Sentencing and Policing

It is odd to say the least of it how quickly we forget the horrors of a week ago. If the sentences given to Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan had been passed last week would there have been the same reaction as we are seeing today or would all the do gooders have complained anyway? I think the do gooders probably would have complained anyway but they would have been given less airtime for their views. Now of course it's open season to second guess those with a real idea of what needs to be done to ensure these riots do not happen again. I think the government must make it clear that the approach of the do gooders to miscreants has failed and that they have been quite wrong to treat criminals as victims rather than those on the receiving end of illegal actions. The government must hold its nerve on this and ignore the diatribes of the LibDems and others such as the Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League for Penal Reform. I imagine the police support the sentences being passed on rioters since one understands that they are often demoralised by sentences which they see as undoing all the hard work they have put in to first catching a criminal and then obtaining a conviction. Talking of the police it is a scandal that Bratton was unable to apply for the job of Met Commissioner simply because he is an American. The list for applicants closed at noon today and includes Sir Hugh Orde. It will be a travesty if this man gets the job. No one at the head of a trade union should become head of any governmental type institution. There is simply too big a conflict of interest and it is unbelievable that he should have applied for the position.