Just got back from a training course at the prison college so I have been out of the loop a while.
Whilst I was there I took the chance to look in the prison service museum.
There is ample evidence of draconian punishment for the most trivial of offences, for instance, one person was jailed for seven years hard labour fo shouting in 1833 during a royal visit
“No King, no war!”
Many of the non-capital offences involved forced slavery in the colonies.
Problem with transportation is that the Crown and its cronies made lots of money out of this, which makes one wonder wether people were dealt with more severely than was justified.
In the 17thC a thirteen year old boy was hung for stealing a bilberry pie.
It was after the 1885 Gladstone report that the change in the emphasis in prison objectives came about, less retribution and more rehabilitation.
I cannot remember exactly how many offences attracted capital punishment in 1750 but it was in the order of 250! and yet this obviously did not provide disincentive enough as the number of executions remained high.
When I looked at the regime part of the museum one thing was striking and that was the pointlessness and griinding opressiveness of the work that prisoners were compelled to do. One such was turning what looked like a winch handle which had a screw for increasing the resistance(hence the term ‘screw’ for prison officers). An inmate had to turn this for as much as 20k times a day and there was a counting device attatched just to make sure.The treadmill was another, no useful work was done just keep stepping upward against a resistance clutch, there were several others.
Prisoners were not allowed to talk at all at any time but were supposed to reflect on their crimes.
The crime rate still rose and you may not be surprised to learn that upon release a large percentage of former prisoners were, by our definition, mentally ill.
Retribution has been tried for centuries and it has not worked.
There were figures in the museum that show that although hard labour was much reduced the length of sentence went up
but hidden away was the point that there were fewer executions too which probably accounts for this.
Currently about 80% of released offenders commit further crimes so it must seem attractive just to keep them locked up except for the cost.
My view is that a sentence should be open ended where the inmate has to work outside after his incarceration for a predetermined time at real wages in a government run industry and only earns his freedom once he has proved he can hold that job down satisfactorily .He would then be free to do whatever he wishes subject to the law.
We have let in poeple into GB who have warrants still outstanding against them but have not always returned them due to extradition niceties.
We are currently realeasing convicted IRA bombers and the like long before their sentences are up and we still allow them to live here despite them being citizens of Eire.
Because of the European act involving the free movement of goods and services it is possible for a criminal of another European state to live here, so why should it be differant when it concerns an American?
That’s like asking, “Why isn’t America in the EU?” We have entered into a treaty with the other EU (or EEA) Member States that means we can’t prevent any of their citizens from coming here for any reason.
The IRA murderers are entitled to remain here because they are EEA nationals. Some of them, incidentally, are British citizens. The man who planted the Brighton bomb, for example, is from Norfolk (I can’t remember his name).
No. Being born in the UK isn’t the only requirement for British citizenship. I think that one or both of your parents has to be a citizen as well and there are other provisions relating to commonwealth nationals, some of whom can get citizenship even if they weren’t born here.
Casdave said that the IRA prisoners who have been released were “citizens of Eire”. My understanding is that the Republic of Ireland will grant citizenship to anybody born in Northern Ireland who wants it, but some of the IRA terrorists were born in England and so would not qualify on any ground.
The point I was trying to get at was that “citizenship” at the nation-state level is an incerasingly irrelevant concept in the EU. The rights of an Irish citizen in the UK are little different from those of a UK citizen and vice versa. The same goes for a French, Italian or Belgian citizen, and so on.
One of your parents must be “settled” (legally resident) in Britain; citizenship per se isn’t a requirement.
Anyone with a parent or grandparent born in the Republic can obtain Irish citizenship - including the English (although IRA terrorists could probably be denied it on grounds of criminality or the like). I’m not sure if a Northerner without a parent/grandparent from the ROI can obtain citizenship. I do know that most of my friends from the North, almost all of whom are nationalists, only hold British passports.
Agreed, as long as it’s citizenship of an EU country, of course. The point I was trying to get at is that many of the IRA prisoners are British citizens - by virtue of having been born in the North to citizen/resident parents - so there was no need to go to all the way to Norfolk for your example.
ruadh, I realise we’ve gone a bit off-topic here, but I understood that the Republic of Ireland’s constitutional claim to Northern Ireland, only recently renounced, meant that the RoI government treated birth or residency in the North as the equivalent of birth or residency in the Republic for legal purposes.
Of course, I could be wrong, and/or the position could have changed post-Good Friday. If I’m right, however, the reason your nationalist friends do not have RoI nationality might be that it makes no material difference which nationality they are.
Been doing some checking and yup, according to the Irish Dept of Justice, Northerners are indeed entitled to ROI citizenship if they want it. That doesn’t necessarily mean Britain no longer considers them citizens (or subjects or whatever you lot are ;)), though.
Just to keep this vaguely on topic I read today that the current Mrs Tyson is about to become the next ex-Mrs Tyson. Was he beating her, too?