NOTE: This is an extension to FORMER offenders who have served their time, the kind of fascist principles of general repression deployed in "Control Orders" and ASBOs. The construction of a police state is extended each time these principles are introduced; basically the effect is equivalent to introducing a conditional life sentence for EVERY so-called "violent offence", possibly as a precursor to covering ALL law breaking and even non-criminal actions.

As always, the introduction of these fascist measures is wrapped up in hysteria generated by specific offences; and as always, the political abuse of these fascist measures is not far from the forefront - will they apply for instance, to people who defend demonstrations against police attack, or be used to interfere with political organisation by prison defence organisations?

As the police state creeps further, the need for total resistance becomes more and more urgent. There is a terrible menace facing us all - smash the police state, or see it destroy every last liberty and turn the whole of western society into a totalitarian society the likes of which Orwell could hardly have foreseen.

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 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2143045,00.html

Violent offenders face curbs after serving sentences
By Philippe Naughton






Violent offenders could be subjected to court-ordered restrictions even after the end of their sentences under probation reforms unveiled today by the Home Secretary to cut the risk of reoffending.

The Violent Offender Orders are among a package of measures announced by Charles Clarke in Parliament in response to a series of high-profile failures of the Home Office supervision of offenders, including the murder of the City financier John Monckton.

Details of the orders have yet to be finalised, but they could ban high-risk offenders from certain locations and impose a range of other conditions. Breaking the terms of the orders would be a criminal offence subject to up to give years in jail.

Mr Clarke has backed away from a more controversial proposal which would have allowed courts to detain dangerous offenders indefinitely if they are deemed to pose a continuing risk.

Under changes already made to the sentencing regime, that is already the case for eligible offenders who committed their offences after April 4, 2005, but Mr Clarke said he had decided against extending that to all dangerous offenders currently in prison "since it would violate the principle of retrospective legislation which I think that this House would be likely to find unacceptable".



Mr Clarke said that he would publish detailed proposals on the new violent offender orders before the summer. He has also commissioned a review of the process of assessing the risk posed by prisoners ahead of release.

The Home Secretary said that the Government was also accepting the main findings and key recommendations in a report from the Chief Inspector of Probation into the Monckton murder.

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"Judges are to be given more powers to impose conditions on high-risk offenders once they are in the community.
Dangerous offenders could be put under curfew, banned from sports grounds or even limited on how much alcohol they could drink. "

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4924686.stm

" It will restrict them in a number of different ways - they could be under curfew or stopped from going to pubs, to clubs, to football stadiums - whatever is thought would reduce the risk of them being violent in the community. "

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4925536.stm

These kinds of petty lifestyle restrictions of freed people - possibly for the rest of their lives! - are clearly not aimed at the serious cases the government claims to be targeting, but are for use against people involved in petty deviance such as brawling, or who are labelled as football hooligans. If the target is petty deviance then political use of these latest sledgehammer measures is just around the corner.

The statement also suggests that those targeted are people with sentences of as little as a year. These sentences are NOT limited to "serious" offences.

The state will be introducing permanent measures to ruin the lives of people convicted (sometimes wrongly convicted) of minor offences, requiring people to submit to permanent prison-like surveillance regimes and to abandon their lifestyle attachments, to not associate with their friends and acquaintances, and in general imposing conditions amounting to total life regulation. This can and will be used to target people involved in disseminating unpopular opinions, in radical protest movements, or in subcultures disliked by the government (for instance, young people whose friendship affiliations are labelled as "gangs").

Basically this is an extension of the "anti-terrorist" "Control Orders" used to torture and persecute innocent people on various pretexts.

First they came for the "terrorists", and I did not speak up because I was not a "terrorist".

Then they came for the "serious violent offenders", and I did not speak up because I was not a "serious violent offender".

Let us not fall into Niemoller's trap again!

SMASH STATE FASCISM!

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ASBO's = fascist terror against people who are different - according to a study by a leading charity.

A few "highlights":

35% of children who were victims of ASBOs had some kind of psychological condition.

In one case, a child who could not tell the time was given an ASBO with a 9.00pm curfew, and was repeatedly arrested for breaking it.

