UnHerd - Criminal barristers speak of being “often asked” how we can defend someone we know is guilty. 

Adam King
 
The answer, we explain with varying degrees of pomposity, is that we never really know: the verdict is for the jury, and the advocate is only concerned with the evidence — and what can or cannot be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Which is all very well, but actually sort of nonsense.

Chris Daw QC is no outlier in this regard. His short new book, Justice on Trial: Radical Solutions for a System at Breaking Point, which is aimed at a general audience, does not suffer moralising lawmakers gladly. Policy announcements with judgmental overtones are variously described as “grandstanding nonsense”, “populist garbage”, “brazen ignorance”, “idiocy”, and so on. Indeed, it’s probably fair to say that there are few things Daw dislikes more than moral judgment.

I believe that the answer is simple. We should close down all prisons and start again. For the vast majority of inmates, locked up for non-violent crimes, incarceration […] – without question – increases rates of recidivism.
Non-violent criminals should never be sent to a prison of the kind that we have now.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

The Trouble With Abolishing Prisons

UnHerd - Criminal barristers speak of being “often asked” how we can defend someone we know is guilty. 

Adam King
 
The answer, we explain with varying degrees of pomposity, is that we never really know: the verdict is for the jury, and the advocate is only concerned with the evidence — and what can or cannot be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Which is all very well, but actually sort of nonsense.

Chris Daw QC is no outlier in this regard. His short new book, Justice on Trial: Radical Solutions for a System at Breaking Point, which is aimed at a general audience, does not suffer moralising lawmakers gladly. Policy announcements with judgmental overtones are variously described as “grandstanding nonsense”, “populist garbage”, “brazen ignorance”, “idiocy”, and so on. Indeed, it’s probably fair to say that there are few things Daw dislikes more than moral judgment.

I believe that the answer is simple. We should close down all prisons and start again. For the vast majority of inmates, locked up for non-violent crimes, incarceration […] – without question – increases rates of recidivism.
Non-violent criminals should never be sent to a prison of the kind that we have now.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

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