The current unrest dominating every news broadcast is horrifying.
Youths in the majority are using the police shooting last week as a way of legitimising utterly appalling conduct. Destroying shops, homes, livelihoods and lives, is in their distorted view “compensation” for frustration, boredom and alleged social deprivation.
As the news unfolds it is patently clear the rioting, looting and arson attacks are nothing more than acts of vile mindless thugs who put their own voracious appetites above those of the hard working members of their own and other communities.
The sad fact is many will gain from their actions.
Whilst arrests topple 400, the perpetrators will exceed this more than ten fold. They care not that Riot can result in 10 years prison. Others facing attempted murder charges can face “Life.” Do they care? “No!”
Their bold actions, now portrayed as thugs bold enough to be seen without mask or hood is such, as financial limitations have whittled down the size of the Police Force, resulted in few specially trained riot teams, resulting in emergency services being away from an area of conflagration for seemingly, up to an hour and a half. This provides adequate time for smash and grabs, damage & wilful destruction.
How many will ever be “Punished?”
As a Leeds Solicitor with 35 years experience of criminal law and advocacy I am shocked at the present policy of starving the criminal justice system. It is quite clear the policy emanating from “on high” is less arrests = less police = less interviews & solicitors = less court appearances = less legal aid = less judicial & admin costs = less prisons= money saved.
I was the Custody Duty Solicitor yesterday for Leeds City. Any person arrested since mid-day Saturday with no Leeds solicitor, appearing in Court would have asked for my help. For decades, in Leeds, that meant on a Monday morning lists of names of people demanding bail or disposal. It was invariably a full day’s job. Yesterday, as I entered the Leeds Magistrates Court, if it hadn’t have been for TV Licence prosecutions, the place would have been serviced by one court. I had at 9.30am one detainee for Breach of the Peace-so routine, he handled it himself. I’m told every court is the same, Bradford once heaving daily is down to 3 court rooms. A duty solicitor I spoke to today has not been called out in Bradford for several months———has crime disappeared in Cities, Towns and the Country? Of course not— the policy is just ignore it, it is theoretically cheaper.
One must now assess the cost of the mayhem occurring in England. The cost to businesses, homes, & futures is incalculable. This is a haemorrhage with no apparent end.
Perhaps a review of economies regarding the Police and the Criminal Justice System may restore law and order, arrest the disorderly and redeem the confidence and status of London in the eyes of the community and the world.
Finally it seems the Government has recognised David Blunkett’s folly in relaxing drug laws in January 2004.
Today the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will hear a second day of evidence as part of its review into the classification cannabis, a review which may lead to the drug being reclassified as Class B.
Amid growing concern that stronger strains of the drug were flooding British streets and emerging evidence on the long term effects of use, one of Gordon Brown’s first actions after moving into Downing Street was to demand the classification issue be revisted.
The evidence on the street supports this concern, in particular the rise of so called ‘skunk’ – a potent form of cannabis that in just six years has escalated from ten to upwards of seventy percent of all cannabis consumption. Unlike the herbal cannabis often associated with the rose tinted haze of the 1960s, the review heard yesterday how modern skunk contains far higher levels of THC - the active ingredient in cannabis – and a much lower level of cannabidol, which many believe acts as an anti-psychotic and moderates the effect of the drug.
This shift to more potent strains of cannabis undermines the belief that cannabis is a harmless recreational drug – as its current Class C classification alongside some prescription anti-depressants and muscle building supplements suggests. This review would be an excellent time to recognise that no longer can ‘skunk’ and more traditional cannabis be seen as the same drug, so vastly different are their effects.
The consequences of a reclassification are severe for those arrested. A conviction for possessing a Class B drug carries a maximum of five years in prison, three years more than with a Class C drug. However, as recent headlines have made only too clear, the criminal justice system simply does not have the room to lock up hundreds of youths for smoking cannabis. A rash approach could be the final straw for a prison service bursting at the seams.
For many years those of us who have worked in the criminal and mental health spheres of the legal industry have been acutely aware of the danger cannabis poses and the long term damage it causes. This review has come too late for those who have already lost their minds and livelihoods to the drug, although it is still a case of better late than never.
The link to criminality is of particular interest to the reclassification debate. The criminal impact of hard drug use is well documented, but all too often the impact of softer drugs is overlooked. Every week we in the legal profession see the number of young people who commit a vast number of crimes as a direct result of drug abuse. Without any doubt, drugs are a major problem in our communities and I firmly believe the only approach that works is zero tolerance.
While cannabis use in the UK has apparently fallen since declassification, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers the increase in domestic cultivation of cannabis has proved a lucrative line for serious criminal enterprises.
It is these criminal enterprises the police should be targeting, and if, as I expect, cannabis is reclassified, the implementation needs to be handled extremely delicate. The risk of widespread confusion as generation of young users accustomed to a liberal attitude are suddenly criminalised is extremely worrying.
As I have seen on too many occasions, for those susceptible to mental illness cannabis use can trigger a serious psychotic episode or more severe long term illness. Of particular concern should be the growing number of under-15s who have become users since the drug’s Class C status was introduced. The risk of developing schizophrenia can be between two and four times higher for these children and if left unchecked we could see a mental illness epidemic entirely brought on by cannabis use.
These kinds of changes go far beyond the simple legality of behaviour and go to the heart of our culture towards drug use. The impact of cannabis is difficult to measure, as rarely is it used in isolation and nor can we ever have an accurate measure of its potency. Indeed, the only way to deliver that would be to legalise and regulate – a move that I believe would be catastrophic.
The government needs to recognise what any criminal solicitor, prison guard or mental health worker sees every day – cannabis use is a catalyst to mental breakdown and crime.
Hopefully now the Government will adopt a clear position on cannabis use and spare us another decade of uncertainty and confusion, before any more lives are ruined.
Grahame Stowe is senior partner at the law firm Grahame Stowe Bateson.
From The Times, February 15, 2008
Grahame Stowe, a criminal lawyer with Grahame Stowe Bateson, a law firm in Yorkshire, said: “More than ever before young people are turning to extreme violence, in some cases for no reason other than entertainment.
This case illustrates once again the gross callousness some teenagers are capable of.” He added that it was a bold move to prosecute someone “who, in a literal sense, does not have blood on his or her hands”. He said: “The principle that videoing a criminal offence taking place can be considered aided and abetting could have some serious ramifications.
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