Civil liberties, justice, crime

Support the right to protest! Birmingham, 3 October

The Birmingham police are seeking to ban the demonstration at the Tory Party Conference on 3 October called by the Right To Work Campaign. This is a significant attack on the right to protest. The protest organisers call on labour movement people to sign a "reinstate our right to protest at the Tory Party conference" statement online here . Recent signatories include: Ed Balls MP Katy Clark MP John McDonnell MP Jeremy Corbyn MP Mark Serwotka PCS general secretary Jeremy Dear NUJ general secretary Billy Hayes CWU general secretary Tony Kearns CWU senior deputy general secretary Len McCluskey...

"Prisons are for protecting the rich"

With proposed government privatisation within the British prison service, and with prison officers taking illegal strike action in recent years, issues of what attitude socialists should take to incarceration and capitalist “justice” have come to the fore. Daniel Randall discussed some of these issues with Joe Black of the Campaign Against Prison Slavery, an activist group fighting for prisoners’ rights from an “abolitionist” perspective. This is an edited version of the interview. The full version is at www.workersliberty.org/node/14838. DR: What are the aims of your campaign? How do you...

Prisons: a tool of capital

With proposed government reforms set to increase privatisation within the British prison service, and with prison officers taking illegal strike action in recent years, the issue of what attitude socialists should take to prisons, incarceration and capitalist "justice" more widely has come to the fore. Solidarity 's Daniel Randall discussed some of the issues with Joe Black of the Campaign Against Prison Slavery , an activist group fighting for prisoners' rights from an abolitionist perspective. Further reading: Interview with Brian Caton, former leader of the Prison Officers Association...

Ian Tomlinson: another state cover-up

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that no charge will be brought against the policeman who killed newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson as he was passing by the 2009 protests against a G20 meeting in London. Tomlinson was struck from behind by a riot police officer, and pushed to the ground. Tomlinson was helped to his feet by demonstrators, not by his attackers. He recovered and continued walking, but then collapsed after 100 metres and subsequently died. Though it was the unprovoked assault on him by a policeman that precipitated his death, the British state refuses to accept responsibility...

Prisons: Clarke's front door privatisation

Steve Gillan, General Secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, spoke to Solidarity about the government’s plans to reduce the prison population. If it was sincere, then it would be good. Anybody would want to see a reduction in people going to jail. There are 95,000 people in prisons. We’re bursting at the seams. I don’t think Clarke really intends to reduce those numbers — just move people around. Clarke wants to move the work away from the public sector, and into the private. It’s an ethos that was shared by New Labour. They’re happy to let people make a profit out of incarceration. If...

Prosecute benefits cheat David Laws!

Prime Minister David Cameron has told Lib Dem minister David Laws, forced to resign on Saturday 30 May because of a £40,000 fraud: "You are a good and honourable man". When fraud is in the tens of thousands of pounds, and into the pockets of a multi-millionaire, it seems "good" and "honourable" to the Lib Dems and the Tories. To them, a bit of rule-bending at the edges by desperate and wretched benefit claimants is hideous crime, but self-enrichment by the already ultra-wealthy is "good and honourable". Like the "good" and "honourable" cuts in the incomes of the poor, many of them crafted by...

The British legal system does not serve children's interests

On Monday 24 May, a jury at the Old Bailey found two boys aged 10 and 11 years guilty of the attempted rape of an eight year old girl. According to the prosecution lawyer the boys had assaulted her in a block of flats, in the lift and in the bin shed before taking her to a field and raping her. The boys’ defence called it in all likelihood a “game of I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” that may have gone too far. Much of the media coverage has backed up this latter view, criticising the use of the criminal justice system on children. We should abhor the use of an adult legal system to...

Brian Caton: "Back TUSC to build a socialist alternative"

I handed back my Labour Party membership card recently after 40 years in the party. I'm a proud member of the Socialist Party and I support the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition. TUSC isn't going to make a big impact in this election but it offers people an immediate alternative. I think we all expected a hell of a lot more from a Labour government. Even the positive things they have done could've and should've been done much quicker. They've gone back on so many commitments; we were given a promise by the Labour Party when they were in opposition that they would end prison privatisation if...

Abolish the police?

Ali Dizaei, the disgraced Metropolitan Police commander recently found guilty of perverting the course of justice, was dogged throughout his career by allegations of corruption and misconduct and was finally prosecuted for perverting the course of justice for framing a business associate for assaulting him. Dizaei also became prominent for publicly accusing the Met of racial discrimination against him (he is British-Iranian), giving the right-wing press an easy angle on the whole case — they claim that he “played the race card” and exploited “political correctness gone mad” to avoid being...

"Mad cabbie" protest: Psychiatry, prisons, and panic

The Unite and RMT unions led a go-slow of over 1000 black cabs in London on 10th September in protest at a “schizophrenic killer” being granted permission to sit “The Knowledge” exam and qualify for a black cab license. The 38 year-old man strangled his wife in 2000 and was convicted of manslaughter. He was diagnosed with “paranoid schizophrenia” and served just over two years in a secure psychiatric unit before being released from section in 2005. Since this time he has been working for a minicab firm. Clearly nobody wants to be killed in the back of a taxi, but what is the correct working...

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