Sunday, October 28, 2012

Glimmer

Tariq and Colette stood side by side in the dock, co-defendants in a shoplifting matter. As is so often the case, the driver was the overriding need to fund their drug and alcohol habits. When you are living on benefits of about £70 a week, spending the same amount each day on heroin leaves a gap that can only be filled by crime. Every magistrate will have seen many similar cases, with the unsophisticated methods used making arrest a near certainty .
They looked terrible. Her hair was scragged back, her face puffy, her skin blotchy. He exhibited the classic heroin crouch, back bent, elbows in, head held low. And yet they were holding hands. I would not normally allow that, but to have told them to stop would have been unnecessarily cruel. For various reasons the case could not go ahead; for one thing Colette's litre-a-day vodka habit had caused her admission to hospital when she began vomiting blood a week ago.
We bailed them to a later date to obtain reports, and I gave them the usual warning that if they failed to turn up for their appointments we had the power to remand them in custody to ensure reports were done. She clutched his arm, looking up at him adoringly. "Oh no" she said "I can't be without him. He's everything to me".
I found their plight strangely moving. Of course they will be dealt with according to the law, and within our guidelines. I am unlikely to see them again, but I would not be surprised to hear that they were given a Community Order with a requirement for drug and alcohol treatment, which is by no means a certain cure, but is probably their and society's only hope.
The fact that two people so near the bottom of society's heap find solace in each other even as they inject and swig their way into an early grave is just a tiny glimmer of hope that the human spirit can survive in the most desperate circumstances.
My experience and my judgement tell me that neither of them is likely to see the age of thirty. I hope that I am wrong.

62 comments:

  1. "My experience and my judgement tell me that neither of them is likely to see the age of thirty."

    I have absolutely no doubt the Bystander Team have far more experience than me in these matters. I'm inclined to believe you.

    But, I do wonder how this works. How do you get the feedback on whether people that you see before you (or your predecessors saw before them) go on to live past thirty or not? Without that feedback, how do you get the experience?

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    1. "her face puffy, her skin blotchy". Colette's litre-a-day vodka habit", "vomiting blood a week ago". I'm not a lawyer nor doctor , but they don't suggest a long life to me.
      I hope those aren't their real names. They aren't ones I'd come up with to conceal identities.

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    2. The names, medical details and even the year are not as they may seem. As ever, it is the underlying principle that is true.

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  2. Some parts of the country have specialist DRR (drug rehabilitation requirement) courts, which ensure a much greater continuity of judicial supervision of the progress (or otherwise) made by individuals on such orders. This is appreciated by all concerned, in part because it cuts out the need for the endless rehearsal of the particular backstory in each case, but also because it gives a sense that there is a guiding hand to the implementation of these orders. So much so that when a regular appeared for review, he was taken aback to see that - although all of the magistrates were DRR trained - "none of my [sic] magistrates" was present! Magistrates who serve on these specialist panels get additional regular training from professionals in the field, and some even go on to serve as trustees of drug rehab units etc. in their area. It would be against all the sensible safeguards that Bystander in the past and the new Team BS now have set in place for them to give identifiable detail of their own experience etc. Generally, however, magistrates (and not just those who have volunteered for specialist courts) get quite regular training in aspects of interest to their work, and that will include speakers looking at new approaches to substance abuse. Probation speakers also report back at training events on re-offending rates, and may well refer to mortality and morbidly rates. It's difficult to be more specific without entering into identifiable detail, but I hope this has given you a flavour of how justices can acquire relevant experience.

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    1. Thank you. That is very interesting, and answers my question.

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  3. The lack of feedback goes much further. Referral for reports before sentencing by others, breaches of probation conditions, community servive breaches, etc., all mean that magistrates have no real idea of how their decisions are implemented or even obeyed.

    In medicine we see the same case in out patients until resolution and discharge back to the GP. This lack of continuity of case for JPs can only encourage short-term thinking, and limit the value of 'experience on the bench'.

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    1. The above is not entirely true. We may not be able to check how an individual did on an order but we have the full criminal record before sentencing and can see any breaches, failures to surrender etc. and how they were dealt with.

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    2. But that means you only see mostly other JPs' failures retrospectively. The best education would be to see both the successes and failures after your own prospective decision.

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    3. Offenders have choices, even in cases like this one highlighted by Bystander, and which I see all too often as well. There are programmes they can go on but ultimately it is the offender who decides to offend, or to re-offend. That is not a decision of the bench or of previous benches.

