admin
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16/04/2009 02:58:18 |
Bare in mind though that these are publicly available pages so try and keep your rants civil. I very much encourage free speach and would hate to have to remove any posts so please don't let hurt or anger prevent your voice being heard.
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Justice 4 Brendan
Member's Home Page
184 Posts
Member Since
20/04/2009 14:31:53
POST DATE
20/04/2009 18:55:51 |
Denial The case of the innocent.
I would like to highlight Denial which all innocent Men and Woman are in.
Denial - a one sided affair by John Taft
The police never lie, you can't get convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence alone and expert witnesses never slant their evidence to favour the prosecution. Of course the courts don't get it wrong but even in the unlikely event that they did, the Appeals system is all geared up to speedily free the truly innocent.
These are just some of the misconceptions that still seem to exist among many people, despite a catalogue of evidence to the contrary. Often these myths, that seem to portray our criminal justice system as 'whiter than white,' are expressed, either explicitly or implicitly, by prison staff in response to a prisoner who is maintaining their innocence of a crime they have been convicted of. Unfortunately, assumptions and speculation based on such myths are used as the basis of many reports that impact on the length of time a person can remain in custody. What is still commonly referred to as 'denial' can specifically reflect on 'risk factors' and this is particularly the case when it comes to mandatory lifers and the ever-increasing number of IPP sentenced prisoners. F or those truly innocent prisoners, justice in prisons is fundamentally undermined.
The state of 'denial' of course can and does exist among some prisoners, and not just those who deny all or any involvement in their crime. Forms of 'denial' can also encompass personal responsibility or consequences from someone' s actions, although this is often termed 'minimisation.' As with everything to do with human behaviour, it can be an extremely complex area to try and understand. However, the fact that 'denial' can exist among some prisoners who claim innocence does not mean that all prisoners with such a claim are 'in denial' . In other words it is as illogical and unjust, particularly given the evidence of past miscarriages of justice, to generalise about prisoners as it is to generalise about anything else, particularly when dealing with an individual's perceived areas of risk.
Institutional denial
In prison, denial is always spoken of in terms of applying to a prisoner. However, given the proven history of miscarriages of justice in this country, when the Prison and Parole systems maintains a stance of 'everyone in prison must be considered guilty' it can be nothing less than institutional denial. After all, denial is classed as 'the refusal to acknowledge an unacceptable truth' and so a system that has been proven fallible, which continues to behave and represent itself as if it was infallible, can be guilty of nothing less. The 'unacceptable truth' is that the Criminal Justice System does make mistakes.
Maintaining your innocence? Well if you truly are innocent then you have no option but to be true and honest to yourself. The state of institutional denial is alive and well and certainly won't make your sentence or your eventual release any easier. However, there is acknowledgement, after a fashion, from bodies such as the Parole Board that a problem does exist. Unfortunately it's down to the Home Office to 'direct' the Board members on what and how they conduct their review hearings.
All the best with the new site.
Good luck.
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"I hear much of people calling to punish the guilty, but few are concerned to clear the innocent" Daniel Defoe 1661-1731
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admin
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449 Posts
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20/04/2009 19:31:48 |
This is an excellent point!
Although I have no direct experience of social work denial courses as I was not convicted, I am very much aware of them. An innocent person (you meet a few in prison instead of the high street) who is wrongly convicted will be required to attend these courses.
Now here in is the problem for the innocent as expressed by the previous post. The prisoner is in a no win situation, refusal to attend = denial, attendance without accepting blame for a crime you didn't commit = denial. No matter what he/she does it will be written on report and presented as, yes you guessed it, denial. The only way to have the denial tag removed is to accept guilt for something you haven't done. Something I would never advice anyone to do, one of the most important things a falsely accused person MUST do to remain who they are is to never give up hope, and to keep fighting to clear their name.
I'm sure there will be more on this topic in future, the denial course resurfaces when parole is due and if the course hasn't been passed on the inside, it will become a condition of parole that you do so on the outside. All the while, innocent people being emotionally battered. There will always be wrongfully convicted people, mistakes are impossible to avoid but there is no reason in today's day and age that they should occur so frequently and it simply must be taken in hand before more people's lives are ruined.
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SandraLean
36 Posts
Member Since
27/04/2009 08:57:53
POST DATE
27/04/2009 09:17:48 |
Stanley Cohen has done some excellent work on denial.
