Do your have faith in your countries legal system?

I live in Ireland and come from the UK and both suffer from the pox that is liberals, political correctness and human right legislation.

 

The US also has major flaws in the system that need to be fixed.

 

The main problem with the Danish legal system is that the sentences are far too mild. Sentences for non-fatal violence and rapes are seldom sentenced to more than a few months in prison, and I can't remember any cases where the sentence for such cases has been more than a year.

 

I really can't fine much complaint about mine...except that there's alot of fines for doing alot of thing..like chewing gum..lol

 

On a daily basis our legal system works pretty well but sometimes there are cases when it's so terribly wrong.
I wish I had an example, but I'm having a bad day, I'll insert something in the course of the week.

 

Thats about the main problem I find with our system in Canada. Sentences are way to mild. Also, a criminal can only be charged if hes 16 or over. Otherwise , hes off.

 

I think the Norwegian legal system has some serious flaws. It looks great compared to the legal system of North Korea or Iran, but keeping things in perspective I would say the same about the Norwegian legal system as Christian said about the Danish. People get 8 years for smuggling marihuana while childmolesters rarely get more than 2 years. No, I'm not in favour of legalizing marihuana, but smuggling marihuana is not worse than raping a small girl.

Another flaw is that the legal system is more about rules than justice and fairness, but that's perhaps just one of those things which comes along with the package?

 

I don´t like a part of our system here in germany, cos I can´t understand why people, who are unemployed and/or homeless, have to live on the street, while people who have raped or killed someone gets three meals a day, a warm room with TV and we should be pity, because they had such a bad childhood, however it seems that a bad childhood is a legitimation for raping and killing. Those who aren´t send to a psychiatric clinic, getting 3-4 years and thats it, while their victim/s has(ve) to live with this forever. Even if
they are jailed for life, I wonder, if the society does gain by their existence, it costs to feed them up for life. Costs, which can be saved, by people who shows no respect for other people.


Regards,
Che.

 

Yeah , that sucks. A bad childhood is no excuse for criminal behaviour.

 

It's pretty much the same over here, only with 15 as the juvinile age. Interestingly enough, however, there is no juvinile age in civil court, only in criminal. In one civil court example, one baby in daycare was more or less put in trial for pulling in a table cloth, causing a heavy object to fall onto the head of another baby (I can't remember the exact circumstances or the outcome).

On a positive note, however, a 16 year old girl was sentenced to eight months in jail (not suspended, she actually has to serve the sentence) for a case on 'happy slapping'. In the original case, the sentence was made suspended, but when she and her partner in crime (whose sentence was also suspended) received the sentence by saying 'We're fucking free', the state atourney appealed the case to make the sentence harder.

 

whats ..happy slapping..?

 

It's when children, usually in groups and often while being filmed be their peers, walks up to strangers and start hitting them.

 

Belgium and a law system, not a good combination. Okay, we managed to get Dutroux (Child raper and murderer, Public Enemy Nr 1) behind bars for the next of his f*cking life but i took years to condem him (while there was enough evidence from the beginning)
and here are some more flaws (try to beat these)

Shooting burglars = You are guilty of attempting to kill some one. Maximum sentence + financial compensation for the burglar (the burglar goes free, of course, since he's the victim in all this)
Stealing a car/rape/etc. (normal crimes) = a couple months = free since no extra place in prisons
Any sentence = 1/3 of the sentence has to be done in prison and then you are free (at first it was if you behaved well, now it is standard)
condemt for up to six months prison = free (full prisons again)
Having money in other countries to evade taxes = small fine if you bring it back to belgium (while speeding 1km to fast = very huge fines)

And here's belgium finest for the moment.
Maurius O., polish gipsy, comes to belgium with a friend (Adam G.) Adam kills a belgium student called Joe Van Holsbeek and steal his MP3 at rush hour in central Station Brussel. Both villians are not adults (arround 17 years old IIRC).
Both get arrested in Poland and turned over to Belgium. Maurius O. gets placed in a sort of home for young criminals and is allowed to go the the football match Belgium - Kazachstan together with 3 other young criminals and only 1 ( ) caretaker. This guy is even allowed to leave the tribune to take a piss, without a caretaker nevertheless he is suspected of murder and stealing.
And here is the nicest. the home says: "No big deal, he already had done other trips so he was allowed to see an international football match"

And who said crime doesn't pay? Every prison can get easely 3 stars with hot meals, TV's, pool tables, PC's, swimingpools, etc. oh, and if a cop takes a picture, sue him for violating your privacy and demand financial compensation.
And no mather how many people you kill or banks you rob, there's at all times a minister of justice that allows you to go out for the weekend because hey, youre sentence ends sooner or later and you must be prepared the get back in the free world (and who cares that as soon as you are free that you are going back to jail for the next crime where you still need to be condemd for but is just delayed by a slow working justice system?)