Another couldn't read and couldn't remember the actual content of the ASBO against him.

Youth workers reveal a growing intolerance towards children with all kinds of problems, including the demonisation of children and parents.

BIBIC is the British Institute for Brain Injured Children.

 http://www.bibic.org.uk/newsite/general/pdfs/campaign%20update.pdf





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Young People with Learning and Communication Difficulties and Anti-Social Behaviour.
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2 About BIBIC BIBIC is a national charity working with children with conditions that affect their learning abilities.These conditions can be varied and complex.They include autism,ADHD (attention deficits hyperactivity disorder), developmental delay, language impairments, genetic syndromes and other specific conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia. These conditions affect the young person in many ways. One of the side-effects can be their lack of ability to manage their behaviour in a way that society finds sociallyacceptable. For most families, we give coping strategies to help them understand and improve their child’s behaviour; we work to develop social skills and to increase self-esteem.These strategies are high in our priorities when putting together a package around the child.We teach them to parents and if the child is old enough, we teach them too.Ain’t Misbehavin’ - the beginning…. The Ain’t Misbehavin’ campaign began two years ago. A newspaper published an article highlighting the plight of a family whose child has just been issued an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO). He had ADHD. Until that point, BIBIC hadn’t really been aware of the campaign to stamp out anti-social behaviour using this tool. It had not affected the work we do, or any of the families we had been working with, but that was all soon to change. It was not long after this event that our team of therapists working with the families began to feed back some of the problems that the families were encountering. It seemed that tolerance levels towards children with behavioural problems caused by a medical condition were falling. Families were being sent on parenting courses and were picking up the label ’bad parent’ whilst their child was being called ’naughty’ again. Other charities began reporting the same concerns so we took it further. BIBIC contacted local newspapers to ask families to contact us if they too were experiencing problems in this area. We were inundated with replies, and not just from families either. Calls came from solicitors, youth offending teams, anti-social behaviour and police officers. We were completely overwhelmed - not only by the volume of calls and letters but also by the potential size of this problem. Zero tolerance was hitting hard. It was at this point that BIBIC contacted the Home Office to speak to them and share our concerns.We spoke to the ASB Unit (anti-social behaviour unit) who were very surprised. They could not believe it was happening - guidance had been issued and they believed that common sense would prevail. At this point we only knew of families that had been threatened with ASBOs so could not give themspecific cases but alongside other charities we were concerned that it may only be a matter of time before the first case materialised.
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3 Early researchindicators ofpotential problems with ASBOs 1976 A study conducted on the Isle of White revealed that 23% of children with reading difficulties showed anti-social behaviour and 40% of children with anti-social behaviour were poor readers. 1981 Studies undertaken by Broder found a strong correlation between learning difficulties and juvenile delinquency. 1982 Sturge found a strong association between poor reading skills and anti-social behaviour. 1994 Williams and McGee discovered that a reading disability at 9 years of age predicted conduct disorder at age 15 in boys (not girls). 1997 Lynskey found that children with early reading difficulties had increased rates of conduct problems by the age of 16. There have been many more studies undertaken that have borne out these findings; it is perhaps not surprising given the results that children with learning and communications difficultiesshould find themselves subject to ASBOs. A Case Study In 2005 a mother rang us to ask for help. Her son had an ASBO and had broken the terms of it many times. This had meant that out of the last 24 months, 13 of them had been spent in custody. In addition to this he had been held in police cells overnight 26 times. BIBIC asked for details about the background to the order. We discovered that her son had attended a school for emotional/behaviour/ disturbed children (EBD). On joining the school he became easy prey for the more street wise of the children and he had soon been in trouble. We asked why he had been taken into custody so many times and found that he keptbreaking his 9 o’clock curfew. He had not broken any other law during the term of his ASBO. The young man had a statement of special educational needs and was known to have a language impairment and suspected ADHD. He was now14 and had had his order for 2 years. When BIBIC staff spoke to his youth worker she reported that he was ‘a really lovely lad’ but they didn’t know what to do with him - if he continued to break his ASBO they didn’t know