The government is proposing another populist measure - imposing prison sentences of up to 5 years for causing death by careless driving, which currently carries a maximum fine of £2,500. The alternative offence of causing death by dangerous driving already carries a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment.
The change is expected to create a need for 800 extra prison spaces.
There are currently around 3,500 deaths each year on the roads, half caused to car occupants, with around 40,000 serious injuries and 280,000 minor injuries in 240,000 accidents. Including accidents without injuries, there are a total of around 4 million incidents annually in the UK.
If the average sentence imposed for causing death by careless driving were 3 years, and people actually served half that, then we are looking at about 550 prison sentences a year. In other words imprisoning about a fifth of the drivers involved in accidents involving a fatality. Given that many drivers involved in a fatal accident will themselves have been killed, the imprisonment rate for survivors will probably be higher: around 25% - 30%, maybe more.
The reason more people are not prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving is because juries are reluctant to convict for it. Mainly, I suspect, because they realise that 'accidents happen' and it could be them next time.
Lowering the bar will bring the courts into disrepute. Why should people be punished heavily for slight negligence? Road accidents do happen, lots of them, and it is a risk all road users take (and create). Mostly we get away with these accidents without injury. Only a tiny fraction of road accidents result in death - less than one in 1,000. And even taking into account only those accidents that result in injury, death is still relatively uncommon - little more than 1 in 100 injury accidents.
Banging people up for slight negligence means banging them up when they had no intention to cause harm. Not only that, but they will have had no conception that they were liable to cause any harm until the split second in which the accident happened.
What does it mean to say they were 'careless' - only that the accident was their fault, because they made a misjudgment. Given that someone has an accident that is their fault, it is purely a matter of chance whether they kill someone or not. And in general, it is unlikely that they do.
We can all expect to be involved in an accident every 7 or 8 years. A good half of those accidents will be our fault.
In the course of 50 years of driving we can expect to have 3 and a half accidents which are our fault - most people will have at least one in their driving career.
I don't think it is rational or just to penalise so heavily accidents which happen to have a very bad outcome. Only if someone were exceptionally reckless could it begin to be justified. But those are the people already being convicted of the more serious offence of causing death by dangerous driving.
Two wrongs do not make a right, and locking up those unfortunate enough accidentally to have caused someone's death, through some inadvertance - to which we are all from time to time prone, is wrong because it is arbitrary and capricious. It is like creating a booby prize for the lottery.
February 04, 2005
February 02, 2005
Cynics Proved Right
The head of Sri Lanka's presidential task force, Tilak Ranavirajah, has criticised the country's relief effort. Five weeks after the tusnami disaster, corruption and incompetence has left 70% of affected Sri Lankan's without aid. This is without considering the areas under the control of the Tamil Tigers. Aid has been disappearing and relief camps have served rotten food.
I don't know how many people are surprised by this. It is a problem of over governed and bureaucratic societies. We can only give our money and hope some of it trickles down to the right people.
The cynics are proved right.
I don't know how many people are surprised by this. It is a problem of over governed and bureaucratic societies. We can only give our money and hope some of it trickles down to the right people.
The cynics are proved right.
January 31, 2005
Government Abandons British
First, under the EU arrest warrant, the UK government has allowed other EU countries to arrest, remove from the UK, and then try, people alleged to have committed acts which are perfectly legal under UK law.
Now the UK government favours the introduction of an EU evidence warrant, which will allow other EU states forcibly to enter and search British homes and property seeking evidence with a view to the criminal prosecution of acts which could not be crimes in the UK.
In other words, to make legal the execution by a foreign power of search warrants which could not be legally obtained by the British government or justice system.
The British are being abandoned by their own government in their own country.
To be tried in a foreign state, where the law, procedures, and language differ from one's own, and foreigners may viewed with prejudice, is a serious matter. That is why extradition to a foreign state has traditionally been subject to many restrictions and safeguards. These safeguards have already been watered down by the Extradition Act 2003 which introduced the EU arrest warrant, extended extradition to a wide range of relatively trivial offences, and removed the principle of dual criminality, while reducing further the countries required to show a prima facie case.
By failing to uphold established principles of legal jurisdiction and extradition, the Crown is failing to protect its subjects from arbitrary and unjust interference in their lives. Traditional considerations of justice and good government are being sacrificed for administrative convenience and political ingratiation.
Who are the masters now?
