The Tribune

By Dr Ian Bethel-Bennett

HOW many young boys are locked away because they had what may have looked like a piece of a joint on them?

They were dumb enough or simply not thinking enough to take seeds to school. They were trying to show off by having a penny bag and the next thing they knew, they were being roughed up by the police, handcuffed and taken away.

These young fellows are only experimenting and suddenly, it is all over. It simply seems very unjust or terribly wrong that the prison cells are filled with these kinds of criminals and that such a small mistake can destroy the potential they have for success in the future unless they can bounce back from what will potentially be a long and ugly experience with the law.

Based on this experience, high school becomes a thing of the past. They find their way into the maze of court cases unrepresented by legal council and unable to really defend themselves. They are met by a team of ‘people’ whose apparent wish is only to see them put away because they are bad. They are not rich, nor are they connected. They become statistics.

Many of the former group of young boys grow up in less than ideal circumstances; they are the unwanted children of single mothers who leave them with their grandmothers who are usually out of touch with what young boys need to thrive.

They do not know their fathers, or their fathers have no interest in them. They are not rich and simply not exposed to very much that will stretch their minds in a positive direction, unless they are themselves inquisitive and not deterred by the system that leads us not into questioning, but promotes us by our ability to sit quietly and accept.

They are not to do as they see their government representatives do. We beat it into their heads that they must sit and accept. They must become mere chattel on Hayek’s ‘Road to Serfdom’. The law is not for their defence, though. Even though, as A V Dicey noted, “the law became the highest estate to which the king succeeds, for both he and his subjects are ruled by it.”

Apparently, the kings in Parliament must no longer be ruled by, or as a noted official once said, shackled by the law. They can act in absolute disregard of the appearance of legality and legitimacy. The other young men, though, are stuck; they are shackled by the law on many different levels. Politicians may work to benefit some people over others, but when these ‘faceless’ young men challenge the system through their inquisitiveness, they are swiftly and soundly reprimanded.

Now we are not talking about the young gang member or leader who shoots to kill and robs with impunity. He is acting as he has seen demonstrated in public. Is the system impartial to him? Ironically, he, in a similar fashion to those in power, is often exonerated for his follies. He is usually released with an ankle adornment and permitted to go forth and destroy the case that could be built against him.

It is a tragic irony that those who cause the greatest harm are those who are most likely to have their crimes forgiven or simply to work the system to such a degree that it works in their favour and society is doubly punished. Is this impartiality?

According to the European Convention on Human Rights, the concept of impartiality is thus:

“In the case of Piersack v Belgium, the Court described its approach to impartiality. Impartiality normally denoted absence of prejudice or bias. However, its existence could be tested in several ways. Thus a distinction was to be drawn between the subjective approach and the objective approach. The subjective test consists of endeavouring to ascertain the personal conviction of a given judge in a given case. It is of course notoriously difficult to substantiate allegations of actual bias and the Court has made it clear that personal impartiality is to be presumed until proof to the contrary. “

Does this doctrine of impartiality work on a large scale in this country given the realities laid out above?

The young boy caught with a penny bag of weed can be detained, beaten and pulled from school, perhaps sent to prison on remand, giving him a police record that, unless he is well-connected (which apparently he is not; he is in this position to begin with).

After he has spent from Friday to Monday or Tuesday lost in the maze of the police system, he will pay for this crime by being sent up with all other manner of criminals and there be criminalised further.

Meanwhile, the gang leader will be out on bail and free to maraud the streets. He has the system on lock. He can secure a ‘clean’ Glock, walk up to a woman on the streets, shoot her and escape. His case will never come to trial. He will never be apprehended.

The youth Grammy raised, born into similar circumstances as the gang dude, does not have this pleasure. He does not have the system in his palm. His masculinity has been set under the bulldozer’s tracks and lay asunder.

We are willing to destroy him for a dalliance that can only be described as dumb. Many are the examples of young boys who are pushed into the corner of society by this impartiality. If he survives the lure to the dark side from the community around him, he is usually roughed up and bullied for being ‘soft’ or studious. It takes special skills to survive that life.

From the top of the spectrum, some are able to condemn the young for challenging through education. We can send them to hell if they choose to study and perhaps question. We can call in favours and enrich our friends. We can behave as we wish and fear no recrimination.

The law is no longer impartial, it is manipulated and shaped into what leaders wish it to be. That law that is meant to govern king and citizen alike does not rule in this small place. It is used without impartiality to enrich the drug leader, gang leader, political figure and to destroy the young man who happens to be misbehaving as young boys will do.

Yes, the violence is out of control, there may be three stabbings on Friday afternoon in Oakes Field as schools spew their subjects onto the streets, but many of them will get off. Others will sit and rot because they may be nearby and unaware of their limitations, and still others will manipulate the system from on high, and never deign to descend into the madding crowd to seek to appease the pain and suffering their leadership has created. But we are not to question when they send the poor to hell. There is no bias nor prejudice, it’s just the same old tune sang in a different time.