where he would finally end up. BIBIC agreed to assess him and prepare a report of our findings. As the young man had an electronic tag we had to apply to the courts for dispensation to enable him to attend our assessment centre in Somerset. His solicitor supported him and asked if she too could see the report as she felt that the system was doing this young man a disservice. This youngperson had a lot of caring people around him who felt powerless. The results of the tests we carried out were conclusive. He had thecognitive ability of a 7 year old in a 14 year old body. He was also dyslexic, had poor organisational skills and couldn’t tell the time. In addition to this he didn’t understand the ASBO or why it had been issued. The terms of the order included a ban on being in certain locations and at certain times: a difficult order with which to comply if you have no concept of time passing. In addition the order stated that some activities were acceptable as long as he was accompanied by an adult, however many of his friends, who had a negative influence on him, were over 18. Up to this point the court had not been made aware of any of his learning difficulties. On having these explained they ordered the removal of his electronic tag and greater support for him. His ASBO is now being challenged through the Crown Courts, but had his difficulties been understood earlier it is questionable whether a magistrate would have agreed to the order in the first place, or indeed whether an ASB officer would have pursued one.
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4 Over the last year the media have gradually picked up stories from the courts, as a naming and shaming policy is in force around the issuing of ASBOs. A child as young as 10 can have their name published in a newspaper and a leaflet put through doors to alert their local community to his/her misdemeanours. After one such case a young man became the victim of hate posters telling him he would die. These posters were placed in the street in which he lived. To begin with BIBIC had only heard of cases of young people threatened with ASBOs and of those reported in the media. BIBIC asked the Home Officeexactly how many children and young people with learning difficulties had received ASBOs. They were unable to tell us, as this information is not collated centrally. COURTS Some people may not be aware that all ASBOs are heard in adult courts as they sit within civil law. It is not until the ASBO is breached, or the authorities are applying for a CRASBO* (a criminal ASBO) The ASBO Case that the young person appears in front of a magistrate who is fully trained to understand young people. (They may be lucky in the first hearing if a youth magistrate is sitting that day). According to a source from the Magistrates Association relevant information regarding learning difficulties does not always come to light early enough. Too often the magistrates are hearing about the young persons problem for the first time when they breach the order, not when it is issued. ABSENCE The first hearing can take place without the youngperson even being present (an interim ASBO). Evidence can be given as hearsay and can also be anonymous. It is therefore not surprising that some young people report that they feel victimised.*CRASBO: an order issued to follow a conviction. Individual SupportOrdersOne of the facts that emerged clearly from ASB officers in the early stages of our research was that very few ASBOs were being supported with Individual SupportOrders (ISOs). These orders were meant to be in place to help support the child in their endeavours to comply with the order and to address some of their difficulties eg anger management etc. Once again we spoke to the Home Office and informed them of what we had heard. We were told that the guidance was in place and that it should be happening. It waslater discovered that only 7 orders had been put in place across the UK. We are very pleased to hear that extra funding has now been provided in order to implement ISOs.Hearsay and complaintsFamilies of children with learning and communication difficulties are telling us that because complaints about themsometimes go directly to the local authority (new ASBO reporting lines) thereby bypassing them, they have no opportunity to address areas of concerndirectly. On at least two occasions families have told us they have first heard of the problems from the Police and the housing authority. One family with a child with autism has a neighbour recording the conversations of the family through the walls - the mother is afraid she will be evicted. Another reported a complaint had beenmade about her child with Asperger syndrome after he had copied a children's TV programme and used a salt cellar to write his name on the road. These incidents may appear trivial in printbut they are very real to those experiencing these kind of threats.
