Penal Affairs Panel: News Issue 4 2009
Welcome again to PAP News. The Penal Affairs Panel of the Unitarians wants to bring you some of the concerns, issues and good news of the criminal justice system. In particular, we want to tell you how Unitarians are acting on their concerns, issues and good news.
Do tell us about your concerns and news and give us information we might pass to other Unitarians through the PAP News . Do please tell others about PAP News and leave a copy at your meeting.
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1. Home Office Misleads Immigration Courts A High Court Judge has released a Tamil, a failed asylum-seeker, after the Home Office failed to advise the Court that it had adopted a policy since May 2009 of not deporting Tamils to Sri Lanka following the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. He had been in UK for 9 years and in custody for more than three years. See http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/october/ha000030.html
2. Detention of Children in Immigration Centres In the first study if its kind, medical experts have found that 73% of the children detained at Yarls Wood Immigration Detention Centre in Bedfordshire had developed emotional and behavioural problems since being detained. All the 12 children examined by a psychologist in the team of experts were found to be "sick with fear". See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/13/children-immigration-detention-health
And an Early Day Motion has been entered in Parliament by Chris Mullins MP calling on the Government to stop detaining children as part of the process of deporting failed asylum-seekers and immigrants. There are presently about 2000 children in detention. See http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=39212&SESSION899
3. Ignorance Skews Public's View of Refugees The Red Cross has carried out a survey of the views of a 1000 people on asylum-seekers and refugees in UK . Only 5% of those surveyed could give the figure of applications for asylum in the UK (less than 30,000 in 2008). Perhaps more daunting, most people think the UK has received 24% of all asylum-seekers whereas the real figure is 3%. See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prejudice-and-ignorance-skew-public-view-of-asylumseekers-1699213.html
4. Lost Videos of Death in Police Custody The loss of CCTV videos which might show mistreatment by police officers has been a longstanding problem. Sean Rigg, a musician, died in an outdoor holding pen at Brixton Police Station in August, 2008. The video recording of him in the pen has disappeared but the video of a police inspector confirming that the video tapes had been secured survives. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/21/sean-riggs-police-death-cctv
And Harry Cohen MP has put an Early Day Motion to Parliament calling for the immediate naming of a police officer responsible for the security of video evidence in all cases of a death in custody or where there is video evidence of a major crime. See
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=38983
5. Prison Governors Call to End of Short Prison Sentences The Prison Governors' Association has called for all prison sentences of less than 12 months to be turned into non-custodial sentences. It has warned the Government that overcrowding and financial cuts in the prisons present a major risk of "widespread disorder". See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8291330.stm
6. Prison Numbers Reach Record The Howard League's Weekly Prison Watch reports in mid-October another unenviable record of 84,514, of which women are 4,279 and children are 2,494. The figures continue what appears to be a constant rise. You can keep an eye on the weekly figures. See http://www.howardleague.org/weekly-prison-watch2009/
7. Justice Secretary Seeks Secret Inquests Jack Straw MP has introduced powers in the Coroners and Justice Bill now before Parliament to "suspend" inquests and hold secret inquiries from which the bereaved families and their lawyers, the press and the public would be excluded. Ministers would be able to exclude parts of any report. The Independent reports that the Government is set on seeing the powers enacted. See
8. Martin Bell at Bury St. Edmunds Unitarian Meetinghouse The famous journalist spoke about his experiences of wars to a full meetinghouse and, in particular, about the ineffectiveness of torture and custody. See www.eadt.co.uk/content/eadt/news/story.aspx?brand=EADOnline&category=news&tBrand=eadonline&tCategory=news
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