Now the UK government favours the introduction of an EU evidence warrant, which will allow other EU states forcibly to enter and search British homes and property seeking evidence with a view to the criminal prosecution of acts which could not be crimes in the UK.
In other words, to make legal the execution by a foreign power of search warrants which could not be legally obtained by the British government or justice system.
The British are being abandoned by their own government in their own country.
To be tried in a foreign state, where the law, procedures, and language differ from one's own, and foreigners may viewed with prejudice, is a serious matter. That is why extradition to a foreign state has traditionally been subject to many restrictions and safeguards. These safeguards have already been watered down by the Extradition Act 2003 which introduced the EU arrest warrant, extended extradition to a wide range of relatively trivial offences, and removed the principle of dual criminality, while reducing further the countries required to show a prima facie case.
By failing to uphold established principles of legal jurisdiction and extradition, the Crown is failing to protect its subjects from arbitrary and unjust interference in their lives. Traditional considerations of justice and good government are being sacrificed for administrative convenience and political ingratiation.
Who are the masters now?
January 30, 2005
Swastika Fetishists Force Women Into Prostitution
The EU wishes to ban the wearing and display of swastikas for "inappropriate purposes" reports the Telegraph. I guess Harry wasn't reverential enough?
Anyway, the impetus for this doubtless comes from the same freedom loving people that expect the unemployed to take jobs as prostitutes?
Who are we getting into bed with?
Anyway, the impetus for this doubtless comes from the same freedom loving people that expect the unemployed to take jobs as prostitutes?
Who are we getting into bed with?
January 26, 2005
Mass Teenage Criminality
Well, I 'm shocked, I really am: a quarter of boys aged 14 to 17 are serious or prolific criminals, according to a Home Office study.
A quarter?!!!
It is not simply a matter of parental discipline or inadequate policing (although it is about those things too). But what does that widespread criminality say about modern mores? We live in a country where common decency, respect for others, and individual independence and self reliance are giving way to a dishonesty and viciousness entirely destructive of society.
People live 'by right' on welfare, or with access to the welfare state. There is no compelling need to maintain the integrity and trust required in normal (for how much longer?) society. Nor is there any shame or humility. Governments have done all they can to elevate welfare benefits onto the same social and moral plane as hard earned income from a job or business.
There has been a price to pay for this beyond taxation: social and family breakdown on the one hand, and the growth of single parent families on the other, which by their nature 1) are less likely to value - and demonstrate the value - of personal commitment, trust, and integrity: all inherent in successful marriages; and which 2) have fewer financial and social resources with which to bring up children. In Britain the problem families end up being concentrated together in 'social housing' (anti-social sink estates), exacerbating the problems.
For all that, there is no simple answer to this epidemic of incivility and criminality. Part of the problem, I am sure, lies with education, which needs to be far more closely tailored to the needs of individual children, i.e. to be selective. The school leaving age should be reduced, as should the age at which children are allowed to work. Another part of the problem is policing: it is time for the police to leave their desks and go back on the beat, reverting to their role of preventing crime.
But most importantly, the welfare state should be allowed to wither away. The nanny state is an inadequate substitute for the self-reliant family.
A quarter?!!!
It is not simply a matter of parental discipline or inadequate policing (although it is about those things too). But what does that widespread criminality say about modern mores? We live in a country where common decency, respect for others, and individual independence and self reliance are giving way to a dishonesty and viciousness entirely destructive of society.
People live 'by right' on welfare, or with access to the welfare state. There is no compelling need to maintain the integrity and trust required in normal (for how much longer?) society. Nor is there any shame or humility. Governments have done all they can to elevate welfare benefits onto the same social and moral plane as hard earned income from a job or business.
There has been a price to pay for this beyond taxation: social and family breakdown on the one hand, and the growth of single parent families on the other, which by their nature 1) are less likely to value - and demonstrate the value - of personal commitment, trust, and integrity: all inherent in successful marriages; and which 2) have fewer financial and social resources with which to bring up children. In Britain the problem families end up being concentrated together in 'social housing' (anti-social sink estates), exacerbating the problems.
For all that, there is no simple answer to this epidemic of incivility and criminality. Part of the problem, I am sure, lies with education, which needs to be far more closely tailored to the needs of individual children, i.e. to be selective. The school leaving age should be reduced, as should the age at which children are allowed to work. Another part of the problem is policing: it is time for the police to leave their desks and go back on the beat, reverting to their role of preventing crime.
