Hi

Re:

I find that a lot of the newer laws especially are much more open to interpretation and the wording is often wrong and has drifted from the latin origins.

I read a quote once that said:

Bad laws are not created, it is their manipulation from their original concept by lawyers that make them bad. 

The principle of your post is extremely true and I do agree with. I feel that society now requires, no demands, the drama and extremely descriptive wording by the media, Justice system etc. The government wants votes, the media want to sell newspapers, advertising etc so wants your attention. A every increasing percentage of society want their life to have the drama etc of TV shows, movies etc so the Government and media supply it in abundance.

Otherwise what is the benefit to society of allowing the media to report on and so destroy the life again of an ex-offender, that after many years has been recognised as rehabilitated, created a new life etc, when their efforts have been rewarded with the discharge of their SOR requirements.

I have belief in human beings but "society" in this age makes me "cry".

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

Written articles are so powerful at potraying a biased and warped story about a situation or individual. This is something I was previously guilty of myself and still see many others fall for (even after me often discussing my own experiences of the CJS and others I met through it).

It is so easy to read something like "the police are looking for someone who was behaving in a threatening and abusive manner in Tesco", and then imagine a "typical criminal" with their fist in the staff's faces and swearing before going home to their crack den. The reality may be that it was a family man, someone who had a bad day at work and was challenged for not wearing a mask, in frustration he snaps and shouts and swears at the staff for questioning him before leaving the shop. Now I read this and don't assume that I know the whole story.

I find that a lot of the newer laws especially are much more open to interpretation and the wording is often wrong and has drifted from the latin origins. Domestic traditionally meant living in the same household but for my case it was used for someone who I had met 3 times without any intimate contact (based on flirty text messages). Stalking is now defined in Scotland as someone who sends two or more unwanted messages or other methods of contact (although usually more than this). When people see the word stalking they assume that person is a danger to women, following them and watching them go into their house. The case may just be that they suffer from ASD with social issues and are unaware that their excessive messaging is having an adverse effect on the "victim".

Hi

This is a very interesting read.
https://www.the-record.org.uk/unlock-people-with-convictions/i-thought-offenders-were-different-to-me-until-my-friend-received-a-criminal-record/

Quite simply 

We all have perceptions and make assumptions from them. Having the confidence to reject them will make society stronger

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope is for tomorrow else what is left if you remove a mans hope.

Love is stronger than shame and it takes courage to listen sometimes, a lot of people don't care for the why's, how's and deeper understanding until they are directly involved or know someone close to them they care about who has had to deal with a rock bottom situation.

I like to think i'm an open minded person but i'm not perfect. i've learned a great deal during my 5+ years of recovery and i stand by the fact that every person deserves to be treated humanely, first seek to understand before you judge and remember what you have to be grateful for. for those who choose to seek recovery and turn their lives around onto a more positive and less damaging path it is a humbling experience.

Yes, the exact figures would be complex to work out because there's so much involved but it's clearly very high and disproportionate to the overall public interest.

I have adapted to my situation as an individual but others may not be so fortunate and will have to suffer consequences much worse than their actual offence which could have been dealt with in a more constructive way/nipped in the bud. So in my opinion the UK CJS fails us socially as individuals (increasing the likelihood of reoffending and a bad attitude towards society) as well as the economy as a whole

Exactly it's crazy!

Some back of a fag packet calculations (bearing in mind I have no idea how much some of these things cost).

Masters Degree Cost (that the taxpayer may never seen back if you are unable to get a job earning enough to pay back) - say £8k/year for 4 years (again I have no idea what these things cost) = £32k
Dole cost (just dole, haven't included housing benefit or anything else that you may be receiving such as council tax reductions etc) - £340/month for 24 months = £8160 for the past two years

Tax and NI lost/not paid (due to not having a job) at say a salary of £30k/year (apologies probably not doing your Masters justice here - I have no idea what someone with such a qualification would earn just after completing their qualification) is roughly £6500 per year so £13k for the two years

Cost of prosecution (from your post) £90k

So that works out at
Cost of prosecution£90k
Education cost$32k
Dole cost£8.1k
Lost Tax&NI£13k

Total cost (so far) to taxpayer - £143.1k over two years (at the conservative end) that the taxpayer has lost/paid out for something as you rightly say could have been dealt with in a much simpler way. That doesn't take in to account additional lost tax income from increased spending power if you had a job and the flow on effects of such money in the economy (job creation etc).

