Monday, March 09, 2015

Auld Acquaintance

"This is Mr............"announced the usher. She didn't need to, because I recognised him as soon as the guards brought him up into the dock. He recognised me too, with a very wary look,  as he should have done, since I have dealt with him on more than a dozen occasions  over the years. He is a slight, balding man in his early forties and he has something like 175 previous convictions. His manner is apologetic, as ever, probably because a night or two in the cells is about as close as he ever gets to being sober.

The duty solicitor did her best, explaining that he has had a long-term addiction to alcohol, and reoffends either by shoplifting the stuff or by pinching something else that he can sell to buy booze.(Much the same cycle applies to drug addicts, by the way). She didn't need to tell me this, because he is firmly in my memory.

He has been in and out of prison on the well-established revolving door, for years. Today's offence was fairly trivial, and he had just spent almost 48 hours in a cell. We were told that he had self-referred to a local organisation for help with his addiction, but had relapsed and taken a few cans of beer from Asda.

I took off my glasses and looked him in the eye. "We have seen quite a lot of each other over the years, haven't we?" I said. He gave a sheepish nod. "You know the score as well as we do. We ought to send you straight back inside today." No reaction. "But we are going to give you another chance, although you have had loads of last chances before. We are going to fine you £100 but deem it served by your time in custody. We hear that you are having help for your problems.  We cannot make you take that help, but we want you to.

Only you can sort out your problems, and we are giving you a chance to make a start. Go with the officer please". A nod of the head and he was gone.

As I turned over the photocopied list of cases I spotted his date of birth, that is one week after that of my son.

There but for the grace of god............


22 comments:

  1. So a man with 175 previous convictions walks free? Do you ever wonder why police officers like me are losing (or have lost) faith in the legal system?
    Please post on here when you next see this man again-i'm guessing tomorrow or the next day.
    Jaded

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    1. It's quite clear that prison is no cure for his re-offending. and you can't lock someone up and throw away the key, when all he has done is nick a few cans. He shouldn't be in the legal system in the first place. Medical treatment maybe; it would be cheaper to provide him with the funds so he didn't need to steal. But giving someone the means to kill themselves (however slowly) is immoral.
      What would you actually do?

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    2. You can only send someone into custody if the offence warrants it, as instructed by our Guidelines. Sadly these days we are only allowed even to give community service as an alternative to a prison-warranting offence. If you are fed up with magistrates' light sentences, don't blame them, but the softies at the Sentencing Guidelines Council who won't let us do what the public (and police) expect.

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  2. Anon: what's your solution, then? As a taxpayer, spending GBP35k/yr keeping him in jail to save Asda a few quid of stolen booze doesn't seem like a very good trade-off.

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  3. The trouble is a man like this is in a mess, how he came to be this way we can argue about but shoving him in prision is an expensive waste. moast towns have people like him and they are a pest but until we have sort of social care/sentence where he could be put the imperfect anser is what happened here.

    He has another black mark on his casrd, though that won't bother him. He has had a punishment by being inside and justice can be satisfied.

    Prision should be reserved for dangerous people. There must be ways to deal with people in the community better.

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  4. There are often cases when there is very little if any alternative. A fine? Forget it. He almost certainly wouldn't pay it and it would then be added to the over a billion pounds currently in unpaid fines. Several weeks in prison? An enormous cost to the tax payer and no long term change to the defendant's behaviour likely. An alcohol treatment requirement? Probably already had more than one and can only be ordered if the defendant agrees to it.

    Yes he 'walked free' but after spending a couple of days in a cell. Everyone who is released 'walks free'.

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  5. I'd genuinely be interested to know what the officer posting at 11.33 would like to see us do. It is deeply depressing having to deal with these cases and I share his frustration.

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  6. It may only be a small theft but it is greatly aggravated by 175 prior convictions, many of which are presumably of a like nature. Despite this, his sentence on this occasion is not far off the starting point for a first-time offender.

    Locking up people like this is far from a perfect solution, but it's the best one available as things stand. The only way that his offending will reduce is if the opportunity to offend is taken away; for recidivists like him, custody is the only sentence that will achieve that aim. Pot him for six months and, next time, give him another six months. Repeat ad infinitum.

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    1. As I pressed "Publish", I realised that there's only four months available with credit for a low-level shoplifting. But the principle remains the same...

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  7. If this mans illness was toothache, cancer, tuberculous or ebola the NHS would take care of him.

    Because his illness is alcoholism, he has no social support and is a recidivist, no-one gives a shit.

    Politicians bandy about platitudes but spend money on the "Arts" and supporting "Community Action Programmes" rather than tackling such basics as addiction.

    Without extreme good fortune or a truly caring and committed social worker people like your thieving drink or drug addict tend to get left to their own desperate devices.

