This is the front page of the local newspaper today (28/06/2006); it is reporting a story on a drugs raid by the police. Now I have no sympathy for drug dealers or criminals in general, and if I had any effective say a range of harsh and previously tried options would be re-introduced including both corporal and capital punishment. Here we are shown pictures from an 8am police raid, the policeman on the right is wearing headgear I’d associate with raids in another country some 60 or so years ago and the removal of the “suspect” in a minimum of attire adds to the impression.

Now the people arrested may well be guilty and if so deserve the full sanction of the criminal law (which in the UK is unlikely to be harsh). At the time of the raid though these people are innocent and remain so until convicted by a court of law. Under the circumstances then, should not the suspect have been allowed some clothes?

We need to consider that we have a situation where the law that is handed out in the court and by due process both is and is seen as weak. Against this we have increasingly paramilitary style policing note the helmet and the black shirts (who were the last people to wear black shirts? You’d expect the police to shy away from the image not embrace it), then there is the humiliation of the suspect, possibly the worst part of the criminal justice procedure he will experience, but that hasn’t been meted out to him by a judge after a due process, but by the enforcers of the state without any process; and bear in mind here that I doubt the reporter just “happened to be in the area” so whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to say planned (I don't think the police deliberately set out with the intention of obtaining a picture of the suspect in his underwear for the paper), certainly opportunistic .

Are we witnessing the start of a bypassing of the courts and due process?

Is there an agenda to encourage the public to favour tougher summary treatment of “criminals” “to ensure they receive some punishment” with the ultimate aim of weaning us away from due process?




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# posted by Vote Franco (fdm) @ Wednesday, June 28, 2006