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5 Postcode lottery One mother, who is a midwife, told us that she had moved her son with learning difficulties to another county to live with his grandmother because she refused to allow him to sign an Acceptable Behaviour Contact (ABC) as she knew he would not be able to keep to its terms. (ABCs are the fore-runner to the ASBO: they are often issued in the early stages to explain to the child what is expected of them. They are a set of statements to which the child signs up. If they are breached, very often the next stage is an ASBO.) The above story is a fine illustration of how the postcode lottery is taking effect. Cities such as Manchester issued 710 ASBOs between 1999 and 2004. Many others have proudly told us that they have not issued a single ASBO to anyone under the age of 17. In 2004 Leeds imposed 66 ASBOs on young people in one day. This could only result in overloading the YOT team who are responsible for ensuring that the youngperson fully understands the terms of the Order. Understanding Developmental Milestones Up to the age of 7 years of age, the majority of children maintain a level of high self-esteem. From 7-10 years of age they become more aware of their achievements and those of their peers and have a more realistic understanding of themselves. Beyond 10 years of age, children who doubt their abilities consistently begin to give in when they encounter difficulties, they easily become de-motivated and more at risk of anti-social behaviour. Beyond the age of 10 the behaviour patterns will be set, that will become more difficult to change as time goes on. In order to maintain a child’s self-esteem and to help them fit into socially acceptable models of behaviour we need to be identifying children before 10 years old and ideally before 7. The early signs are there. We wish to follow the far cheaper option of intervention.Understanding Our findings show that young people with learning and communication difficulties experience immense problems in understanding the terms of the Orders. Comprehending the language used and the consequence of breaking those terms are often the first stumbling block. Some have told us that they do not remember what they have signed. There appears to be confusion over the finer details - some of the orders specify places where the young person is unable to go, but they will qualify the statement by giving permission to visit the same location with an adult or parent. This is fine until you realise that many of these children are mixing with people considerably older than themselves and very often this is why they are finding themselves with problems. Young people with learning difficulties will often interpret instructions extremely rigidly: one young man told us that if he ran down the streets he was banned from it didn’t count because he wasn’t stopping. Another couldn’t read the Order so was relying on his memory - he got most of it wrong when tested. Some of the YOTs to whom we have spoken have admitted that they do not know how to communicate these details to some of the young people with whom they are working. They are unsure of just how much the child/young person is taking in: they appear to be listening but cannot recall the information later when asked. One young lad had spent so long hiding his difficulties that he burst into tears in the court when they were described to the magistrate. Early intervention - the need explained
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6 BIBIC has recently undertaken several surveys to ascertain the incidence of ASBOs issued to young people with learning and communication difficulties, the full results of which will be available shortly. These surveys have included information given by Youth Offending Teams and ASB Officers. Also informal interviews have been held with solicitors, parents, young people with ASBOs, voluntary organisations and magistrates. BIBIC wanted to gauge the thoughts of the teams working with the young people to be able to put the results of the more formal research in context. You will find their feedback represented elsewhere in this report. BIBIC finds the results of the surveys surprising and are now in the process of having them independently validated. For the purpose of this report we can release some of the information ascertained from the survey carried out with YOTs. We would ask that you view these figures at this stage as indicators. The data requested covered a set period from April 2004 - April 2005. This ensured that no matter how long the team took to respond we would be uniformly capturing a snapshot in time. 39% of all YOTs invited to take part in the survey responded. 1. Question: “How many of those under 17 with ASBOs involved children who had a diagnosed mental health disorder or an accepted learning difficulty?” Answer: 35%2. Question: Of those cases, how many involved the following conditions? • Autism/Asperger syndrome? Answer 3%• ADHD (attention hyperactivity disorder)? Answer 42%• Global developmental delay? Answer 1%• Dyspraxia/dyslexia? Answer 0.9%• Cases where the estimated level of understanding was below the expected for 10 years of age? Answer 6% • Other? Answer 46% (this included conditions such as Tourette syndrome, conduct disorders, emotional behavioural difficulties through to depression) We had not asked for ‘suspected difficulties,’ only known ones. It could be suggested that these figure are conservative given that many people with learning and communication difficulties go undiagnosed. During our discussions with the YOTs many commented that they thought the figure could bemuch higher in reality.1. Question: How many of these cases, if any, had previously agreed an Acceptable Behaviour Contract (ABC)? Answer 81%4.Question: How many of them failed to maintain the conditions of the ABC? Answer 74% The ASB Officers’ survey will soon be completed and this will allow us to compare the findings.