Obviously I only break it down to illustrate the very point you were making rather than to make anyone feel bad and the figures are finger in the air. If it had been dealt with as you say (caution etc) it probably would have cost lets say a days work for two police/CPS employees. Much much cheaper than £143k! The rest of the £143k could have been put to better use in social investment rather than overzealous target pursuit by the justice system.

Some very interesting points there especially about how other countries operate better than here. I agree with what you have said and have always thought that it makes no financial sense for the CJS to operate in the way that it does, at the end of the day the people who are paying for are the hard-working taxpayers.

I firmly believe that a lot of it is about meeting targets and producing results so that those employed in the public sector can justify their job and continue to secure funding from the government. Being from a quiet region with not much going on, my local court was filled with "offences" such as people sending offensive text messages all the time. I was convicted of a similar offence (online harassment) and it has a massive knock-on effect to everything like adding £300 per year on to my car insurance, adding £300 on to my parents home insurance (before I moved out), affecting travel arrangements to some countries and keeping me out of work.

I graduated with a Master's degree in engineering and was working for a couple of years until my offence came up and I haven't worked a day since. I have been claiming the dole for 2 years and don't have a chance at securing or progressing in an engineering job with a criminal record in an already competitive field. My whole offence was online harassment in retaliation to someone who had done the same to me, it could have instantly been solved by the police issuing a warning and non-contact order, yet the way they choose to resolve it is to let the evidence build up, spend upwards of £90k on investigating and prosecuting it as a crime, and then leave me (who the country has just spent a fortune educating to Master's degree level) on the dole and unable to contribute to the economy. The overall effect on the country is that taxpayers now have to pay more.

My views have changed in a very similar way to yours, instead of seeing the biased headline and story and just thinking "bah typical criminal serves them right", I now think more about the circumstances and tend to sympathise with the accused person. The "offender" is a person just like anyone else, often they will have made a mistake or have been caught in unfortunate circumstances.

My offence was basically online harassment/trolling back to someone who had manipulated and antagonised me in a similar way of the course of a few years. In my opinion I was an easy target to make an example out of and the circumstances were completely one-sided. At community service the majority of the people I met were normal human beings, certainly not the typical image you think of as a "criminal". A lot of them were there due to unfortunate circumstances, for example, one was convicted of (non-physical) domestic abuse based on his ex partner and her family's word alone.

I really feel for those convicted of offences such as indecent images who are tarred with the same brush as the most serious physical and sexual offences towards children as the media tends to put the same label itno the minds of the public, which is effectively a life sentence for what may have been considered a stupid mistake.

The story about Caroline Flack really touched me as the consequences she was suffering through the justice system were much worse than a one-off physical assault. 

Never apologise for being passionate on a topic. Especially one where you have more first-hand experience than the vast majority of the country.

Something I have always felt, even prior to my conviction, was the media and subsequent court of public opinion serves zero beneficial purpose on the greater good of the community and in a lot of instances leads to re-offending.

The two tend to go hand-in-hand. If the media stops just spouting "Local beast charged with downloading 3 indecent images". When they use words like that then it is not news. That is an opinion and as such should be discarded. If they stick 100% to the facts and show it from sides of the story and then let the public decide their own take then that is slightly better, it'll never happen of course as drama and hyperbole sells papers.

Good question and something I've thought a bit about recently.  I'm still going through the process (magistrates court in a few weeks) so while I haven't experienced the aftermath at this stage it is something that terrifies me based on what I've read. At the same time I know there is nothing I can do about it so I just have to accept it.

My opinion has changed slightly since being arrested in that it's not something I thought a great deal about before but have done so now.  Before I was arrested I didn't often read news articles on crime anyway as they didn't interest me - I still generally don't. I would say that my opinion before and after is still yes do the crime then do the time however the points I think differently on now (if I ever thought about them before) are below.

