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.

7 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

The Stephen Lawrence case and another Injustice

originally by: Film Blog – guardian.co.uk
published: 5th January 2012

The news about the Lawrence verdict and sentencing took me back to the mid-1990s – the case has been hanging for such a shameful length of time – when we journalists stood around gaping at Paul Dacre’s sensational “Murderers” headline in the Daily Mail, and discussing what it all meant. (The paper challenged the five suspects to sue: did that mean sue for criminal libel? For which legal aid was available? Well, they didn’t sue.)

My next thought was to pick up the phone and call the film-maker Ken Fero, who, with Tariq Mehmood, directed one of the most sensational documentaries I think I’ve ever reviewed: the 2001 film Injustice: The Movie. This was about the extraordinary, continuing phenomenon of black and Asian people dying mysteriously in police custody without any prosecution being brought.

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7 January 201217 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Lawrence convictions should be treated as new evidence of a ‘joint enterprise’

by: Society of Black Lawyers
released: January 2012

The Society of Black Lawyers is calling for the immediate prosecution of the three remaining men who are suspected of being involved in the racist murder of black teenager, Stephen Lawrence in 1993. The call follows the conviction and sentencing of David Norris and Gary Dobson who were both given life sentences at the Old Bailey today.

Norris was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years and three months and Dobson received 15 years and two months. Both were sentenced under old guidelines and as if they were juveniles because both were under 18 when the crime was committed.