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NOTE: They really should oppose ASBOs as a whole - saying "there's a place for ASBOs" is like saying "there's a place for gulags" or "there's a place for forging evidence" or "there's a place for torture". They're an inherently abusive measure; their "over-use" is implicit in their very structure, because they are open to broad and unconditional application. Calling for "restraint" from the rabid dogs of state repression is like asking a hungry wolf not to bite.

 http://www.barnardos.org.uk/news_and_events/current_news.htm?id=20165


ASBOs catapulting children into custody
Release Date: 02/04/2006

As the Home Office's quarterly figures on the issuing of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders in England and Wales were released on Thursday 30 March 2006, Barnardo's warns that Anti Social Behaviour Orders are being over used on children and catapulting some of them into custody.
Martin Narey, Barnardo's Chief Executive, said, ‘When Anti Social Behaviour Orders were introduced in 1998, the guidance was that they be used on children only in ‘exceptional circumstances’.

There were only 61 in almost a two year period to the end of 2000. By contrast there were more than 500 child ASBOs in 2003, more than a thousand in 2004 and we can expect the figures for 2005 to be much worse.'

This is not exceptional use. In some areas the use of ASBOs on children is becoming entirely routine. ASBOs have their place but their over use is unnecessarily catapulting children into a custodial system which has so many children in it that the chances of rehabilitation are extremely slim and the chances of deeper criminalisation very likely.'

Barnardo's is calling for action:

· Changes to the law so that an assessment of needs and circumstances must be carried out before a child is given an ASBO

· The issuing of fresh guidance for Local Authorities considering applying for an ASBO for a child, stressing that children should not be treated as adults.

· A change in legislation to restrict the length of ASBOs for children. Currently ASBOs have to run for a minimum of two years, which to a child will seem like infinity.

· Measures to address the inexplicable geographical inconsistencies in the use of ASBOs. In 2004 there were only 33 child ASBOs in Merseyside, 45 in the West Midlands, but 192 in Greater Manchester. Figures for the first half of 2005 suggest four children a week get an ASBO in Greater Manchester.

‘We acknowledge that there is a small minority of children whose behaviour is entirely unacceptable. However, ASBOs are a very blunt tool and their use must be confined to the small number of children who really need them.’

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NOTE: If these bastards want to cut the bill for miscarriages of justice, why don't they do something about the corrupt, racist police who are constantly stitching people up and providing false evidence? Basically they want to make sure that the state has impunity for the abuses it commits - so as to enable such abuses to continue and expand.

The government's remarks about lawyers profiting from supposedly unfounded claims, reads like something out of a far-right tract on liberal elites. Notice that they say nothing about the equally well-paid and far more numerous lawyers making a fortune from spurious corporate prosecutions, such as the scum involved in repeated attempts to convict protesters of "trespass" and "harassment".

The Blairites do not like the adversarial system because they think there is only one viewpoint: their own. They would love a system where state bureaucrats can simply rubber-stamp convictions based on administrative data - the system they are trying to establish through measures such as ASBOs.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1757286,00.html

Anger at legal compensation shakeup

Clarke's bid to overhaul law on wrong convictions attacked by justice groups

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Thursday April 20, 2006
The Guardian


Miscarriage of justice campaigners were enraged last night by plans to stop defendants walking free from the court of appeal after their convictions have been quashed on a technicality.
The announcement by the home secretary, Charles Clarke, was made as part of a package making a £5m a year cut in the £8m paid out annually in compensation to victims of miscarriages of justice. Mr Clarke said he wanted to see the change introduced in legislation as soon as possible.



One option is to introduce the Scottish "not proven" verdict into the English legal system. He said it was needed to put an end to the growth of a "small industry for the legal profession that has been giving away large amounts of money to individuals who do not deserve it".
The urgent government review will look at the statutory test used in the court of appeal to decide whether to quash a conviction. In particular, it will focus on whether an "error in the trial process" necessarily means a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

Mr Clarke acknowledged that a move to a "not proven" verdict would be a major change. "It would be a radical change. We are going to have a look at it. The time has come to assess it," he said.

The package of cuts to compensation payments will cap payments at a maximum of £500,000. He is also to introduce legislation empowering the compensation assessor to make deductions from the award if there are other criminal convictions in the case. He cited the example of a man serving nine years in prison for robbery convictions who had one of them quashed by the court of appeal and went on to receive £75,000 compensation.