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  4. A female friend has a son who, along with his wife, are both heroin addicts of 20 years - since the age of 15.

    They are heavily in debt and it is only his mother’s financial generosity that keeps them afloat. She is elderly and when she is no longer around to subsidise them, they will sink. Despite claiming to be clean they still partake of heroin as a supplement to their methadone.

    The son is regretting ever becoming part of the drug scene. Both his brother and sister have careers and earn large sums. He and his wife live in a bedsit and he has claimed benefits most of his life due to not being able to keep regular employment. His longest job lasted a few weeks.

    His regrets stem from the knowledge he could have emulated his siblings and would now own his own house, have his own family and be a respected member of society. Instead he knows he is a waster and loser. It is his wasted life than upsets him the most. He could he been someone and achieved mush in his life, if not for heroin.

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    1. If we revisited the whole business of what should and should not be illegal with regard to drugs of Class A, B and C, with a view to what policies and strategies would actually produce positive results, we might be able to divert some of the enormous sums spent in the criminal justice system and the A & E sector of the NHS into providing the kind of properly constructed and funded rehab programmes That your friend's son and his wife so clearly need - and want.

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    2. They get very little help as they have been addicts for so long, social services has given up on them. They see this couple as a waste of time and they will never be free of their addiction. They have received help even to the extent of being supplied with a new £400 fridge, which the wife tried to sell for £50 to buy gear, even before it was unwrapped

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  5. Even when things look as grim as Bystander's poignant piece portrays, there can still be hope. The DDR programmes in our area order monthly reviews in front of the breach court, and just last week we awarded the first gold certificate I've ever seen to a Class A offender who had achieved a dozen negative tests in a row. The chairman stepped down into the well of the court to award the certificate, and the rest of us applauded. It was one of the most rewarding moments of my eight-year judicial career.

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  6. Legalizing their poison, which kills fewer people than alcohol, is one solution. The trade is increased because it is unlawful: it carries sufficient super profits that two or three free doses can be given, pushed, to acquire an addict. Only 10-25% of people become addicted.

    Taxing it would enable purity and needles etc to be available so sharing diseases and prostitution and theft would diminish, but then the number of Magistrates would also decline?

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    1. Just becasue one intoxicant happens to be legal does not in any way diminish the damage done by another. Your argument is thus entirely fallacious.

      And your final point is just idiotic. If you had bothered to do ANY research you would know that the number of Magistrates HAS declined by a significant number even while certain drugs remain illegal. Why would legalising drugs be relevant to that issue and even if it were why would Magistrates be concerned. Are you suggesting we have a vested interest in keeping people on drugs? Why? Do you think we get paid by the addict? For your information, we don't get paid at all.

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  7. I am never surprised at the postings on 'legalising drugs' as the answer to these problems. The truth is many of these 'hook themselves' on drugs to escape life's decisions. Many could stop tomorrow if they chose to but don't actually want to. Legalising drugs is not the answer.

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    1. Correct, of course. Life's lost sheep; admirably, even poignantly portrayed by the Team! They are natural victims and would have been Gin swillers in the 16th Century.

      However, betraying the innocent into awareness of their natural dependancy, is encouraged by the profit motive in having all the mighty organs of the state aimed at users! Rockefeller made possession a ten year stretch in NY! Prisoners for transportation or imprisonment with work are economically lucrative and it is well known that the USA makes more than the Brits did when they ran opium into China?

      Joined up thinking is required, so it will not be solved by anything but an economic depression, requiring the socialization of the profits from most unlawful activities that do not directly produce victims? Oh, goody! I spy a Depression!

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  8. Currently we neither properly legalise nor criminalise them. It is my feeling that either answer would work but a half measure of each as we have doesn't.

    by not criminalise properly I mean that whilst it is technically illegal straight forward possession is usually dealt with by a warning or insignificant punishment that is neither preventative nor punitive.

    If we can manage it I thing we ought to legalise possession and license supply. Treat it like smoking (with the dramatic head start we already have) where all the effort is made towards making it socially unacceptable, all the money is spent on health care and preventative solutions and no police time is wasted on checking to see who has tobacco in their pockets. Perhaps for a trial period of say 5 years.

    Personally I believe that the current political framework (democracy) is unlikely to manage to do either as it seems that you only ever get a lukewarm compromise solution.

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  9. Look at Portugal.

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  10. @anonymous - Portugal's Drug Policy has failed!

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  11. But that means you only see the failures retrospectively. The best education would be to see the successes and failures after your prospective decisions.

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    1. Apols for duplication, messed up somehow with the software.

