Undue risk to society

Just as I recently mentioned in despatches here, a lawyer has popped his head above the parapet screaming about prisoners having rights!

Now, I do not agree with all the proposals, but at least they are a step in the right direction.

Criminal Justice Reform Bill

* Aims to reduce the number of people in prison by relaxing bail rules and creating new sentences such as home and community detention to replace jail for less-serious offences.

* Lengthens non-parole periods to two thirds of a sentence, up from one third and allows no parole for prisoners with jail terms of 12 months or less.

* Gives the Parole Board power to summon witnesses and keep some information confidential from the prisoner and his or her lawyers. This could, for example, protect the source of the information.

* Requires that police be told when a prisoner is released on parole.

* Allows Commissioner of Police to apply to have a paroled prisoner recalled to jail if there is an "undue risk" to public safety.

* The Sentencing Council will set guidelines and work on policy for sentencing and parole. It will include four judges and five non-judges, chosen by the Government.

Soft bail options such as home detention should not be considered - the custodial sentence is to teach the criminal a lesson re their anti-social behaviour.

Parole should be totally abolished and sentences served in full - keeping the scumbags who plague our society off the streets. Also, the Parole Board and its minions, with all its attendant paperwar on prisoner rights would cease to exist.

Why do we need yet another layer of bureaucracy known as a Sentencing Council? Surely the expensively overpaid judiciary have the means to actually to get together over a gin and sort out what sentences the scumbags deserve.

This lawyer should be locked up for causing said 'undue risk to public safety'...