But most importantly, the welfare state should be allowed to wither away. The nanny state is an inadequate substitute for the self-reliant family.
January 25, 2005
UK Powerless To Change Immigration Law
The Telegraph reports the EU Commission saying a new Tory government would be unable to implement its proposals to control immigration, because asylum is now governed by EU law. The Tories could not introduce quotas nor withdraw from the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to Refugees. The Telegraph reports:
If the British people wants to make its own immigration law what is it to do?
There is no EU government we can throw out. The EU Commission is an oligarchy over which we have no democratic control. The only way to assert any democratic control is to withdraw from the EU.
MPs and officials were unaware how much national sovereignty on immigration and asylum had been transferred to Brussels.Which just goes to show how far Parliament has allowed itself to be sidelined. Law is being made which goes to the heart of Britain's nationhood and MPs do not know what is happening, let alone have any control over it. Within the EU they are truly irrelevant. Why do we pay them?
If the British people wants to make its own immigration law what is it to do?
There is no EU government we can throw out. The EU Commission is an oligarchy over which we have no democratic control. The only way to assert any democratic control is to withdraw from the EU.
January 21, 2005
School Stops Teaching
The Telegraph reports that St John's school in Marlborough has scrapped homework for 12 year olds, having already scrapped subject teaching, as part of a scheme devised by the Royal Society for the Arts.
But its main idea: that a school education should be about acquiring "competences for learning" and not subject knowledge, is misconceived.
The main purpose of school, as presumably is the main purpose of acquiring learning skills, is to help pupils learn and use a body of knowledge. It may be arguable how best people acquire learning skills, whether by doing or more abstractly, but either way they serve little purpose in themselves.
Being able actually to learn is a matter of practice and experience in learning, and building on what you already know. It is impossible to make connections, and to see patterns and inconsistencies in a subject, if you have no knowledge to work on.
Higher levels of learning are not something acquired overnight once one learns abstract skills. Rather they are based on detailed knowledge and understanding of the subject matter, perhaps painfully and laboriously acquired, which then forms the basis for evaluating further additions to, and extrapolations from, that body of knowledge.
There is also the matter of effective teaching. It is not at all clear that structured subject based learning is inferior to project based learning. I suspect in general it is easier to ensure pupils obtain knowledge and understanding when a subject is taught in a structured way, and classes are taught as a whole.
I wonder if this shying away from imparting hard knowledge to concentrating on soft "skills" is a sign that English education has little meaning for the huge numbers of children who have difficulty reading and writing? It is easier instead fill the time with intangibles: "competences for learning, citizenship, relating to people, managing situations and managing information" and gloss over the failure of schools to teach.
But its main idea: that a school education should be about acquiring "competences for learning" and not subject knowledge, is misconceived.
The main purpose of school, as presumably is the main purpose of acquiring learning skills, is to help pupils learn and use a body of knowledge. It may be arguable how best people acquire learning skills, whether by doing or more abstractly, but either way they serve little purpose in themselves.
Being able actually to learn is a matter of practice and experience in learning, and building on what you already know. It is impossible to make connections, and to see patterns and inconsistencies in a subject, if you have no knowledge to work on.
Higher levels of learning are not something acquired overnight once one learns abstract skills. Rather they are based on detailed knowledge and understanding of the subject matter, perhaps painfully and laboriously acquired, which then forms the basis for evaluating further additions to, and extrapolations from, that body of knowledge.
There is also the matter of effective teaching. It is not at all clear that structured subject based learning is inferior to project based learning. I suspect in general it is easier to ensure pupils obtain knowledge and understanding when a subject is taught in a structured way, and classes are taught as a whole.
I wonder if this shying away from imparting hard knowledge to concentrating on soft "skills" is a sign that English education has little meaning for the huge numbers of children who have difficulty reading and writing? It is easier instead fill the time with intangibles: "competences for learning, citizenship, relating to people, managing situations and managing information" and gloss over the failure of schools to teach.
January 19, 2005
Political Education For All
Schools have become a means of social engineering and control, and the ideas and values they inculcate are determined by the government, and controlled through the National Curriculum and Ofsted's school inspections.
In particular, the government is using the citizenship part of the national curriculum to propagate its own views and values, and expects schools to 'teach' these even in the face of their own belief and ethos, or judgment of the subject's value.