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    2. That's Ok. We live for your wisdom. More is always better!

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  12. "...society's only hope."

    "...My experience and my judgement tell me that neither of them is likely to see the age of thirty."

    That's society's best hope. Although in that 30 years they will still have sucked a fortune out of society, and contributed precisely zero. Cretins.

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    1. Are you seriously wishing them dead ? That is utterly disgusting.

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    2. I am not wishing them dead, rather stating that when they do snuff it it will not be a great loss to society.

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    3. Like you and me then, Hibbo ?

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    4. Well I cannot speak for you, Tony, I can confidently state that I would be a greater loss to society than your average smackhead.

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    5. That is a matter of opinion.

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    6. Indeed it is.

      However, given that I have served my country and have been in full-time employment since I was 17, how could one possibly be of the opinion that a lifelong smackhead is of greater value to society?

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    7. Because value isn't an objective construct.

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    8. OK, subjectively then, how is a lifelong smackhead of value to society?

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    9. Robert the Biker1 November 2012 at 14:30

      Well...I suppose they do provide employment for probation officers, social workers and dare I say it, magistrates : )

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  13. You don't do compassion or humanity, do you, Hibbo? Still, let's hope your mother loves you.

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  14. Yes I do, BS, but not for those who are completely undeserving of either. Where is your compassion for the victims whose lives are blighted by the criminality of smackheads such as these?

    My mother does indeed love me.

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  15. Absolutely agree with Hibbo. We hear of the plight of the addicts and one can feel for them. But the victims of their addiction and the criminality seem to be lost in the mists.

    The addicts have lost all values and will continue their valueless lives at the expense of other unless drastic action is taken.

    There have been experiments where addicts are locked in a padded cell, and supplied food and water only. Despite 5 days of gut wrenching pain, they come clean after 14 days.

    BS needs to see the whole picture and stop seeing the addicts as victims. The real victims are those hurt by the criminality of the addicts.

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    1. Description of 'experiments' is correct. In fact most detoxification treatments do the same thing, if a little more kindly than solitary confinement in a padded cell.

      But it is not that simple.

      Trouble is, detoxification does not equate to 'clean'. While the chemical is removed, the brain is still in the altered state needed to cope with the regular chemical onslaught hitherto, and the psychological and social aspects are still drug-seeking and (usually) self-destructive or at least unconcerned about self-preservation. Ask any smoker whether they would like a cigarrette about 5 days after they stopped smoking (yet again).

      Lastly, the economic damage and sheer volume of death and disease due to tobacco and alcohol dwarfs the class 1 and 2 controlled drugs in this country. It is just that those dealing and using the latter get prosecuted for it, and that pushes the relative price up.

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  16. Please do not make comparisons between alcohol/tobacco and illegal drugs that is erroneous. They are a totally different ball game. People addict themselves to Heroin - the Heroin way of life attracts them. However the withdrawal symptoms are medically trivial. Courts seem to be under the misapprehension that drugs lead people into crime. Many addicts who end up in prison have a long criminal record before ever taking drugs. Why people are attracted to drugs is not a medical question, not does it have a medical answer.

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    1. Westlaw wrote "Courts seem to be under the misapprehension that drugs lead people into crime."
      ..........................................................

      Misapprehension? Weekly income X, daily purchase of drugs also X (or often more). Where do you think the money for the drugs needed for the other six days is going to come from?

      Try sitting in a court public gallery and listening to the defence solicitors mitigating for those caught shop lifting who the court is told have a drugs habit.

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    2. Rather than quoting a snippet read the whole thing.

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    3. And who - to borrow your active verb - addicts smokers to tobacco and alcoholics to alcohol? The ONLY difference is that dealers in tobacco and alcohol are legal, licensed and regulated, but what a difference that makes. I cannot ever remember tobacco addiction being put forward in mitigation for shop theft, though it sometimes happens with alcohol, though on nowhere the same scale as Class A, B and C.
      I keep banging on about, but if a market exists it will be supplied. The only hope is to legaiise, license and regulate the industry - yes, and tax it.

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    4. "Gone west" is used idiomatically to mean "died / extinguished" and it rather looks as though poor WotL's blog is going the same way. No comments, and only a few dozen views. With opinions such as these, and expressed so poorly, I am not surprised.

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    5. Oh dear Man on the village green has shown his true colours. Not even worth debating with such people!

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    6. Just what colours are those, wl? You clearly don't like light being shone onto your true nature.

