PAROLE - A Modern Day Faery story
A time consuming charade designed to advance government policy
1st August 2018

Once upon a time the saying ‘do the crime, do the time’ was understood by ordinary people to mean the consequences of one’s actions had a cost. It was accepted, and no one thought to complain or find excuses. Life was simpler then. Even the crims shrugged their shoulders and waited out the sentence.

Then someone somewhere had a bright idea. What if the offender has ‘reasons’ to be a criminal. That could change the justice system for the better! ‘Better’ meaning more people could be employed to be expert judges of these ‘reasons’ including lawyers, psychologists, social workers and libertarians.

It came to pass, government liked this idea as it had potential to reduce the number of people held in prison and save huge amounts of money! What government wouldn’t like that?

Then they thought, maybe the victims (someone had to remind them about victims) would be upset so they had another bright idea, why not give the victims a say in decisions. That would surely satisfy them. And it came to pass this cunning plan to placate victims was call PAROLE.

Parole meant having ‘hearings’ where a Parole ‘board’ listened to both points of view and made a decision mostly in favour of the offender.

The bright ideas just kept coming. One of their number, a PR man in a former life, had a dream. In his dream the words ‘restorative justice’ floated down from a cloud. And he saw that it was good and sounded good too. The victims would just love it.

Judges and others, knowing what was good for these victims insisted they take part even though they did much protest.They were just upset and would come around eventually they said, after all they knew what was good for them.

Changes in the legal system came little by little until one day in the year of 2018, a grumpy big Little decided to hold a justice ‘summit’. The result was worked out first to make sure it ran smoothly, very sensible, except that someone else had stolen the name Sensible which upset big Little very much.

This tale doesn’t have an ending yet. It’s up to Sensible people to try for ‘Happy ever after’ and that would be a true faery tale.

Jock Jamieson
Public Awareness and Education
Sensible Sentencing Trust

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