The Musings of Harry

My earlier post may have been light-hearted, but a small bit of analysis does leave one with a more sobering impression of the story.

The appalling behaviour of the religious police in Saudi Arabia is widely reported. They are essentially thugs: there is no accountability and no oversight. They are reported to drive around in large numbers with clubs and hassle people, mostly women, often violently and usually without provocation. These are, after all, the same people who prevented 15 girls from escaping from a burning building because they weren’t appropriately dressed.

It seems deeply unlikely that, having launched an unprovoked assault on two members of the religious police, anyone — let alone two women — would be released unscathed. It’s quite likely that they were acting in self-defence, and similarly likely that if they weren’t punished by the police, they probably will be by their families, since such public disobedience would bring the family into disrepute.

Saudi Arabia is a vicious, misogynist theocracy, perpetuated and reinforced by a delusional world view which is politely called “religion”, but which should accurately called “fantasy”. It is appalling that we call them friends. This is a nation that, but for its vast reserves of oil, would almost certainly long ago have been subject to UN security council resolutions and economic sanctions.

If there is indeed an Axis of Evil, Saudi Arabia is most certainly “on” it.

Via boingboing comes this marvellous story.

The article reports that two women were approached by the Saudi Religious Police and “politely advised” that their clothing was “inappropriate”. Given that the religious police’s official name is the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, this presumably amounts to calling them sluts, or some similarly sexist epithet. The women responded, entirely reasonably, with a torrent of verbal abuse. For the win, one woman then pepper sprayed the officers while the other filmed the incident on her mobile phone. Alas, a brief Googling has not supplied this blogger with a copy of the video. Had it done so, he would have sat and watched it, repeatedly, with considerable glee and much laughter. I’m quite sure that watching vile, sexist, oppressive, dictatorial, homicidal, deluded religious fanatics getting their comeuppance would be uniquely pleasurable.

It must be said, however, that the cherry on this pie is the wonderfully lax treatment they received subsequently. One might think that they would be publicly beaten for their outrageous disobedience — challenging the authority of men is, after all, a crime against nature — and perhaps mutilated in some fashion. After all, can it really be called punishment if you still possess all of your appendages after the event? Apparently it can. Having been carted off to the police station, they were made to apologise and subsequently released with a caution.

Harry hopes beyond hope that they had their fingers crossed behind their backs.

Why is it that Mark Milton was cleared of any crime after being caught driving at 159mph, but Tim Brady was jailed for ten weeks, banned for three years and ordered to pay costs after driving at 172mph on the A420?

Here’s a clue:

Of Tim Brady, in sentencing, Judge David Morton had the following to say:

“Your driving was criminally self-indulgent and utterly thoughtless of the danger you might be creating for the innocent.”

Of Mark Milton, on acquitting, District Judge Bruce Morgan made these comments:

“Those who get their (advanced level driving) certificates should be able to familiarise themselves with it. We have to live in the real world. Criminals are not so considerate as to only commit their offences in broad daylight and then make their getaway on traffic-free roads.

‘I am told that advanced drivers have to keep their skills finely tuned in the same way that batsmen don’t walk to the crease at Lord’s without practising - batsmen have spent countless hours in the nets, learning and re-learning and digesting their art.”

It is quite clear that Morgan bent over backwards to acquit Mark Milton, and by now I’m sure you can tell why: Milton is an inconsiderate tosser who’s also a policeman, but Brady’s just an inconsiderate tosser. The extent of the judiciary’s bias against prosecuting police officers in this country is profoundly worrying. I do suppose, though, that we really can’t have much of a chance of prosecuting officers for dangerous driving if we can’t even prosecute them for murder.

Thankfully, it looks as though this officer at least has a chance of being more appropriately sentenced for his crime: the DPP has appealed and one Lady Justice Hallen has allowed the appeal to go forward, saying that his driving ability was irrelevant to the case. Well… no shit.

Recently I posted about the failings of fixed penalty notices. The gist: police are not qualified to hand out sentences. It’s not their job; it’s what we have magistrates and judges for. Today, I came across this doozie of an idea: get kids to do it instead.

In this pilot program, which is intended to reduce youth crime, young offenders will be dealt with by putting them before a panel of unqualified children who will be expected to determine their guilt and hand down an appropriate sentence. This is, frankly, farcical. It may be well-intentioned, but it assumes that it is easy to determine guilt. It is not. Neither is it easy to decide what action should be taken in response to an offence. It is in fact so difficult that an entire quango — the Sentencing Guidelines Council — exists to publish guidance on sentencing for the courts. Their job is to help make sure that sentences are proportional, appropriate and consistent, and to issue guidelines intended to facilitate rehabilitation — which the Sun et al invariably seize upon to pander to the proletariat, generally in spectacularly crass fashion.

These “juries” will of course have very limited powers — to force the offender to apologise (what on earth is the use is that?) to pay a fine (which their parents will probably have to pay anyway) or to hand down an Acceptable Behaviour Contract — an ASBO by another name. Great. There aren’t nearly enough of those around…

Harry imagines it is very likely that these juries will be filled predominately by straight-laced do-gooders, who will comprehensively fail to gain the respect of the dyed-in-the-wool thugs over whom they sit in judgement, but who will very much enjoy handing down incompetent sentences while playing “grown-ups” as their bourgeois parents look on and coo with delight at how mature and well mannered their little darlings are.

Always good for the CV, I suppose.

For anyone that doubts that fixed penalties for disorder are not a terribly good idea, consider this story, concerning a man who was issued an fine for criminal damage after a police car pulled up onto the pavement and ran over his foot.

Police shouldn’t be judges. Their job is not to ascertain guilt or to sentence. Their job is to gather evidence, charge people, and pass them to a court for judgement. When you give the police the power to arrest people, decide they’re guilty and sentence them on the spot — and to discourage them from questioning their judgement by forcing you to risk doubling your fine if you contest it and are found guilty — bad things happen.

This story is, admittedly, bizarre,  but there are others that are less strange and more disconcerting. Consider the student who called a policeman’s horse gay. Consider people who unwittingly wear the wrong kind of t-shirt, or who, even worse, wear one with a political agenda. Consider the case of a person who was overheard swearing in a private conversation.

Bear in mind, too, that these are just the ones we’ve heard about. How many of these manifestly unjust fines go unnoticed because people don’t realise they can be contested, or don’t have the resources to do so, or are scared about being fined more?