So it is that David Bell, chief inspector of schools, worried that some (particularly Muslim) schools may undermine the coherence of British society, explains that to be registered as a school, all schools, including private ones, have to ensure their pupils learn about and respect other faiths and cultures, "and the wider tenets of British society." It seems the pre-requisite of being a school is not teaching the three Rs, but 'teaching' the government's idea of 'citizenship'.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, endorses this view, calls education "probably the most important site of social and cultural integration we have," and goes on to say that education's "public value ... is about providing a benefit to Britain that is social, cultural and economic."
If you doubt that the government has an agenda, consider that the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced today that he intends introducing citizenship ceremonies for 18 year olds to help promote "inclusive citizenship" as part of a wider plan to increase race equality and community cohesion.
Citizenship is not a curriculum subject like maths or English: it is tendentious, and serves a political purpose. Its reach extends to all schools, state and private, and all schools, staff, and pupils have to conform to its doctrine. There is no escape - on pain of school closure - whatever the school and parents may think a good education is about.
In particular, the government is using the citizenship part of the national curriculum to propagate its own views and values, and expects schools to 'teach' these even in the face of their own belief and ethos, or judgment of the subject's value.
So it is that David Bell, chief inspector of schools, worried that some (particularly Muslim) schools may undermine the coherence of British society, explains that to be registered as a school, all schools, including private ones, have to ensure their pupils learn about and respect other faiths and cultures, "and the wider tenets of British society." It seems the pre-requisite of being a school is not teaching the three Rs, but 'teaching' the government's idea of 'citizenship'.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, endorses this view, calls education "probably the most important site of social and cultural integration we have," and goes on to say that education's "public value ... is about providing a benefit to Britain that is social, cultural and economic."
If you doubt that the government has an agenda, consider that the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced today that he intends introducing citizenship ceremonies for 18 year olds to help promote "inclusive citizenship" as part of a wider plan to increase race equality and community cohesion.
Citizenship is not a curriculum subject like maths or English: it is tendentious, and serves a political purpose. Its reach extends to all schools, state and private, and all schools, staff, and pupils have to conform to its doctrine. There is no escape - on pain of school closure - whatever the school and parents may think a good education is about.
January 18, 2005
Britain's Political Crimes
Prosecutions for racially and religiously aggravated crime are growing. In the year to April 2004 the Crown Prosecution Service prosecuted 3,616 defendants.
But why add racial or religious aggravation as an element of a crime? Does it make it any worse for someone mugged on the street that their assailant was at all motivated by race or religion? Does it make it any better for the mugged old lady that she was a victim only because she was old (and feeble, and hence an easy target)?
I cannot see it makes any difference. We all need protection under the law. Why we are attacked, robbed, or intimidated is of no relevance to the wrong that is done. If you are injured or made to fear for your safety it is that fact that defines the harm done to you as victim. Given a criminal intention, I do not see why the harm should be regarded more seriously because the perpetrator had one motivation rather than another, or was partial to one type of victim rather than another.
It is in deference to different ethnic and religious communities - to cultivate their vote - that the concept of racial and religious aggravation of crime has come about: first racial aggravation was introduced by the Labour government in 1998 (soon after gaining power), with religious aggravation following in 2001.
There is no moral reason to punish the mugger of Asian women more severely than the thug who mugs old women indiscriminately. The reason one is treated more severely is political, and the racially motivated crime is a political thought crime as much as it is anything else.
But why add racial or religious aggravation as an element of a crime? Does it make it any worse for someone mugged on the street that their assailant was at all motivated by race or religion? Does it make it any better for the mugged old lady that she was a victim only because she was old (and feeble, and hence an easy target)?
I cannot see it makes any difference. We all need protection under the law. Why we are attacked, robbed, or intimidated is of no relevance to the wrong that is done. If you are injured or made to fear for your safety it is that fact that defines the harm done to you as victim. Given a criminal intention, I do not see why the harm should be regarded more seriously because the perpetrator had one motivation rather than another, or was partial to one type of victim rather than another.
It is in deference to different ethnic and religious communities - to cultivate their vote - that the concept of racial and religious aggravation of crime has come about: first racial aggravation was introduced by the Labour government in 1998 (soon after gaining power), with religious aggravation following in 2001.
There is no moral reason to punish the mugger of Asian women more severely than the thug who mugs old women indiscriminately. The reason one is treated more severely is political, and the racially motivated crime is a political thought crime as much as it is anything else.
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