I've always taken the news for what it is - an opinion and if you want the facts you need to do your own research.  For the few crime reports that I do occasionally read I now stop and think about what went wrong, where it went wrong and what could have been done to prevent it. Obviously reading a news article you don't have most of the facts to even consider most of these questions - rather you simply have whatever slant the reporter wants to put on the story - however at a higher level I certainly have a lot more compassion for those in news reports than perhaps I did in the past.  They're not just another criminal - they are human beings who have made mistakes and going through the journey I'm on at the moment and learning how I came to such a dark place has made me see that.

• The questions that should be asked is how do we (as a society) prevent crime before it happens or give offenders (when it does happen) a chance to rehabilitate without having the public humiliation (for whatever the crime is) to deal with as well?
• Why as a society are we so hell bent on social justice over social investment? It doesn't work and crime continues to go up and up in line with how much 'harder we go on crime' rather than spending money preventing it in the first place.
  

Why do we have an open justice system? By open I mean whereby reporters can report whatever they like (as long as they can vaguely relate it back to something they heard in court). Don't get me wrong - I understand get the concept/history and why but is it necessary? 

• There are plenty of countries where reporting of personal details (names, addresses etc) is not allowed that have far superior rates of actual rehabilitation than the UK does. I'm not saying that the rehabilitation is down to being identified in the paper or not but in my opinion (based partly on the ongoing difficulties that people have on here) it certainly doesn't hurt - particularly when you can't be googled after you have completed/are completing your court ordered punishment only to have the past dragged up and further consequences forced upon you. How does it help anyone other than the publications bottom line to publish these details?
  
• Speaking of google (and other search engines - although I haven't seen any specific response from other search engines so their approach may be different...I've assumed it's the same as googles) - the 'in the public interest' response that ex offenders get when requesting for links to be deleted seems to be a bit of a get out option for these companies in my opinion.  The only reference in the actual Data Protection Act 2018 I could reasonably make out was "Journalism etc in connection with unlawful acts and dishonesty etc", "This condition is met if—", "the controller reasonably believes that publication of the personal data would be in the public interest." (Schedule 1, Section 13 (1)(e)). While search engines have opted out of being called media companies they are still processing journalism data (and are considered a data controller).  There is no specific definition of 'public interest' in the act which leaves it up to the data controller's opinion of what is public interest. How is it a a private for profit company can be allowed to determine what is in the public interest in an unbiased way? Of course their decision will come down to their bottom line (and don't get me wrong they're not going to go bust over a handful of links) which means they will always 'reasonably believe' that publication of the personal data would be in the 'public interest'. The law seems to allow a completely subjective decision by a private enterprise here - how is that right?
  
• There is absolutely no reason for the witch hunt social media groups and websites to exist (however I highly doubt they are going away anytime soon) except they are clickbait for a sector of the population. That's not an opinion that has changed - I've always thought that and have never engaged in them. I highly doubt that if those people behind them were on a some list - say for driving while drunk - they'd appreciate their details being on a 'lets shame the drunk drivers' site and would be doing what they could to get their details removed. They are also highly illegal under GDPR laws but like others I have submitted complaints to the ICO receiving only a generic response back.  I even went as far as to contact two of the hosting providers of such sites and the response I received was we are not arbitrators of the law so get a court order recognised in California and then we might do something about it. If those sites were hosting illegal pornography - would the response be the same....I suspect not??
  
• I am under no illusion that if by some chance I don't go in to custody and it is reported then should anyone at work google me that I'll almost certainly lose my job. Why? I have proven beyond a doubt that I am suitable for the job and can do the job to a high standard. The company won't suffer in the long term but in the short term in the middle of a global rollout they're going to feel some pain (which they'll feel if I go in to custody also but I'm trying to plan to make it as easy as possible for them if that happens). Why? All because it gets reported in the news (ok I know if I hadn't of done what I've done then they wouldn't be in that situation either) - completely unnecessary and likely to lead to me being a drain on the state rather than a contributor.
  

