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Warning As Hundreds Of Jailed Terrorists Back On Uk Streets

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naomi24 | 09:25 Tue 01st Nov 2016 | News
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//Around three-quarters of the 583 people imprisoned on terror charges in the years since the 9/11 attacks have now served their sentences and been released from UK prisons, many still holding the same extremist beliefs that got them jailed in the first place. Sky News has been told that around two-thirds of those released refused to engage with prison deradicalisation programmes aimed at addressing their extremist behaviour.//

http://news.sky.com/story/warning-as-hundreds-of-jailed-terrorists-back-on-uk-streets-10639848

Since these people still pose a serious danger to society, should special measures be implemented in order that their prison sentences may be extended indefinitely?

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Naomi - the fact remains, you cannot imprison someone for something you think they may do.

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andy-hughes, that's not the suggestion.
Ok, let me re-phrase - you cannot implement special measures in order indefinitely to extend the prison sentences of people on the basis of what you think they might do.
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andy-hughes, that's not the suggestion either.
Burglars , bank robbers,car thieves, drug dealers,shoplifters,pickpockets,those convicted of assault and all other criminals also finish their sentences and go straight back to what they did before. Why should those convicted of 'terrorist' offences be treated any differently?
The reoffending rate for all crime is around 75% and has not changed in decades.
Many 'career criminal' regard prison as a part of life. You do your time and get straight back to 'work'. I have worked in a prison and talked to many of them. They regard jail as a 'holiday' and time to meet up with old acquaintances and make plans for the next 'job' as soon as they get out.
Your argument that these people pose a serious danger to society is equally valid for other criminals, do we extend all sentences indefinitely?
You seem to be advocating a situation where any offence that gets a jail term means spending the rest of your life in jail!
Naomi - // Since these people still pose a serious danger to society, should special measures be implemented in order that their prison sentences may be extended indefinitely? //

No, because you cannot extend someone's prison sentence indefinitely on the basis of a perception that they still pose a serious danger to society.

There is no way of knowing their future intentions, and there is certainly no evidence that should convince any properly functioning legal system from simply 'deciding' that they pose a threat of any level - serious or otherwise.
// Incidentally, the three men who helped the four London suicide bombers plan the 7/7 attacks in 2005 have been released. //

If you are going to quote a specific case, you might first check the facts, so as not to mislead AB readers. They were cleared of any involvement in 7/7. They were arrested during the investigation, but cleared of involvement. They were charged with lesser offences.

// A jury at Kingston crown court UNNAMIMOUSLY found Waheed Ali, 25, Sadeer Salem, 28, and Mohammed Shakil, 32, all from Bestow, Leeds, NOT GUILTY of conspiring with the four bombers to cause explosions, after deliberating for eight days. //
Gromit - but the jury might, if asked, have found them guilty of thinking about placing bombs, in which case they should be banged up and the key thrown away immediately.
Attacks against a (democratic) state or its innocent citizens should be defined as treason not terrorism, and should carry the maximum sentence of the death penalty.
Khandro - what about attacks against a non-democratic state?
andy-hughes

Not sure about the jury who heard the evidence...

// "Shakil himself accepted that the camp at Malakand [in Pakistan] was a serious business, whose purpose was to train willing volunteers to fight and kill in Afghanistan on behalf of the Taliban, a cause to which both he and Ali were, and remain, sympathetic. //
-That is the offence they (just 2 of them) were convicted of. Third third man cleared, did not face further charges and did not go to prison.
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Gromit, that quote came from the link – and there are some very grey areas relating to them.

Why do you want people convicted of terrorist activity who refuse to enter into any sort of deradicalisation programme, as well as those who have actually gone on to re-offend, free to roam our streets? I don’t understand that. Why is their liberty more important to you than the security of society as a whole?
Gromit - that's it then, get the cell ready.

Of course, we might need to build some more prisons - I think people who are thinking about refraining from signalling on roundabouts are a menace, let's bang them up as well.

There is a line - I suspect that Naomi does not accept exactly where it needs to be drawn.
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andy-hughes, perhaps you'd care to answer my question at 11:09?
andy-hughes; //what about attacks against a non-democratic state? //

Many terrorists originate from such states, but live in the safety of democratic ones, if anyone attempted an attack against their rulers (in Saudi for example) they would be beheaded immediately and they know it.
Delighted - it wasn't addressed to me at the time, or I would have answered it then.

The liberty of potential terrorists is not more important to me than the security of society as a whole - that would be a ludicrous suggestion.

What is important to me is precisely the security of society as a whole, and that includes not making it victim to some shadowy unaccountable police state where people disappear in the middle of the night on the basis of their supposed thoughts against society based on their ethnicity and past behaviour.

I would have drunk drivers banned for life and banged up for ten years on their first offence.

But I - and you - do not make the laws based on our personal interests and obsessions, and amen to that.

It is not feasible, much less reasonable to assume that any criminal who has served a sentence for any offence, can be kept in prison because you or I perceive that they have not learned the lesson that incarceration is supposed (and evidence suggests that it fails) to have taught them.

If that was the case, I want the burglar who broke into and roamed around my house six months ago while my wife and I were asleep upstairs, to be imprisoned for the rest of his natural life, so that I can be assured he won't be calling again.

But the law does not work that way, and I for one am glad that it doesn't - because if it did, we would be back to my frequently used 'Dirty Harry' quote - 'Next thing you execute your neighbour because his dog wees n your lawn ...'.

The way to avoid sliding into a police state is to apply the laws based on actions, not imagined intentions.
Khandro - your answer does not address my question - care to have another go?
// Why do you want people convicted of terrorist activity who refuse to enter into any sort of deradicalisation programme, as well as those who have actually gone on to re-offend, free to roam our streets?

Obviously I don't. Deradicalisation programmes (not sure they are called that) are not compulsory and do not affect the Judge's sentence. They have had a trial, been found guilty, and done their time. That is how the system works. Perhaps they should have had a longer sentence to begin with, but arbitrary extending it when no addition criminality has occurred is unjust.

// Why is their liberty more important to you than the security of society as a whole? //

It isn't. But justice must be fair and equal. If it isn't, law and order collapses. Prisoners do reoffend, it is a fact of life. We cannot Keep all criminals in prison indefinitely, so we have set jail terms that fit the crime. As I have said, there are different degrees to terrorism offences, and not all convicted are dangerous.
// Sky News has been told that around two-thirds of those released refused to engage with prison deradicalisation programmes aimed at addressing their extremist behaviour. //

It really should be a condition of the sentence that this is a mandatory requirement, such that a failure to engage in the program results in time being added on indefinitely.

And before anyone tells me 'that isn't how things work' , I know. What I'm saying is that is how I think they should work.
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