Soft sentences anger the law-abiding
Too often, court decisions are seen as soft or pointless. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- John Brown, a pub doorman, was disqualified from that type of work after he assaulted a customer, for which he received a suspended prison sentence. Within weeks, he was working on the door of the pub next door.
- The judge also ordered that Aviv take anger-management classes and a course of mental health counselling. But when reporters spoke to him, he refused to say he was sorry.
Judging by letters in the newspapers and conversations in the bars, there is one aspect of life here that really aggravates people – the sentencing of criminals. Too often, court decisions are seen as soft or pointless.
For instance, Grant Edwards, 28, a drug addict, pleaded guilty to stealing £200 (Sh29,000) from his old grandmother. He had 92 previous convictions including a jail term only last year for stealing his grandfather’s wedding ring. For the new offence, he got eight months’ jail, but he is entitled to four months’ remission and, since he has been in custody for four months, he will be freed almost immediately.
Another example: John Brown, a pub doorman, was disqualified from that type of work after he assaulted a customer, for which he received a suspended prison sentence. Within weeks, he was working on the door of the pub next door.
“This was a flagrant breach of the disqualification order,” the judge said. But all he did was impose another suspended sentence, with fines, costs and an order to do some unpaid public work.
The authorities argue that rehabilitation is the number one aim and jails are full to overflowing anyway, so the courts have few alternatives.
Perhaps they could check out America’s judges, who seem able to pass sentences which hurt the crook, delight the public and do not fill the prisons.
Edmond Aviv, 62, was a horrible man. He called his neighbour, Sandra Prugh, “Monkey Mama,” when she went by with her adopted African-American children, some of whom were disabled, and he smeared dog dirt on their wheelchair ramp.
He spat and swore at them, trained spotlights on their windows at night and used a fan to blow kerosene fumes at their house. This went on for 15 years until he was arrested for disorderly conduct.
A BUSY ROAD
A black lady judge, Gayle Williams-Byers, heard the case against him. She ordered that Aviv spend a day beside a busy road holding a sign saying, “I am a bully. I pick on disabled children. I am intolerant of those different from myself.”
Wearing a hat and dark sunglasses, Aviv sat slumped in a green plastic chair holding the cardboard sign by a busy intersection in Cleveland, Ohio, as a stream of cars passed, jeering and honking their horns. A probation officer stood by to check that Aviv completed his punishment.
The judge also ordered that Aviv take anger-management classes and a course of mental health counselling. But when reporters spoke to him, he refused to say he was sorry.
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The accepted way of checking for prostate cancer in men is to screen blood in what is known as a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test.
If the protein reading is dangerously high, the next step is usually a biopsy, which can involve inserting 12 needles in the prostate gland and can cause infections or over-diagnosis of tumours.
A doctor may then recommend surgery, with its attendant risks, when it is unnecessary because prostate cancer can be slow-growing.
The good news is that advances in medical technology may have alleviated some of these concerns. Dr Robert Bard of New York says a combination of 3D Doppler sound and Magnetic Resonance Imaging can now replace painful biopsies. It shows the cancer in such detail as to make clear if it is dangerously aggressive or simply needs watching.
The test takes only minutes, is completely painless and 95 per cent accurate. No harm came to me through the biopsy when I went this route, but if I had been asked to choose between 12 needles in the prostate and an ultrasound test, I know which option I would have taken.
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Grandpa had lived all his life in the rural areas. So when he visited the city for the first time and saw a lift in operation in a large office building, he was astonished. At one point, an old lady, bent and wrinkled, entered the lift and the doors closed behind her.
A few moments later, a bell tinkled, the lift doors opened and out stepped a beautiful young woman. Excited as never before, grandpa rushed away. “Where are you going?” everybody asked. “I’m going back to the village to bring grandma,” he said.
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Another visitor to the big city was an Eskimo, who spotted a sheet of ice and decided to go fishing in the traditional way. Making a circular cut in the ice, he was startled when a voice from above boomed, “There are no fish under the ice.” Moving further down, the Eskimo tried again. “There are no fish under the ice,” the voice boomed once more.
When this happened a third time, the Eskimo looked up and asked, “Is that you, Lord?”
“No,” the voice replied, “this is the manager of the ice hockey rink.”