They were dumb enough or simply not thinking enough to take seeds to school. They were trying to show off by having a penny bag and the next thing they knew, they were being roughed up by the police, handcuffed and taken away.

These young fellows are only experimenting and suddenly, it is all over. It simply seems very unjust or terribly wrong that the prison cells are filled with these kinds of criminals and that such a small mistake can destroy the potential they have for success in the future unless they can bounce back from what will potentially be a long and ugly experience with the law.

Based on this experience, high school becomes a thing of the past. They find their way into the maze of court cases unrepresented by legal council and unable to really defend themselves. They are met by a team of ‘people’ whose apparent wish is only to see them put away because they are bad. They are not rich, nor are they connected. They become statistics.

Many of the former group of young boys grow up in less than ideal circumstances; they are the unwanted children of single mothers who leave them with their grandmothers who are usually out of touch with what young boys need to thrive.

They do not know their fathers, or their fathers have no interest in them. They are not rich and simply not exposed to very much that will stretch their minds in a positive direction, unless they are themselves inquisitive and not deterred by the system that leads us not into questioning, but promotes us by our ability to sit quietly and accept.

They are not to do as they see their government representatives do. We beat it into their heads that they must sit and accept. They must become mere chattel on Hayek’s ‘Road to Serfdom’. The law is not for their defence, though. Even though, as A V Dicey noted, “the law became the highest estate to which the king succeeds, for both he and his subjects are ruled by it.”

Apparently, the kings in Parliament must no longer be ruled by, or as a noted official once said, shackled by the law. They can act in absolute disregard of the appearance of legality and legitimacy. The other young men, though, are stuck; they are shackled by the law on many different levels. Politicians may work to benefit some people over others, but when these ‘faceless’ young men challenge the system through their inquisitiveness, they are swiftly and soundly reprimanded.

Now we are not talking about the young gang member or leader who shoots to kill and robs with impunity. He is acting as he has seen demonstrated in public. Is the system impartial to him? Ironically, he, in a similar fashion to those in power, is often exonerated for his follies. He is usually released with an ankle adornment and permitted to go forth and destroy the case that could be built against him.

It is a tragic irony that those who cause the greatest harm are those who are most likely to have their crimes forgiven or simply to work the system to such a degree that it works in their favour and society is doubly punished. Is this impartiality?

According to the European Convention on Human Rights, the concept of impartiality is thus:

“In the case of Piersack v Belgium, the Court described its approach to impartiality. Impartiality normally denoted absence of prejudice or bias. However, its existence could be tested in several ways. Thus a distinction was to be drawn between the subjective approach and the objective approach. The subjective test consists of endeavouring to ascertain the personal conviction of a given judge in a given case. It is of course notoriously difficult to substantiate allegations of actual bias and the Court has made it clear that personal impartiality is to be presumed until proof to the contrary. “

Does this doctrine of impartiality work on a large scale in this country given the realities laid out above?

The young boy caught with a penny bag of weed can be detained, beaten and pulled from school, perhaps sent to prison on remand, giving him a police record that, unless he is well-connected (which apparently he is not; he is in this position to begin with).

After he has spent from Friday to Monday or Tuesday lost in the maze of the police system, he will pay for this crime by being sent up with all other manner of criminals and there be criminalised further.

Meanwhile, the gang leader will be out on bail and free to maraud the streets. He has the system on lock. He can secure a ‘clean’ Glock, walk up to a woman on the streets, shoot her and escape. His case will never come to trial. He will never be apprehended.

The youth Grammy raised, born into similar circumstances as the gang dude, does not have this pleasure. He does not have the system in his palm. His masculinity has been set under the bulldozer’s tracks and lay asunder.

We are willing to destroy him for a dalliance that can only be described as dumb. Many are the examples of young boys who are pushed into the corner of society by this impartiality. If he survives the lure to the dark side from the community around him, he is usually roughed up and bullied for being ‘soft’ or studious. It takes special skills to survive that life.

From the top of the spectrum, some are able to condemn the young for challenging through education. We can send them to hell if they choose to study and perhaps question. We can call in favours and enrich our friends. We can behave as we wish and fear no recrimination.

The law is no longer impartial, it is manipulated and shaped into what leaders wish it to be. That law that is meant to govern king and citizen alike does not rule in this small place. It is used without impartiality to enrich the drug leader, gang leader, political figure and to destroy the young man who happens to be misbehaving as young boys will do.

Yes, the violence is out of control, there may be three stabbings on Friday afternoon in Oakes Field as schools spew their subjects onto the streets, but many of them will get off. Others will sit and rot because they may be nearby and unaware of their limitations, and still others will manipulate the system from on high, and never deign to descend into the madding crowd to seek to appease the pain and suffering their leadership has created. But we are not to question when they send the poor to hell. There is no bias nor prejudice, it’s just the same old tune sang in a different time.