Subject: Wielding justice fairly.
There is a Law Commission report doing the rounds suggesting that misandry as well as misogamy be considered hate crimes and that an added category, that of crimes against the elderly be also included to the growing list of legal specialisation.
The argument is that whilst crimes against an individual who naturally also subscribe to being part of a group, then the group thing amplifies the crime in some way and therefore the sentence should be more onerous. Hating the group becomes worse than hatingthe individual. Of course it is often an individual who sparks off the dislike of the group. It's one of mankind's weaknesses to tar everyone with the same brush and emotional prejudice is just as bad as any other prejudice.
The question is, why this should be since the crime is virtually always against the individual for a whole range of reasons and to add the gender or the age of the victim seems at best arbitrary.
Perhaps a better way to even the playing field would be to open the determination up to the 'weak and the strong'. This would be truly reformative since the gender and the age of a person although easy to hang a label on (perhaps not so in this age of trans gender) is far too wide and out of focus to fit the rigour demanded of justice.
The argument is that whilst crimes against an individual who naturally also subscribe to being part of a group, then the group thing amplifies the crime in some way and therefore the sentence should be more onerous. Hating the group becomes worse than hatingthe individual. Of course it is often an individual who sparks off the dislike of the group. It's one of mankind's weaknesses to tar everyone with the same brush and emotional prejudice is just as bad as any other prejudice.
The question is, why this should be since the crime is virtually always against the individual for a whole range of reasons and to add the gender or the age of the victim seems at best arbitrary.
Perhaps a better way to even the playing field would be to open the determination up to the 'weak and the strong'. This would be truly reformative since the gender and the age of a person although easy to hang a label on (perhaps not so in this age of trans gender) is far too wide and out of focus to fit the rigour demanded of justice.
The problem of crime is that it is often based on an assumption of weakness. The perpetrator assumes they are strong enough to commit the crime and get away with it and the victim assumes the crime is effected on them because they are in a weakened position and are helpless.
Crime, be it stealing or assault has to have a component to it that one party is left feeling aggrieved, (which is often as much an assumption of their own weakness) or that the potential reward leads to the belief that they will get away with it.
Our courts are full of the powerful taking their vengeance on the weaker sections of society. The justice system rewards the QC who can browbeat the person standing in the dock and the efficacy of the QC is bought by the powerful because power means money.
Women are not always physically the weaker than men and men are not always stronger. Surely the danger in attaching so much weight to a group dynamic, which in itself is full of discrepancies, one loses sight of the main aim, to wield justice fairly
Our courts are full of the powerful taking their vengeance on the weaker sections of society. The justice system rewards the QC who can browbeat the person standing in the dock and the efficacy of the QC is bought by the powerful because power means money.
Women are not always physically the weaker than men and men are not always stronger. Surely the danger in attaching so much weight to a group dynamic, which in itself is full of discrepancies, one loses sight of the main aim, to wield justice fairly
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