In the debate at Nottingham University over the proposition that Life should mean Life there was one regrettable absentee – the victims’ representative. Moya Griffiths was bamboozled by time and traffic and I’m not sure if the debate wasn’t the better for it.
This may sound harsh, but I believe that we advance public policy more through the exchange of ideas than we do through the visceral exposition of high emotion. In the interests of fairness, though, here is Moya’s interview with the university Impact magazine. My commentary follows….
IMPACT MAGAZINE Thursday 28th February 2013
Moya Griffiths – Proposition and mother of a murder victim
Could you explain your argument briefly?
I represent a lot of people who have lost a loved one. We believe that if you are prepared to take a life then you can fully anticipate losing your liberty. Our campaign is ‘life for a life’. The victims do not get a fair crack of the whip as far as justice is concerned. It’s been proven over and over and over again. Now quite often a life sentence is dictated by ten years depending on the severity, but talking from my own personal experience, ten years is average. That is not a life sentence. We feel that when people are imprisoned even when they do come out after ten years, quite often they will re-offend. The statistics are there to back this up.
Do you think offenders can be too young to know what they’re are doing?
No. A child of seven will know the difference between right and wrong. I’m not saying that there can’t be extenuating circumstances; every case has to be judged on its own merits. For a normal 13 or 14 year old to kill or murder, I’m sorry no. You can quote cases, such as James Bulger; the two convicted killers knew exactly what they were doing, young as they were.
Is there room for redemption?
The proof is there, I’m not taking anything away from what Ben has achieved but the difference is years ago the sentencing was a lot harder, more penalised than what it is today. If it were to happen again, he wouldn’t necessarily go through that process, as he wouldn’t be behind bars for that period of time.
Should ‘life for a life’ extend to the death penalty?
We will never ever have capital punishment back in this country. If you ask any mother or father who have lost a child, initially the reaction would be, ‘Yes’ to capital punishment. But it’s not realistic. I, and others like me, believe in life for a life in prison.
Do you think the same sentence should apply to those who commit crimes of compassion and those who murder with malicious intent?
If it is a crime of compassion then I think it should be viewed quite differently. It’s not someone going out who thinks life is worthless or cheap. Life is cheap to a lot of people - it’s meaningless to them. Those are the people who need to be put imprison and made to stay there.
My Commentary….
“Our campaign is ‘life for a life’”… Is an excellent slogan, and one I appreciate is deeply attractive due to its simplicity. But therein lays its weakness - depriving someone else of their life, or a meaningful existence, does nothing to repair the harm originally done. What it does do is repeat that harm onto the criminal's family. The very pain victims’ decry is then the one they advocate spreading.
”The victims do not get a fair crack of the whip as far as justice is concerned. It’s been proven over and over and over again.” I am never quite sure what such assertions actuially mean. Does the criminal justice system pay enough attention to victims? Possibly not, although the situation in the legal process has changed significantly in recent years and not always to the betterment of Justice. Of course, it is a fundamental tenet of our system that it is the State that takes centre stage as being the one offended against, the victim being only the vehicle of the offence. To do otherwise would be to substitute personal and arbitrary vengeance for Justice.
“Now quite often a life sentence is dictated by ten years depending on the severity, but talking from my own personal experience, ten years is average. That is not a life sentence.” Ten years is not only not a life sentence, it’s not even related to reality. Of released Lifers, the average served is 16 years. Of those still inside….well, my own journey through the system may give an indication. The starting point for sentencing in murder cases is 16 years and then varied according to mitigating or exaccerbating circumstances. What Moya believes is just plain wrong.
“We feel that when people are imprisoned even when they do come out after ten years, quite often they will re-offend. The statistics are there to back this up.” Leaving aside the “ten years” error, this is again entirely wrong. Second homicides are committed at a rate of 1 or 2 %, a figure that’s been constant for decades. Serious reoffending comes to maybe 5%. By any measure too much, but equally by no measure is this “quite often”.
“Is there room for redemption?” “The proof is there, I’m not taking anything away from what Ben has achieved but the difference is years ago the sentencing was a lot harder, more penalised than what it is today. If it were to happen again, he wouldn’t necessarily go through that process, as he wouldn’t be behind bars for that period of time.”
Utterly and completely wrong. The tariff for murder has been leaping ever higher over the past decade or so. What may once have been an unimaginable and rare tariff – say 30 years – is now frequent. For clarifications sake, under the present schema I would still have received a tariff around 10 years: starting at 16 years, then reduced due to my age. And the implication that I was somehow redeemed due to my sentence is quite, quite wrong.
I do honestly appreciate the raw anger, the bitterness and even hatred that can flow from being a victim of crime. For those private individuals I have all due sympathy and compassion. But I will never allow that to slide into supporting this raw vengeance from being turned into public policy, and one that merely increases the level of suffering in society.
