Another response

The point I'm making, jakboot, is that the victims have, and need, a voice.

The victims are some of those people who you might say have greatness thrust upon them - simply because they have experienced the reality that the majority fear.

Denying a victim's involvement in the judicial process means hurting them further. What very few people seem to grasp about what the very nature of crime is is that it's a struggle for power. The criminal uses his or her power over the victim to take what the hell he or she wants, and the victim is disempowered in the process.

But the system - government, judiciary,.etc - only takes power: from the offender and the victim, by first of all by taking the liberty from the offender, then demanding the victim as a witness, and subsequently by not involving them in the punishment.

If the judicial system actually worked, who could complain? But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't. The government are figureheads that fulfill the illusion that there's some kind of justice and order in society. But the truth is far from that. Corruption happens throughout the entire system, from the very top all the way down. How else do you think crime is the way it is today?

And that corruption breeds contempt for the authority that behaves irresponsibly. You end up with resentment, and a breakdown in law and order, which is what we see today.

Why should anyone care about the law when it doesn't care about them? I mean, seriously? Only a fool would obey the law when it clearly doesn't serve everyone equally. Are you going to try to convince me that it does?

I'll briefly share my own experience. My girlfriend was raped a few years back. Total stranger did it. Pretty nasty. She was terrified, traumatized, lost all sense of control over her life. Depressed, angry, bitter...everything you'd expect from someone who felt that her body was there to be taken by someone for his own use when he felt like it.

What did the judge do? He told the offender he was "clearly an intelligent man" but what he'd done was wrong (in so many words) but "as she hadn't suffered unduly" he would sentence him to 4 years imprisonment.

He did about 18 months, was released, then raped a 16 year old at knifepoint.

An unusual case? Particularly lenient, or out of touch judge? Certainly not. I've heard similar things, often.

At the time of the attack, I seriously considered murdering the guy. Why? Well, when you look a bit deeper into the reasons it goes beyond what you think are reasons of simple revenge. The reason you want to kill people like that is so that the problem is no longer there. You want to be certain that it's gone away.

I wrote to my MP, not about the case in particular, but that I was aware he would, like so many offenders, get a short sentence, no treatment inside, and likely reoffend once released. Sex offenders are some of the most likely recidivists. I told me MP that.

And what was his response? He couldn't comment on it because it was "sub judice" - dismissing entirely the fact that I wasn't commented on my girlfriend's case in particular, but the sentencing of rapists in general.

Did that enhance my faith in "the system"? You tell me.

When I confronted Jack Straw when he was shadow home secretary about sentencing, and the effectiveness of victim involvement that had been proven in Scandinavian prisons and experimental prisons like Grendon, was he responsive, or did he stare back at me with the dead eyes of someone who simply wasn't connected to reality?

Do you need me to tell you?

So when the authorities that are supposed to be there to reassure you that the problem has gone away become even more of a problem themselves, it kinda makes you think a bit differently.

In all truth, those who walk the corridors of power know the way the system really works, just as much as those who have no power at all. If I or my girlfriend had been important enough, or had people in the right places, then he'd have gone away for a significant time. But I didn't, and he didn't, at least until he'd had his way with the poor 16 year old.

But the people who run the country: the established, been-to-the-right-schools, know-the-right-people but who are totally out of touch with the way things really are? They sit and dictate the lives of the ordinary ones like me, and probably you.

At the end of the day, a little fear running around in society is a great way to control it. Every government knows that. You make the citizens feel ill at ease, you let things get a bit out of hand, and you let everyone know who's boss.

If you're happy with that, then that's your prerogative. Just don't come complaining to me when you see things differently.