Violent people get violent
In the last few years a whole genre of videos has sprung up on YouTube of compilations of clips from people’s dashcams, or from the channel author’s own. Some of these channels (particularly the...
Category: Crime
Brianna Ghey and stable-door logic
A few years ago I wrote an article on what I called “stable-door logic”: the tendency, after a disaster or atrocity, to look for ways to make sure that said disaster could not have...
There’s a limit to age-based mitigation
Recently there have been a series of controversial cases in Scotland, where men have had their sentences for extremely violent crimes reduced because they were under 25 when they committed the acts on the...
What is ‘snitching’? When is it bad?
Earlier this week the blind YouTuber Anthony Daniels (right), whose channel is called Third Eye Visions, did a video on ‘snitching’ and on whether it is OK to inform on bullies or on people...
Sarah Everard, the police and the public
Last week, a former Metropolitan (i.e. London) Police officer named Wayne Couzens was sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, a woman he falsely arrested on Covid rules violation...
Plymouth murders, armed losers and terrorism
Last Thursday a man named Jake Davison murdered his mother and then four others in Plymouth before turning the gun on himself. It has been revealed that Davison had made YouTube videos in which...
The link between street harassment and bullying
Last week, in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard in London, for which a police officer has been charged and is in custody, a lot of women have been sharing stories about...
Justice matters, and it costs
Last Friday some of the tabloids led with a story whingeing about the money that was spent on the defence of the men convicted of manslaughter in the case of PC Andrew Harper, who...
Mandatory life sentences for manslaughter?
A few days ago I got a link on my social media to a story about a campaign for the law to be changed so that there would be a mandatory life sentence for...
Not our brothers’ keepers
Last week a young woman named Ellie Williams (right) from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, posted a long message on Facebook describing having been kidnapped by a group of local Pakistani men and taken to an address...
Imprisoned by his disability?
Today a blind man in the UK who has been convicted of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl some years ago in Cheshire was sentenced to seven years behind bars and told he could not...
Why this isn’t rape
Yesterday a teacher in Havant, Hampshire (a small town near the south coast of England) was jailed for 12 years for engaging in sexual relations with four girl pupils, ranging in age from 13...
Restorative justice is no substitute for prison
Recently I came across a long thread (starting here) arguing against ‘carceral’ (prison-based) responses to serious crimes and, in particular, rape. The argument is that the justice system serves the state’s purpose, which is...
Is it really so difficult to track down this rapist?
Earlier this week there was a story in the Daily Mail, among other places, about an autistic woman who contracted HIV while living in a care home in north-west London some time between 2006...
No injustice
In 2011 Sally Challen was jailed for life for murdering her husband, Richard Challen, at his home (and formerly their marital home) in Claygate, Surrey (which is down the road from where I live)....
Should this racist thug be behind bars?
A 29-year-old man who attacked a young boy because he thought he had bumped into his child’s buggy while running for a bus received a suspended sentence (twelve months, suspended for two years) at...
Want justice? Tell us your whole life story first
Yesterday it was reported that the police in some parts of the UK, notably London and Merseyside, demand that women reporting rape submit both medical records and an extraordinary array of electronic data to...
Karanbir Cheema case: intention matters
Last week an inquest opened on the case of a 13-year-old boy with a severe allergy to dairy products who died in a London school playground after allegedly having cheese put down his shirt....
Who gets believed?
Recently a lot of people have been retweeting a tweet by one Amanda Brown Lierman, “political & Organizing Director for @theDemocrats” (not sure if she means the whole party or a local branch of...
Why don’t they call it rape?
Yesterday some of the papers reported that, according to a report by the charity Save the Children, child migrants mostly from sub-Saharan Africa were “being sexually exploited” or in earlier versions “selling sex” in...