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In Leistershire, a couple were arrested for grevious bodily harm after two burglars were shot in the legs.
Although the English victims, Andy and Tracey Ferrie, have their names splashed all over the press, very little information has emerged about the burglars, who are in police custody.
What I want to know about them is:
- have they been suspects for other burglaries?
- How many times have they been arrested?
- If found guilty, were they imprisoned?
- What steps have been taken towards their rehabilitation and reintegration into society?
Poor penal handling might be an underlying cause of the burglars’ offending (and it should be remembered the Ferries have been burgled four times). New Labour pledged to deal with "underlying causes" in its 1997 "victory" manifesto in the famous passage pledging to be "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime". What they did was create an army of workers who did little more than amass statistics while placing more and more duties on an already overloaded Probation Service.
The Leicestershire Constabulary’s reaction to the Ferries’ desperate measures shows that the Coalition have nothing to alter Labour’s implicit position that human rights pertain only to perpetrators, not the victims.
I’m not proposing that criminals should have no rights, merely pointing out that, in Kentucky, the surviving criminals will surely find their minds concentrated when tempted to burgle again. Surely a win-win?
Gerry Dorrian
300 words
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