Dangerousness and Dangerous Offenders

Dangerousness and Dangerous OffendersDangerousness and Dangerous Offenders. give break through the archetype of sedateness and tinyly evaluate its advantage for the outlaw justice governing body.Dangerousness, is the supposition of criminology that is used to attribute those offenders who ar deemed to pose a significant fortune to the ecumenic public but whose actions cannot be made attributable to a specific mental illness. This in that locationfore promoter that the administration of their execrable penalisation is, by law, to be dealt with by the penal agreement as remote to the medical profession. This paper analyses this concept of dangerousness, which allow predominantly take into love the difficulties of creating an adequate legal definition for the use of the dangerousness concept as a scape inwardly the modern criminal justice system. In particular, critical assessment of a possible use for a dangerousness concept pull up stakes be analysed with refere nce to difficulties of categorisation of dangerous behaviour and possible usefulness. at once a use for dangerousness has been identified, this will be analysed with reference to possible impacts on the modern Human Rights regime. These findings will be cross referenced with the elaborate of the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) and the Multi-Agency Public Protection Panel (MAPPP) in ordain to figure whether there really is a use for an all include dangerousness concept in fell nicety.A. Definition of the Concept of DangerousnessResearch into the dangerousness concept reveals that it is a character that is attributed to certain criminal offenders. Floud and Young therefore reveal dangerousness as a pathological attribute of character a appositeness to inflict harm on others in disregard or insubordination of the usual social and legal constraints The first revelation of the concept of dangerousness is, therefore, that it is a notion aimed at the criminal offender.A second aspect of the concept is that the offender need not be suffering from any spurt of mental illness. This does not pose huge problems for the criminal justice endure of sentencing, since mental illness is indicative of insanity, which when averred in a court of law, has the issuance of acquitting the offender on account of lack of mens rea to commit the crime. The insane atomic number 18 therefore dealt with by the medical profession on a purely subjective level in a way that the penal system would be ill equipped to provide. This was evident in the case of peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who, after a period of time in prison cod to a failed plea of diminished responsibility, was eventually lay down to be mentally unsound and was placed into psychiatric care.Finally, a third aspect, or peradventure a problem associated with the above definition is that there is little counseling on the mixture of behaviour that can be deemed as dangerous. This will be dealt with below. In relation to this, there is no assistance in the determination of the boundaries between dangerous and non-dangerous offenders.B. Dangerousness as a useful shot for the criminal justice system 1. Definition of Criminal JusticeIn bon ton to assess a potential tool for the Criminal Justice system, it is essential to know exactly what Criminal Justice is in order to identify its specific implorements for potential, useful tools.Criminal Justice is grittyly interlacing for the simple reason that it is a system operated by various institutions including the police, the blossom prosecution service, the criminal defence service, the courts, the probation service and the prison service to severalise but a few. Sanders and Young permit however identified hotshot key principle of all institutions that are instrumental in the Criminal Justice system, which is to regulate potential, aver and actual criminal use within procedural limits supposed to protect the citizen from wrongful treatment and wrongful prison term 2. Requirements for dangerousness to be a useful toolDangerousness, as a tool within this system, therefore requires to be instrumental in the regulation of alleged and actual criminal activity. Dangerousness itself would fit into the criminal justice modal as a legal term for the attribution of certain offenders but, in doing so, it must have a functional use beyond unblemished classification. As a tool within a fresh legal system that is governed by the Human Rights incite 1998, it is in addition necessary that the definition of dangerousness is clarify and precise so that offenders are given the benefit of full hydrofoil of the law.C. A function beyond mere classification?What is the function of dangerousness? In 1981, Fleud and Young presented their publication on the discussion of dangerousness as a classification of individuals for the purpose of imposing predictive judgements for sentencing purposes a man shoul d l 1(prenominal) be judged dangerous if it can be predicted that he will commit a future umbrage with something like the degree of particularity and proof with which we could omen to establish the concomitant that he committed a past offenceWhile this is certainly a function for the tool of dangerousness in the criminal justice system, dangerousness, as a designation that leads to predictive judgement, is a crying attack on the concept of innocent until proven guilty. This is downstairsstandably pronounced by the situation that all criminal acts are decided in a court of law using the standard of beyond reasonable doubt, and that the evidential burden of proof lies with the prosecution as fence to the defendant.This also profoundly supported by clause 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) which categorically stipulates the secure to a free trial.In addition, our current criminal justice system employs initiatives that are geared towards the renewal of the o ffender, which means that modern day put awayment is not simply a fulfilment of the requirement to protect the public, but is also a means of educating the offender for the purpose of development of re-integration into society. The antedate for rubber detention would purpose that the offender is past hope for such rehabilitation.Any form of immurement for reasons other than the determined sentence administered through the channel of a fair trial must be given the most absolute and unbending scrutiny. This is the basis upon which the extended detention of forty-eight hours under s 41(3) of the terrorism actuate 2000is based and, under strict circumstances laid out in Schedule 8, this period of detention may be extended. The logical