

But illegal or not i've discussed this with many of my friends i could never turn a blind eye to something like that i've said before, should i EVER see someone being raped, or a woman being beaten i'll go and have a go at whoevers doing it, i don't care if they're 7 ft 2 and 5 ft wide, i'd rather go down and distract them for a while knowing i've at least made a difference.

If its worth fighting over, its worth getting the sh*t kicked out of you over.

[DaBeeeenster]

Originally posted by not_your_punk
jurys should be made up of impartial individuals with no specific interests in the case presented. only then can a fair trial occur.
zathros, you mentioned about how we would defend ourselves as against the law e.g. baseball bat to the head a few times, but here's a secenario for you : The government legalises rape. Your wife/gf/wotever, gets raped and you found out who the rapist was. would you :
1. beat the sh*t out the rapist with a bat or shoot them?
2. do nothing because rape is now legalised and you'd be breaking the law by punishing them for it?

This is completely absurd. The government are not going to legalise rape! If you need to make that sort of example to back up your point, doesnt that say something about your position?