 

Its this kind of thing that would make a grown man weep. When and where the hell did western nations lose the idea that a criminal should be treated like a criminal?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6146606.stm

Jails should be cesspits
Life should mean life
Minor crimes should result in time on a chaingang.

I'm not holding my breath though. I do after all live in a country where we recently gave a state funeral to an ex-Prime Minister who was blatantly corrupt. :angry:

 

I have alot of faith in the Australian legal system... Sure it isn't perfect, but I believe that is is impossible to attain legal perfection in any society... Whatsmore, of what I have seen, I regard most first world countries (Western Europe - America - China & Singapore) to have equally respectable legal systems, though hearing your views on rapists getting a few months has made me think again... Singapore might be a bit, errr, strict for my tastes but hey the crime rate is down...

In almost two decades of living in Australia I have never heard of any serious offender being given a sentence which is 'too lenient'... It seems that law breakers are punished harshly here, you can get up to 10 years for assault and 25 years for rape... Usually the maximum is what is given to the offender, very rarely will a rapist get less than 15 years... Recently a Peadophile was up for parole, the papers shouted him back into jail... In jail you get 3 meals a day, but let me tell you it aint no palace... Australian jails are notoriously dinghy, recently I saw one being 'modernised' it looked unchanged from the 1850's, stone walls, mould, rust, algae... just the way they should be. Legal age for commiting a crime is only 10 here (see strict), if you are under 15 you can commit a crime and be sentenced accordinly, but on top of proving actus reus/mens rea, it must be proved that you KNEW that what you were doing was wrong (not very hard to do)

We have one jailbird celebrity over here; Chopper Read... He's in the papers every second day, opening his new art exhibition, launchig his new book etc. etc. and we made a high-grossing movie about him starring Eric Bana... He was a toecutter found guilty of armed robbery assault and kidnapping like 50 times each, but he did ALOT of time, 30 years or something... so you can't really wave the leniency card... he also had his ears cut off in prison, so I can tell you our prisons are far from getaway vacations... Its much better to be on the dole than to be in prison

I am also very satisfied with our legal systems approach to Contract Law and Workplace Relations however that is boring so I won't talk about it... Criminal law really makes up only a small part of the legal system, though looking at this topic it seems we base out judgments almost entirely upon it when assessing the law...

So far Australia is untouched by the PC scourge... I can be a sexist racist bastard all i like ... Offending people verbally is not a crime and I believe that it should not be... ever

The only place PC has crept in is in the context of workplace relations... It is illegal to discriminate or harass someone about their sex/religion/race etc while at work, whether you are their superior or co-worker... I believe that this is justified and agree with it entirely... As long as you do not take it too far so that every snide little comment becomes 'illegal' as is the case in America... The only minor gripe I have with American law is that it is too PC and there is an overabundance of litigation... You can sue for just about any minor unfortunate happenance, people have won millions for tripping over tree stumps, it seems that the concept of individual responsibility has gone out of the window, if you trip over a stump its the states fault... One person won millions of dollars because McDonalds made her coffe too hot it burnt her lips (yes, this actually happened) that is not justice if you ask me... Nevertheless I think American law excels in the criminal department, and the PC over litigation is all that disturbs me...
oh, and the gun laws :kill:

 

my mom is a nurse at the sonoma county jail ..on several occasions she has had guys serve sentance and released and come back in the next day ,,,turns out its cold outside ,no tv ( 3 tv.s one for black ,mexicans and whites) no three meals and a warm cot ,,plus lottsa buddies in there to hang out with ...so you find yourself outside pick up a rock and break a store window ..sit down ,wait for cops..free ride back to cozy jail...whats wrong with this picture ?

 

That jails have too much comfort?
In the old days nobody liked to go to jail because it was a horrible place, with no luxery, only bread and water, small cells, no TV, ....
If you start to do crimes to get in jail because it's better there you have a problem. Namly: too luxious jails and a bad social system.

 

In Indiana, we have Capital punishment for "Capital crimes."
The Oklahoma city bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was executed in 2001 at the US Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana after losing his appeal.

Serves the bastard right.

Tim

 

My justice system disgusts me at times. Like for example , I was watching the news last night after House and there was this case of a man and women who kidnapped girls and locked them up in their house and literally violated them in everyway imaginable. The man got 8 years in prison and the women got free because she had allready spent two years in pre trial custody. The famalies of the victims came out of the court room crying at the verdict. One of the girls raped said her life was over and she had nothing.

Unfortunetely , in Canada thats probably the most anyones ever gotten for sexual abuse in a while, and thats only half the maximum penalty.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s ... hub=Canada

 

I'm not in favour of capital punishment, but like everyone else in this thread I think that all punishment should really be punishment. Jail should be a claustrophobic, dull and lonely place where the only thing you have to entertain yourself with is the thought of what you've done to end up there and how that was a really really stupid thing to do.

Except for sexual offenders, who should be actively made to suffer.