Elsewhere there are Crimes (murder, rape, theft, etc.) and
Civil Offences -the Americans call them “misdemeanours”, which are less
important things like being drunk in public, improper parking and speeding.
But not here.
On St Helena even minor offences gets you a criminal record. Being caught doing 35 mph in a 30 zone gets
you a Criminal record. Being caught peeing in the street gets you a criminal
record. On St Helena Trespassers CAN be
prosecuted (elsewhere it’s a civil offence).
These ‘criminal’ offences have to go to court, with all the
due process this entails. Cases have to
be made. Defences have to be
constructed. Lay Advocates and prosecutors
have to stand up and say their pieces.
Magistrates have to rule. Records
must be kept. All of this is a
ridiculous waste of time (and money) for the judicial system.
It also results in people being declared ‘criminals’ for
minor offences that no other jurisdiction would care about. In the UK you get caught speeding: a few
points on your licence for a short period and its forgotten. Here you become a criminal, in the same
bracket as a child-molester.
Does anybody benefit from this? Maybe the police want it because then they
can then point to the vast number of ‘criminals’ here to justify the large numbers
of police officers they employ? Maybe
the justice system wants it because if they only had to deal with real crimes
they would be mostly unemployed? Whatever
the reason, that doesn’t make it any less stupid!
If St Helena has any plans to become a modern society it
needs to address this issue. It needs
the same dual-system used in other 21st Century jurisdictions. It will require some work, but it will create
vast savings in police and judicial system costs that will more than repay the
initial outlay. And it will stop people
who are caught relieving themselves in a back alley while on their way home
from the pub from being branded as criminals together with rapists, thugs and
thieves.
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