In particular is a form of denial used by the authorities against those claiming wronngful conviction - "accuse the accuser." A wrongfully convicted or accused person makes claims against the authorities - shoddy investigations, selective evidence by "experts" and so on, and, rather than deal with these claims, the authorities simply point the finger right back at the wrongly convicted person, and accuse them of something else (that is, on top of what they've already been accused/convicted of).
It's one of the things that keeps public hostility against these people high - not only have they been accused/convicted of (a), but it later feeds into public perceptions that they're also (b), (c) and (d) as well, even though none of it has any basis in truth.
It's not just wrongful conviction though - any "public enquiry" which claims to look into the actions of, for example, the police, has a tendency to "accuse the accuser" - the Hillsborough disaster is a case in point. Even faced with absolute proof that police officers had lied outright, the inquiry accepted untrue evidence of "drunken, rampaging fans" to place the blame squarely on the fans themselves.
Denial, in all its forms, is a huge problem. When authorities insist that an innocent person refusing to do courses to address their "offending behaviour" is "in denial," what they are actually doing is using this to cover up their own denial - that they have accused or convicted an innocent person.
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Justice 4 Brendan
Member's Home Page
184 Posts
Member Since
20/04/2009 14:31:53
POST DATE
27/04/2009 09:59:55 |
Appeal System in the Dock
THERE is a certain current of thought which supposes that prisons are full of people falsely protesting their innocence and probably living the 'high life' behind bars, while legally aided fat cats make a mockery of the judicial system to win their release on minor technicalities. This current of thought is very convenient for myopic politicians and the legal establishment, and like many examples of what is often referred to as the 'popular imagination' it probably has more to do with the opportunism of Right-wing journalists than innate public perception. None the less, it is undoubtedly the case that many people believe this sort of rubbish.
I am sure that there are plenty of criminals who go to trial wrongly protesting their innocence. Some of these will be acquitted, and the more successful they are as criminals (and consequently the more money they have made) the greater the chances of that, since they will be able to afford expensive lawyers, instead of having to rely on the dwindling legal aid system. But most of those coming before the criminal courts do not have money, and many who are genuinely innocent are wrongly convicted.
Following conviction, of course, we have an appeal system. But one only has to look at the amount of time spent in prison by those who have successfully challenged miscarriages of justice over the past couple of decades to see just how ineffective the appeal system is. Talk to any barrister, and even the most competent of them will not be able to put their hand on their heart (or wallet) and tell you that the system works effectively. Talk to any wrongfully convicted prisoner, and their response is likely to be more robustly effusive.
The fact is that following conviction, and certainly following the denial of appeal, any prisoner who continues to falsely protest their innocence would have to be stark staring mad. Who but those who feel the genuine weight of legal injustice would struggle on to fight their convictions without legal aid and sometimes without any legal help at all, with access to only the most basic law books, frustrated at every turn by the mandarins of the judicial system, and often knowing that fixed sentences are likely to be served long before any eventual appeal is successful?
Even more morally repugnant is the way that those protesting miscarriages of justice are doubly punished while they are in prison. Most Obviously, those maintaining their innocence, and consequently not addressing their 'offending behaviour do not get parole. If they are life sentence prisoners they may never be released, but even those spending fixed terms will spend longer, often much longer, in prison than if they were guilty of the crimes for which they had been locked-up. They will also serve their time in conditions of higher security than those who progress through the system by taking part in 'sentence planning Forget about the home-leaves and the town visits we frequently read about in the Right-wing press.
THE challenge to the system de by prisoners who refuse to take part in sentence planning and offending behaviour courses marks them out as troublesome and subversive. Many of those fighting miscarriages of justice often find themselves subject to sudden inter-prison moves (‘ghostings’) and periods of segregation, as well as other harassment.
Even on a day-to-day basis, wrongfully convicted prisoners suffer as a result of being penalised by the so-called ‘Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme’. This pernicious device was introduced in the mid 1990s as part of a package of repression, and effectively created a state-defied class-system in British prisons.
Under the scheme, prisoners are classified - ‘Basic’, ‘Standard’, or ‘Enhanced’. Depending on their general behaviour
and overall level of compliance, with these categorisations defining the conditions they are held in and the ‘privileges’ they are allowed.