But the proposals have angered miscarriage of justice campaigners. Gerry Conlon, of the Guildford four, who was wrongly convicted over an IRA bombing in 1974, said he was "absolutely horrified" by the package and called the compensation cuts a "penny-pinching, vote-catching exercise".

John McManus of MOJO, the campaigning organisation set up by Paddy Hill of the Birmingham six, said he was appalled that ministers appeared to be suggesting that those whose convictions were quashed were really criminals. He claimed that in many cases technical grounds were used to quash convictions to avoid the exposure of corrupt police officers.

"If the government want to do something about this compensation bill they should prosecute the corrupt police officers who have been involved. There have been at least 150 miscarriages of justice cases in the last 15 years but no police officers have ever been prosecuted."

But Mr Clarke believes that the growing compensation bill for miscarriage of justices has more to do with the failings of the English adversarial criminal justice system. He claimed yesterday that the system encouraged highly paid barristers funded by legal aid to play courtroom games in pursuit of compensation claims far beyond what was acceptable.

"This is not really about justice or righting wrongs in a fair way," said Mr Clarke. "I think the more the legal system clearly relates to the conduct of individuals who have done things or not done things and the less it relates to the technicalities of the legal process, the better.

"What individuals want to see is a legal system which correctly finds guilty those who are guilty and acquits those who are innocent, with respect to what they did or didn't do rather than whether or not the legal process was or was not correctly followed."

The proposal was first put forward by Lord Justice Auld in his review of the criminal courts in 2001, who said that "unhappily" the 1995 Criminal Appeal Act had led to the belief among some that an unfair trial should automatically be punished with an acquittal.

It also sparked an angry reaction from opposition MPs. The Liberal Democrat shadow attorney general, Simon Hughes, said an important criminal justice proposal seemed to have been smuggled on to the agenda under cover of an announcement on compensation.

"Criminal trials are supposed to clear up questions of guilt and not encourage suspicions to linger. Any review of the law must be conducted with extreme care. There are many people in Scotland who, with good reason, have deep misgivings about the 'not proven' verdict," said Mr Hughes.

The Conservatives also voiced doubts about the "not proven" verdict, saying it had come in for much criticism in Scotland. "We have a longstanding principle in this country of being innocent until proven guilty," said Dominic Grieve, the shadow attorney general.

"People want certainty and I am at a loss to understand why the home secretary might think this course of action necessary."

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NOTE: "Criminals" probably means tracking the movements of political dissidents suspected of involvement in "illegal" protest activities, refugees, and people suspected of minor deviance of various kinds.

 http://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.737089.0.police_search_for_criminals_with_oyster.php


Police search for criminals with Oyster
By Siobhan Lismore
Police hunting criminals are using Oyster card technology to help track them down, according to material released by the Freedom of Information Act last month.

Figures show a huge leap in police requests to Transport for London (TfL), which operates the Oyster cards used to travel on buses, trains and the underground.

Just seven information requests were made by police during 2004, compared with 61 requests made in January this year alone.

Overall, police have requested to see journey information 243 times and they have been given it 229 times, equating to about 94 per cent compliance.

If pre-pay was to be accepted on overground services, which we are campaigning for through Fare's Fair supported by Wandsworth Council, police could also use the technology to monitor all railway users.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of human rights group Liberty, said: "Oyster card records should be available to police who are solving serious criminal cases, but this power cannot be used indiscriminately."

A TfL spokeswoman said it complies fully with the Data Protection Act and information on individual travel is kept for a maximum of eight weeks.

She said this was for customer service purposes to replace lost or stolen cards and for refund inquiries.

This information is only made available to a small number of people and information is only released on a case-by-case evaluation.

She explained: "Police requests must be made under Association Chief Police Officer guidance. There are currently more than five million Oyster card users in London and the number of police requests is less than 65 per month.

A police spokeswoman said: "Each case is looked at individually, but such information could be used to build up a picture of a person's movements."

Users of pre-pay Oyster cards can elect whether or not to remain anonymous, she added, although TfL encourages people to register their cards, otherwise they cannot be replaced.

Ms Chakrabarti said: "Students and commuters who register their details in exchange for cheaper fares are probably unaware they are also signing up for close surveillance."