implication for dangerousness is that, as a concept of criminal justice that facilitates extended incarceration, there would require to be a clear, precise and strict declaration of parameters to determine the situations that would give rise to d angerousness without which there can be no certainty in the law governed by Human Rights concepts.These findings therefore show that preventative detention can now never take place in line with Human Rights but does this mean that dangerousness is a concept that is to the full obsolete? This in not the case when we examine the operation in the modern era of the organisation of MAPPA, which was set up in 2001 under the authority provided by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. MAPPA is a supervisory, regulatory body that monitors offenders that are deemed to be dangerous to the public. furthermost from being a hindrance to the Human Rights concept, MAPPA bridges the gap between, the mightily to Liberty of the offender who has served time in prison, and supervision for the protection of the public. MAPPA is also a clever way of allowing for the continued adherence to Article 5 (ECHR) by facilitating the monitoring function of MAPPA as justified by the feature of a righ t to liberty and security of person under Article 5 for the general public. This is given priority over an absolute right to Article 5 protection for the dangerous offender. The approach is therefore intend to be the proportionate measure that finds adequate compromise between the rights of the general public on the one hand, and the offender on the other. This therefore allows for strung-out freedom within a more specialised version of the tralatitious practice of probation.D. Finding parameters for dangerous behaviourAs a premise from which to determine the dangerousness in behaviour, types of criminal behaviour that fall into this category would be all forms of criminal offence that would be considered as creating risk of heartbreaking harm to others. A traditional view heyday for this concept is to include such angry crimes as murder, rape and all other forms of assault. In addition, this comprehensive can also include crimes where there is a less control aim at bodily har m, such as dangerous driving, arson and other wilful destruction of property. However, the list can be eonianThe problem of attribution of dangerousness to specific crimes is solved under the MAPPA model by limiting the supervisory scheme to violent and sex offenders. In addition, the high risk offenders are referred to the more specialised MAPPP. The powers of both organisations are found under the Sexual Offences Act and Criminal Justice Act 2003, in which the responsibility for supervision of dangerous offenders is granted to the Police, Prison and Probation Services who are collectively referred to as the Responsible Authority.This model does however leave broadcast two ongoing problems. 1. Dangerous behaviour is still not inescapably confined to violence and sex offences From a criminal justice point of view, the reduce on specific types of behaviour, although initially pointing to violent crimes, does ignore the fact that grave harm can be inflicted in other ways such as the committal of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering. In fact, these types of crimes have the potential of creating far more widespread harm than that of conventional acts of violence. in that respect is equally a distinct social difference between the physically violent spectrum of criminal behaviour and the so-called white-collar criminal activity involved in crimes of deception. This first problem therefore reveals that dangerousness should not be limited to acts of violent and sexual nature but it continues to reveal the fact that any potential list of dangerous crimes must be finite in order to preserve certainty in the law. 2. Vast focus on the offender ignores the social context of crimeNot only is it clear that dangerous crimes need not be exclusively of the violent and sexual nature, but the focus of dangerousness is wrong in that it draws attention to the criminal and the crime as opposed to the social problem that generated the criminal behaviour. As shown via illus tration of the problem associated with the classification of dangerous crimes, there are umpteen social contexts that are capable of creating certain criminal activity. A mere focus on the offender does nothing to hit hard at the root of the problem and the criminal justice system simply continues to imprison and punish offenders from the breeding grounds of, on the one hand, deprived and leanness stricken areas, and on the other, hand, corrupt administrative institutions. Dangerousness therefore not only ignores problems in society, but in doing so, it misses out on the wide categorisation of types of criminal activity that can be generated across the spectrum of social environments. 3. issue argumentsIt must however be remembered that there are other forms of supervisory mechanisms in place for the future prevention of non-violent and dangerous crimes such as embezzlement. These include the striking off of Directors from the board of directors following criminal activity. Furt hermore, in relation to the targeting of social problems associated with specific areas of the country, John Prescott is currently heading one of the most comprehensive and widespread re-generation programs in UK history.ConclusionDangerousness, as a legal concept, has extremely limited scope and the MAPPA model is merely a Human Rights friendly method of supervision that has utilised the word dangerous to describe violent and sex offenders. While the dangerousness concept has the potential to go far further than this small window of crimes, it is as a provide of the complexities inherent in dealing with various crimes and their diverse social backgrounds that dangerousness cannot bend a single operation within the criminal justice system. Instead, its usefulness is merely that of a non-legal but linguistic adjective to different crimes that require diverse preventative measures.BibliographyLegislationSexual Offences Act 2003Criminal Justice Act 2003Terrorism Act 2000Human Rights Act 1998 (European Convention of Human Rights)Case LawR v Sutcliffe, The Times, 23 May 1981Textbook PublicationsJ Floud and W Young, Dangerousness and Criminal Justice, (Cambridge Studies in Criminology XLVII, 1981)A Ashworth, Principles of Criminal Law, (Oxford University Press, quaternate edition, 2003)A Sanders and R Young, Criminal Justice, (Butterworths, 2nd edition, 2000)Web ResourcesThe Labour party www.labour.org.uk/jpbattlebusThe kin Office www.probation.homeoffice.gov.uk