SINCE 1997, a willingness to take part in sentence planning and attend offending behaviour courses has been an integral part of the scheme, with those who refuse being denied ‘Enhanced’ status. This means that appellants are not only likely to spend longer in prison, and in conditions of greater security, but they will get less visits, less wages, poorer jobs, be able to spend less of their own money, be locked in their cells for longer, have poorer living facilities, less gym, and be penalised in a whole number of other petty and spiteful ways. Conformity is everything in prison, and those who do not conform absolutely will be punished.
In these circumstances only those with integrity, spirit, determination and patience in ample quantities continue to right to clear their names. The sheer awfulness of injustice gives many these qualities in abundance, but others are crushed, and driven to suicide or insanity by a system that is rotten to the core.
The simple fact is that prisoners who claim they are innocent very often are innocent. and the failings of legal system which cannot speedily address miscarriages of justice are being compounded by a penal system that torments those who are wrongly incarcerated.
Brendan Dixon has now had 3 accessments while in prison and in everyone his scale of denial increases so say the head shrinks and prison staff.
The Social worker dealing in this is an ex Police officer from the same Division who put him in the spot he is in, and who has a bias opinion of Brendan because of dealings they had in the past. In everyone they talk about employability after release with his release date 2030 Brendan would have no need or be of any use to anyone seeking to hire his services in employment.
Denial works both ways as the police never admit to putting innocent Men and Woman in prison.
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"I hear much of people calling to punish the guilty, but few are concerned to clear the innocent" Daniel Defoe 1661-1731
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admin
Member's Home Page
449 Posts
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08/04/2009 08:00:00
POST DATE
27/04/2009 10:29:41 |
I would like to further Justin 4 Brendan's point regarding the 'high life' behind bars. I must confess that 7 months ago I was guilty of assuming the same thing but having been in HMP Aberdeen for almost 6 months have had my eyes well and truly opened in that respect. Built in the 1800's, kettle's tripping the power in the cell on a Friday/Saturday unable to be restored until Monday and heating that is regularly faulty with inmates wearing jackets indoors to keep warm only to find that the problem is rectified at exactly 4pm each day. It is no high life and no wonder wrongly accused people and criminals alike come out worse than they went in!
I would also like to welcome Sandra Lean to the forum who in a matter of minutes has expressed and substantiated very significant and relevant points. No doubt easy for her to air given that I am aware she is the author of a 5 star book, 'No Smoke! The Shocking Truth About The British Justice System!".
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jane2452
89 Posts
Member Since
16/04/2009 02:42:47
POST DATE
27/04/2009 22:13:14 |
Anybody read Sandra Leans book? The one admin mentioned
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Live and let live
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Judge Dread
71 Posts
Member Since
21/04/2009 20:12:36
POST DATE
27/04/2009 23:03:10 |
Anybody read Sandra Leans book? The one admin mentioned
Hi Jane. Looked up Sandra Leans book on Amazon and read the reviews. Ordered it straight away. Can't wait. Am delighted that someone as knowledgeable as she seems to be has taken such a keen interest in this site. I hope her contact with the site is not merely through the forum because it would appear to me that more direct contact could be beneficial to the sites aims.
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The one who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones!
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stingray
46 Posts
Member Since
16/04/2009 11:29:24
POST DATE
27/04/2009 23:18:52 |
Hi Billy. Been watching your site with interest and more content by the day, keep it up! Get's kind of lonely on the seabed, last person I saw was Steve Irvine. What I need is a good book like 'No Smoke' by Sandra Lean. Gonna go buy it now.
Seems like Sandra Lean would be a good person to have on side?? ( No smoke down here )
Will keep checking on the site progress.
Good luck!!!!
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From little acorns doth mighty Oaks grow.
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admin
Member's Home Page
449 Posts
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08/04/2009 08:00:00
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27/04/2009 23:34:19 |
Hi stingray,
I'm sure you'll understand it when I say it's been a while since experienced humour so in that respect I very much appreciate your post. However I do have a niggling concern about taste but on this occasion have decided that Joe Public should decide. If anyone finds this post distasteful, send me a PM and I will remove it. Otherwise I am aware that anyone with a real need for this site will possibly find it just the ticket.
Regards
edited by admin on 28/04/2009
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UNIQUE VISITORS
FEATURED BOOK: Sandra Lean's 'No smoke, The Shocking Truth About The British Justice System'(To see all 15 5-star reveiws check 'No Smoke' as well as the full title, it is listed under both.)
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