17 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

New law will send women to jail needlessly, peers warn

originally by: The Independent
published: 15th January 2012

Thousands of women will be sent to jail needlessly if new criminal justice legislation is allowed into law in its current form, a group of cross-party peers warn this weekend ahead of a vote in the House of Lords. A new Ministry of Justice bill on sentencing must be changed radically to take account of women, they say, if the Government is to reduce the growing number of women being given custodial sentences.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishing Offenders Bill (LASPO), which currently contains no reference to women offenders in the entire document, will shepherd more women into a prison system designed for men, critics claim.

17 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

NYPD officers shot and killed a black man in his own home

all credits: COLORLINES
published: 13th January 2012

Details about NYPD Officers shooting an African-American male in his home Thursday still remain unclear but neighbors claim the victim had been innocent of any wrongdoing. Police say they arrived outside the home of 26-year old, Dwayne Browne after several 911 calls were made by a woman reporting a “robbery in progress.”

Family members say Browne was upstairs listening to music, when he went outside to check on a possible break-in after seeing two men running from the residence from his window upstairs.

Details are still developing but the New York Times’ City Room blog reports the latest:

Charles Barron, a city councilman, who was speaking at the scene on Friday morning, said people had gone into Mr. Browne’s house “to do some harm,” just before the shooting.

7 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Disabled man tasered by police

from: Network for Police Monitoring
published: 6th January 2012

A respected deaths in custody campaign group has today raised questions about the use of a police taser against a disabled man, who was unable to obey an order to get out of the car he was driving.

Shocket Aslam, who is dependent on a wheelchair, has said that police approached his car aggressively after he was stopped on the M6 motorway. It is understood that a number of police vehicles were deployed after Mr Aslam left a petrol station without paying for £20 of petrol.

He has alleged that immediately on reaching his vehicle, the police smashed a side window and hit him with what he describes as a cosh. He protested that he was disabled, and could not easily get out of the vehicle, but was then tasered from behind in his shoulder.