Criminal Records Checks.  Why do we have them?  They are almost 100% unnecessary and do very little good as far as I can see. In fact until the last handful of years they didn't really exist and companies seemed to do just fine without them. I understand that certain professions should have checks mandated so that those true 'strangers driving around in a panel van looking to snatch kids off the street' (sorry didn't really know how else to describe) don't end up in a job role where they really shouldn't be or potentially for serious financial crimes when going to work in the financial sector. If they are required at all it should be a closed system like in other countries where the check bureau comes back and say yay or nay in relation to the particular position you are applying for. Most people with a criminal record however are not in that category but will still face the consequence of not getting a job/losing a job or promotion/having lower income due to just wanting to keep any job they can get etc due to such checks. Why? All because as a human being they made a mistake that as a society we decided isn't the right mistake to make (I'm not advocating any particular crime over another by the way). How is it fair on that person that they should have to live with ongoing consequences for a considerable amount of time after they have completed their mandated punishment/rehabilitation?

Apologies - a bit of a waffle off tangent! To sum up we are all human beings, we all make mistakes - some criminal. Why do we as a society allow that person (and their families) to be punished multiple times over through the justice system we have in place when it could be prevented in the first place?

When I was doing the Horizon program, with a group of other indecent image offenders and everybody there has to tell their life story, it was pretty clear what kind of shit lives a lot of offenders have had. You never read about any of that in the papers. Around a third of the guys had been victims of abuse themselves, but that's not unusual for these types of offences. Lots of mental health problems, depression, anxiety and so on. It's these kind of problems that contribute to the offending behaviour.

It definately changed my view of offenders. Everytime I read stories about offenders now, I ask myself one question. What was happening in that person's life, before they offended?

This is a real good topic and an excellent question to ask, I was kind of the same as you in regards to doing the crime, do the time but I have always had my doubts with how accurate the news report things. I always disliked how the main focus is always about "disgracing" and "humiliating" those who have committed any sort of crime. I am in total agreement with you on punishments should only come from the courts. not left to being trialed by social media. I actually read about one particular article about some guy in his early 20s, outside McDonald's and was charged for loitering a straw wrapper. Media gave his name, address, had no previous convictions. I was thinking to myself why on earth are they even reporting such a thing? it honestly makes me sick in all fairness. especially now I have gone through the same process.

I have a much better understanding of how the world really works and how biased some can be, especially when it comes to making a headline for greed and profit. I keep tabs on the news now more than I ever have and I never take what is said at face value. Everyone should be given the chance to accept when mistakes were made and be given the opportunity to pay for those mistakes in a way that does not ultimately destroy lives.

Everyone on here has gone through the justice system or are at least going through it at the moment.

I'm just wondering how everyone feels about seeing news reports etc. of people accused/convicted compared to before your own arrest? Has it changed your thought process and feelings towards them?

I'll be totally honest and say that mine has changed pretty drastically.

For those that don't know, I was guilty of an indecent images offence. Prior to this whenever I saw someone on Social Media and/or news I didn't really look into it too much but I never felt all that much sympathy for the person and was very much "do the crime, do the time". What I never noticed or to be honest, bothered with, was how drastically their life could change in an instant. And even though I still feel if you commit a crime you should be punished, but only by the court and the justice system. Once you've served your sentence your debt to society should be paid an you should be able to essentially pick up where you left off and move on using everything as a very valuable learning experience.

Don't get me wrong. I never got caught up in the mob mentality and witch hunts you see, especially relating to crimes of my nature which seem far more prevalent and attracting of abuse than say someone in court for getting into a drunken fight on a Saturday night or caught with drugs.

Part of my sentence was a Community Payback Order and I've obviously mingled with a variety of offenders who are there for lots of reasons. Some with specific intent, some who were just a victim of circumstance. Some of the stories were quite harrowing and humbling.

Some of the people I spoke with I used to just pass off as "a junkie" or a "jakey" given how they present themselves. Due to the nature of my offence all my unpaid work has to be carried out indoors doing crafts and art and similar.

There's one guy that really stood out and he was doing some work for the Koestler Awards (something I was doing also) and his art he was doing was amazing. You could tell he had zero confidence surrounding everything and was generally quite timid and kept to himself. We got to speaking quite regularly though.

It really humanized everyone for me.

I'm not on Facebook or anything now (for obvious reasons) but now when I see someone in the news for a similar offence to me my heart does break for them a little bit, knowing that essentially, the worst is yet to come.