Although I can empathise with victims families feeling strongly about this subject I think people give too much credit to emotional retoric when trying to formulate a policy that could actually be of benefit to society. The government needs to use reason and forethought if it's ever going to create an effective solution.
ReplyDeleteGood post (as always) Ben. The misguided belief that the average is 10 and that it's less than it was is sadly common in the public sphere and it colours much of the debate. At the abolition of the death penelty the average tariff was 10 years but, as you say, we're now becoming used to hearing of tariffs exceeding 25 years.
ReplyDeletenice to be here, great blog
ReplyDeleteIf this lady's comments can be dismissed as mere "emotional rhetoric", then let's be honest and concede that the arguments against 'life for a life' are also infused with emotion, whatever the other rational insights. However, I do find this sloganeering - "life for a life" - unappealing and facile, not to mention unhelpful.
ReplyDeletePart of the difficulty here is that even today with the expansion of the application of 'manslaughter' among homicide cases, murder is still a very broad-based offence. The circumstances that might lead to a murder conviction include all kinds of different scenarios, from the momentary rage of a jealous spouse at one end through to cold-blooded premeditated homicide at the other. Personally I am in little doubt that premeditated murder should, in principle, warrant the death penalty. The other gradations cause difficulty because, although there are non-premeditated acts that are, nonetheless, unambiguously and irredeemably immoral - i.e. evil - in the majority of cases the murderer will not be a long-term danger to others, and so a rational case can be made for parole and release after the prisoner has served his penance.
Take the Griffiths case. An account of the whole sad and sorry incident can easily be found on google. We do not know exactly what happened because the three assailants chose to remain silent throughout the trial, but it seems the three were into drugs, the deed appears to have been impulsive, and a police spokesman admits the crime was without any obvious motive. For reasons of tact and sensitivity, I will leave unsaid the obvious conclusion to be drawn from this, but I assume we are all men of the world here.
Two of the young assailants were sentenced to life, with minimum tariffs of 15 and 14 years respectively, meaning they will emerge from prison in their 30s. The third assailant was sentenced to 10 years, but only because he was under 18 at the time of the offence. Are these sentences appropriate? Well, the mother sat through the whole trial whereas I assume none of us did, but it's not unreasonable, I think, for we as dispassionate observers to argue for the possibility of parole where, as here, it is likely the deed was not premeditated and there is a possibility that the guilty men will, at some point, cease to present a significant threat to the public. So in that respect, I disagree with the lady.
However, I do agree with her on one point. These men have committed a horrific and disgusting crime and if they are to be released, this must only be after a significant penance has been served. In these sorts of cases, it would not be acceptable to me for such acts to go unpunished. I concur with this lady that it would be dangerous and demeaning to us all if we allow the courts to soften their response to these crimes, as that would tend to cheapen and devalue human life. But we have to move away from sloganeering and politiking and find a more nuanced and thoughtful middle-ground that reflects and honours society's moral narratives while offering hope of redemption, or at least a second chance, to those who will reform. For me, that 'middle-ground' is only discoverable through a process of fine judicial discretion.
I agree that we cannot let public policy be shaped by the emotions of the moment. Thankfully you highlighted the facts - sentences for life have got longer (Blunkett, I think) There is a very low risk of reofending, much lower than non-lifer prisoners for standard offences and I understand lifers who are released and go on to commit a second grave offence make up less than 1%.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post as always. It is very depressing that the myths surrounding sentencing (specifically that sentences generally, and tariffs for life sentences in particular, have gone down when the opposite is the truth) are allowed to perpetuate in the media in the way they are. People claiming to represent victims should be aware of the truth and only harm their own cause by pushing the same untruths. Anyone intelligent who looks at it will be put off by the factual inaccuracies.
ReplyDeleteThe main impact of a 'life means life' tariff for all murders would be, I imagine, a dramatic drop in the conviction rate as juries would be reluctant to convict in many cases.
One small typo - the starting point for determining the tariff is 15 years not 16 (or 25, 30 or whole life depending on the circumstances) for over 18s.
Also, could you let me know where the figures for average time spent before release is from - I've been looking for them for ages!
http://danbunting.wordpress.com/
With regards toL
Delete"One small typo - the starting point for determining the tariff is 15 years not 16 (or 25, 30 or whole life depending on the circumstances) for over 18s. "
It depends on the method used (firearm, blade etc)
Back in 1996 I believe murder by firearm started at 25yrs and was brought down by circumstances
Yup. The basic is 15 years, 25 years for a knife taken to the scene with the intention of using it, 30 for 'more serious' (firearms, murder for gain).
DeleteI've written a bit about it here - http://ukcrime.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/life-sentences-i-mandatory/
I think it used to be 12 for the standard murder, and 16 for aggravated, this was before the 2003 Act.
PS. I'm not anonymous, for some reason it won't let me log in!