As an opening post for a new blog there couldn’t have been a better point for Paul to start a debate about than how long criminals should remain in jail for various crimes. The original post centres on a particular murderer who targeted young children, but the bottom line is that the decision about how long to put someone away for for any serious crime is one that causes serious debate and anguish for many of the victims and in the case of murder victims, their families.

One of the things that causes this strong controversy is the place for human emotion in law; there isn’t one. The law doesn’t take account of emotion, merely the facts. This will inevitably result in a large amount of upset and anguish in an emotive case that has its verdict decided purely on the facts. The problem is that emotions vary, and to pass a sentance on a variable that can change as often as the wind would be to destroy the concept of fair trial and justice on which we all rely to live our lives the way we do.

The problem is I don’t wish to make these comments without sympathy, because I have a lot of sympathy for victims and their families and I agree entirely with their view that the law doesn’t go far enough with dealing for the hurt and loss that these dangerous criminals cause. The issue in this though is who wants to take responsibility for them. In certain states of America they have the death penalty, but in those same states you get victims who feel upset about feeling like they have blood on their hands irrespective of the crime committed. Likewise you get early releases or short sentences that cause similar levels of upset for opposite reason; they feel justice hasn’t been served.

Based  on those points then the only solution is a true life sentence for these people. Unfortunately the costs involved with this are huge. Prisons take away from badly needed services such as schools, hostpitals and police. I guess the biggest question in all this is not what we want to happen to dangerous criminals but what we want to sacrifice in other areas of our lives in order to get justice served the way we want it.

It struck me the other day how many people really do believe whole-heartedly in the concept of bad luck, that as an individual you can have a certain level of it such that if something bad has to come the way of yourself and a group of others that you will be the one to bear the brunt of it.

There is a certain sadness to see someone pass comment about their own luck this way. While on the face of it its not a real issue, after all we all have our ups and downs and we all need something to attribute those things to, but the problem with a run of bad luck or repeated  comments of that nature is it seems to stick and be transferred to things that are not down to luck at all. Not only that but it seems to lead to a certain pessimism that extends accross their life leading to regular comments along the lines of “if it happens it will happen to me” sort of thing.

All the people I know who make comments like this seem to be more pessimistic than others I know who do not make such comments. This should come as no surprise, but what will come as one is that as an outsider I don’t see either group of people experiencing any more negative events (bad luck) in their lives. What this seems to mean is that if you think you are unlucky then you will be, in your own mind at least. Certainly food for thought for those who have a tendency for the odd pessimistic streak. As Bob Marley once said, don’t worry, be happy. How very right he seems to be.

Its amazing how when you are going away in the not too distant future you suddenly realise that there is a load of stuff to do in the time between now and then. Not of course that all this stuff couldn’t have been done a week or so ago, but for one reason or another it always gets left until now to get finished. Ah well, c’est la vie.