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  8. "Pot him for six months and, next time, give him another six months. Repeat ad infinitum."

    Assume a previous post is right and it costs £35k a year to keep someone in jail, although I thought it was more. Then assume he simply goes on offending and spends most of the next ten years in jail. That's £350k, plus the inflation of this figure over the period just for this one offender. Then guess at how many there might be like this one just in every major town, ignoring the minor ones, in the country. Who is going to pay to build the prisons before we even consider the cost of keeping people like this inside "ad infinitum"?

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  9. There's some naivety on show here. Prison is expensive I agree but whilst criminals are in there they are not committing crime. Someone like this man thieves every day costing the taxpayers much more than £35,000 a year.Factor in legal costs,police and court time,NHS,social workers,he is costing us a fortune.

    My experience tells me that that most addicts don't want to change their lifestyle as it's too much effort. They often don't get a decent punishment on the rare occasions they get caught.
    Jaded

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    1. Come on, Jaded! You can't have it both ways. Even with current policing policies, this chap, and countless others like him are repeatedly being picked up, charged, held in custody until they're brought to court, and you're seriously suggesting that even more time in jail is really going to sort him out?!

      This case is an excellent illustration of the dilemma the police, courts, probation and healthcare system face. How can we channel the resources wasted on processing such individuals through the courts into effective therapy to help them come off drink and / or drugs? It can be done, as the various residential rehab centres around demonstrate, but it is a long haul, and doesn't always succeed until the nth attempt (and sometimes never - and in some cases, nature takes its course). But we know that simply locking them up solves nothing.

      Thank you, Bystander, for giving this very telling and well chosen example. It encapsulates marvellously the nature of the challenges we face. The same is true of those with mental health problems, sometimes brought on by or otherwise associated with substance abuse.

      If there were easy answers, they'd have been tried by now. Something more innovative is needed. A change of mindset on all parts might help.

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    2. Imprisonment certainly doesn't stop anyone from committing crime: assaults on staff, assaults on other prisoners, selling and consuming drugs, theft, just to mention a few possibilities. And with a mobile phone (possession of which is also an offence), you can arrange as much criminal activity as you like on the outside.

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  10. " An alcohol treatment requirement? Probably already had more than one and can only be ordered if the defendant agrees to it"
    Isn't this the problem ? Compulsory attendance at a secure clinic might do some good. Expensive, though ! I would think every town in Great Britain has a person like this. In the old days there was something called Preventative Detention, where reprobates got the normal sentence, plus a period of "PD". Of course it didn't cure the recidivists, it just gave everybody a bit of a rest from the person inside.

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  11. alcoholism may be an illness but it does have a cure like any other addiction - you stop. I stopped smoking, he can stop drinking, like thousands of other people. Also, it is not his addiction that is causing him to steal, he is choosing to do that.
    However pathetic he actually is, he does have some free will. If he wanted to he could get sober, stop appearing in court, start trying to save his life. But he isn't ... and what reason does he have to do that? Certainly not a steer from the "system" which effectively excuses his behaviour.

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  12. It's a bloody sad state of affairs that we can't help those who need it.

    I know it sounds fine to lock people like tis up but it does cost a fortune and no guarantee of reform. Yes, it stops them offending whilst they are inside but that's about it.
    The truth is there is no real answer and as humans as imperfect as we are we revert back to old cliques which somewhat admits defeat

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  13. The problem is that we do not punish re-offending. Obviously people like this should be treated like children: The punishment did not work, so you have to do it again. This means that if you re-offend you serve the sentence for the new crime+ all your previous sentences. Jail time would accumulate quickly.

    The balance over 5 years to be served in a low-cost institution. Slave labour in Siberia or medically induced coma, I DO NOT CARE.

    5 crime-free years wipes the slate clean.

    This would allow a short sentence for a first offence, but an absolutely predictable consequence for re-offending. The persistent culprits of minor offences would be removed from society. They may be only minor individual offences, but there must be a clear signal that society will not put up with it.

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  14. A bit like the 3 strikes and your out approach- it works for some but not for many.
    The reality is that everyone is different but the law ansd sentencing is very confined unlike America where all sorts of weird things are tried as a sentence.

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  15. It seems to me that when persistent offenders are sentenced the magistrates seem to think "prison didn't work so let's try something else". I personally know that criminals laugh at probation,suspended sentences and DTO's. They live for the moment and just care about dodging prison.
    I don't think prison "sorts people out", it just gives decent people a break.
    Jaded

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  16. That does create problems however, because there are greater numbers of (often trivial) criminal offences than ever before.

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  17. Anonymous11 March 2015 at 22:04:
    Sorry but I would rather live with the current system than live in the type of country to which you seem to aspire.

    Perhaps you should take heart from the fact that a high proportion of such alcoholics (or drug addicts) do not survive their half century.

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