Kenneth Clarke to ban criminals from claiming injuries fund

[alp227]

Criminals are to be banned from making claims for injuries from a special fund set up to help victims of crime, Kenneth Clarke will announce on Monday.

The justice secretary is to tell MPs that he will take steps to stop convicts from making claims from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.

Clarke, who has been accused by many Tories on the right for failing to adopt a more robust approachof being soft on law and order, will also unveil a £50m scheme to ensure criminals make greater payments to victims.

The government estimates 20,000 people with criminal records have been paid more than £75m in the past 10 years from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. In one case a convicted rapist was awarded £62,000 for serious injuries, including the loss of a leg.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/30/kenneth-clarke-criminals-injuries-fund

[TheWraith]

1. Well, finally.

First they say that you're actually allowed to exercise self defense in your home (albeit only "equal force" with a blunt instrument), now they say criminals don't get compensation for injuries. Don't tell me the UK is actually getting a clue.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I don't think you were familiar with the British self defence law

if you say 'finally'.

And notice that this is no compensation for almost any injury. For some reason, an injury while defending a prison officer would be eligible for compensation, but not, it seems an injury while defending a member of the public (this is for non-spent convictions, so it include time after they have got out of prison). The description in the article sounds vindictive, to me.

[TheWraith]

3. Yes, I am quite familiar with it.

I'm also familiar with the cases where people attacked in their homes were subsequently charge with assault or even attempted murder for defending themselves against their attacker. The UK's treatment of the public on self defense is right there in line with the attitude on surveillance: everyone is a criminal. Except of course the people who actually are.

[LeftishBrit]

4. This is not about denying criminals compensation for injuries inflicted on them in self-defense

It is about denying people with criminal convictions compensation for any criminal injury inflicted on them. Basically, saying 'if you're a criminal, you can't also be a victim of another criminal'. Among other things, it sounds like a bit of a charter for prison violence, if you ask me.

[LeftishBrit]

5. By the way, have you actually spent much time in Britain?

If you have, and this is your impression, well, that's that. But it sounds to me as though you may be influenced by right-wing propaganda, some of it British, ultimately coming from the viewpoint that a 'socialist nanny state' is inevitably less free than a free-market country; that we're far too soft on crime and things haven't been the same since we got rid of the Rope and the Birch; that 'New Labour' was bad because it wasn't right-wing enough, rather than too right-wing etc. I'm not saying that you think all these things, but that you may be influenced by sources that do.

The 'surveillance state' is no part of British culture or recent history as a whole. British life was for a long time, under Labour and Tory governments alike, very much based on the idea that An Englishman's Home is his Castle, and that people should generally mind their own business. The excessive surveillance here began at the same time as the Patriot Act and its consequences in America, and for the same reasons: the fallout of the War on Terror, and the close collaboration between Bush and Blair.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Your problem is probably thinking that intrusion in the home means 'attack'

People actually attacked can defend themselves. But it is about self defence; you can't use violence to defend your property. Nor can you use it as revenge. Like LeftishBrit, I wonder if you have seen too many stories from tabloids or American sources.

[ikri]

7. Since this is almost certain to lead to a ECHR case

I wonder whether this isn't a set up by the government to create a huge public outcry over the inevitable European Court of Human Rights case.

It surely shouldn't matter what someone's personal circumstances are if they've been attacked and injured badly enough to warrant compensation. In fact, if someone is injured whilst serving time for an offence then the government is even more culpable since they've failed to provide a safe environment.

The other possibility is that they've added something to get the red-tops frothing at the mouth in the hope that they'll miss the increases to fixed penalty notices for driving offences that are also in the bill.

[dipsydoodle]

8. The only way in which a completely safe environment could be provided in prison

to protect prisoner from prisoners would be to put them all into solitary.