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    7. Any more of this playground abuse and you are out of here for keeps. If you don't like it, start your own blog, but don't sour mine.

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  17. What a load of twaddle, WL. I don't often agree with TF, but am entirely with him on this front.

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  18. Robert the Biker31 October 2012 at 10:21

    Two things strike me here:
    If alcohol and 'baccy are so bad, why is being a pisshead not mitigation? Why are briefs not going "Oh your worship, it's all because my client is a confirmed 'baccy head" Do people shoplift and burgle to get money for drink and tobacco? I think these crimes are mostly commited to afford yet more illegal drugs.
    Secondly, since I am not aware of any of these smackheaded cretins who are capable (after a given level of addiction) of holding down any form of gainfull employment, who precisely do you expect to pay for their drugs, their housing, their food? Would I be far out to suggest that would be me? I have neither desire nor interest in supporting a class of professional addicts who do not and will not contribute anything to society, I prefer to arm myself against them. If this is considered harsh, perhaps some of the more righteous posters would care to explain why I should tolerate being robbed or mugged or burgled by some drug addled moron.

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    1. "If alcohol and 'baccy are so bad, why is being a pisshead not mitigation? "

      I think you may have misunderstood. Whilst sentencing can often attempt to address offending on drugs by dealing with drug addiction that does not make it a mitigation.

      Sentencing Guidelines quite explicitly place alcohol and drugs in the same bracket as Aggravating Factors. Thus they note that "Commission of offence whilst under the influence of alcohol or drugs" should normally increase the gravity of any offence.

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    2. Robert the Biker31 October 2012 at 19:59

      And yet these two parasites, who have probably contributed a measurable percentage to the misery of any who have crossed their paths or had something they could steal to sell for their next fix, will have probably gotten a community sentance (as Bystander hinted). So much for increasing the gravity of an offence. Sorry, but my sympathy is for their victims, I have none for them.

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    3. Sympathy for victims isn't the point. What helps victims, past and potential, is to stop reoffending, something that short prison sentences are notably bad at doing. Community sentences involving drug and alcohol treatment are far from perfect, but they still offer a better hope than anything else at the court's disposal.

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    4. For the record, Biker, I have seen patients who do hold down reasonable jobs for long periods of time after heroin addition. Some of them are on methadone maintenance, some on buprenorphine, and some simply attending their equivalent of alcoholics anonymous. These are not 'sheltered' jobs, either, and include ordinary City clerks, retail shop workers, drivers of various types, and council workers. Would admit that it is uncommon, but it is certainly not an impossibility.

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    5. We seem to have two Bikers here (which is nice).

      This one agrees with you.

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    6. Robert the Biker1 November 2012 at 09:20

      Well, quite Tony! These are the people who from your statement have given up on sticking needles in their arms for fun. Since they are no longer on smack and are holding down jobs I applaud them and so this one agrees with you too.

      Biker: 1996 Harley FXDL (Lowrider)how about you?

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    7. If being pissed or off one's tits on drugs are supposed to be aggravating rather than mitigating factors, why do defence solicitors mention it?

      Surely if the judiciary really did consider it to be an aggravating factor, defence solicitors would go out of their way to deny that their client was out of it!

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    8. "If being pissed or off one's tits on drugs are supposed to be aggravating rather than mitigating factors, why do defence solicitors mention it?"

      Well often they have no choice, since it is otherwise an elephant in the room. But it is rarely used as a mitigating argument unless the outcome sought is drug treatment (which is only ever part of a sentence handed out).

      "Biker: 1996 Harley FXDL (Lowrider)how about you?".

      I'd love to tell you, but for the fact that the Senior Presiding Judge might use the information to identify me and thence disbar me from the Bench.

      Funny old world, innit?

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    9. Robert the Biker1 November 2012 at 16:34

      Bloody Hell, are they really that anal?

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  19. One of the most effective means of drug rehab is residential treatment in specialised units, which consistently produce lower rates not only of re-offending within each of the standard benchmark periods, but also of freedom from drug use over time. This does not seem to be a disposal that lies within the courts' armoury, however. Substitution therapy (with methadone etc.) is not addressing the drug dependence, and only tangentially the behavioural issues around recourse to drugs.

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  20. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10844344

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  21. Thank you, Bystander, for another wonderful post.

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  22. @Biker

    Your mount?

    Brough Superior?

    But please do have a care in the Dorset environs, as history would suggest.

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    1. Robert the Biker2 November 2012 at 19:33

      Yeah, if you see any large black cars or kids on bikes, I should hide behind a tree.

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