European Penal System - Essay Example

After the downfall of the Roman Empire, Europe has emerged to have one of most distinguished societies of the world. It is the cradle to modern civilization as we know it. From the medieval age to the renaissance, industrial age, colonization craze until now, Europe possessed nearly every intellectual, cultural, technological precursors that contributed in moulding of every modern country. European countries such as United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy are ensamples to countries seeking to modernize their way of living and economy. Some may even admit that Europe's most advanced nations' chronological history became the pedagogue to United States' governmental structure and contributed to the framework of their constitution. Government became a symbol of law enforcement and maintaining order. Offenders, if apprehended, will be judged through the penal system. Throughout European history, the plethora of apolitical uprising has challenged the European penal systems throughout the continent. These insurrections challenged the penal system in its law enforcement policies, judicial processes, protection of parties afflicted, and integrity. The European governments made amends to their rudimentary policies and strived to not make biased judgments on certain ethnic coterie. In this composition, the history of European penal systems and governments will be analyzed in how victims are treated after their spats with perpetrators. Also, in this essay, there will be analysis of past cases of government malfeasance toward victims and the flaws in European penal systems. A victim is 'a person who has suffered direct, or threatened, physical, emotional or pecuniary harm as a result of the commission of a crime; or in the case of a victim being an institutional entity, any of the same harms by an individual or authorized representative of another entity. Group harms are normally covered under civil and constitutional law, with hate crime being an emerging criminal law development, although criminal law tends to treat all cases as individualized.' (Hans Von Hentig) Scholars tried to understand the relationship the victim and the offender or 'the killer and the killed.' (Robert J. Meadow, pg. 15) Hans Von Hentig was a connoisseur in the early victimisation theory in the 1940s. He established a hierarchy of types of victims being afflicted. Hentig categorized them using personal factors linked with victimisation such as social, psychological, or biological reasons. A few of these categories will be utilised and elaborated upon in conjunction with certain relevant episodes in history. One group that has been particularly victimised is children. In Hentig's first type of victim are represented in the young. They happen to be easily victimised due to lack of maturity and their vulnerability. Hentig suggested that children are usually subject to violent crimes and sexual offenses. (Meadow, pg.13) Young women are docile and lack the physical strength to withstand an attack from a masculine offender. This is the case primary victimisation, a process in which one person is affected in crime. Domestic violence is also cases where primary victimisation occurs. The European Penal system made concessions against crime such as these and was not lackluster in prosecuting rapists, paedophiles, thieves, and murderers. Victimizers as such were put away from law abiding gesellschaft. The elderly can fall victims to such predators. The elderly represent the third type in Hentig's victim classification. Europe's penal system has made dire efforts to eradicate child trafficking. Those who peddle children for money or subjugate them as slaves are vehemently prosecuted. However, despite the efforts of European law officials who use litigation to mitigate child trafficking, it seems futile because children who are victimized are not convinced that the government is on their side. I commend the organizers of this meeting for recognizing the synergy between the prosecution of traffickers and the protection of victims, and including both subjects on the agenda. Under the current laws and law enforcement strategies in many countries, victims are often punished more severely than the perpetrators. Trafficked persons will not report abuses to authorities if doing so puts their lives at greater risk and if they do not believe that the law enforcement community will protect them. Therefore, successful prosecutions of traffickers cannot happen if we do not protect their victims. - Christopher H. Smith Rep. Christopher H. Smith was the co-chairman of Commission of Security and Cooperation of Europe when the 'The Trafficking Victims Protection Act' was passed in 2000. He illuminated the difficulties in enforcing the termination of trafficking children. Children who are trafficked are coerced whereby the threats of organized gangs and the fear of violence to restrain their needs for help. Christopher Smith understood that law enforcement should provide a secure safe haven for victims and instil hope of a better day. The US along in with Europe was determined to set down these policies in 2000 in an attempt answer the need for alarm. However, to some critics, lofty speeches will not persuade victims to come out the dark. 'The interpretation of the law may be reliant on the discretion of key individuals, an act provisions may not be brought into force, or it may be little known and used' (Goodey, Pg.134) cites Helen Reeves and Kate Mulley, two critics who are heavily involved in helping victims understand their rights and are adept in the struggles of victims involved in the European penal system. The critics surmised implementing these rules may encounter obstacles. With the victim cognitively unaware to the rights that has been given to them, he or she cannot seek help to escape their dreadful quagmire. Also, if officials of the penal system are lackluster to aid the victims or undetermined to seek justice for the victim, the perpetrators will continue to have their way unstymied. There is another type of victim in which not just one person is affected but a gemeinschaft or community that falls prey to perpetrators of crime. Any one victim can be afflicted and his or her pain can pervade into a conclave in which ethnic groups can readily identify. Also, an individual's pain can also spring fear as well as disgust to characters that possess the same ethnicity, race, religion or culture. These types of attacks are coined into a term called hate crime. These crimes involve discriminatory behaviour against sects of ethnic, racial, religious, cultural conclaves. These discriminatory practices are secondary and tertiary victimization. Secondary victimization is when a victim 'is an impersonal target of an offender.'(Meadows, pg.11) Tertiary victimization is when 'society and public are viewed as victims.'(ibid) On 7 November 2005, chaos spreads all over France and claims a life of a civilian. The French government is calling for additional 1,500 police reserves to aid the 8,000 police officers on duty to provide some sense of security after of weeks of civil unrest. (Mark Landler) This unrest is caused a select group of Islamic youngsters fuelled by their nationalistic pride to protest biased treatment that they as well as their parents residing in France are receiving. An Islamic website called to arms all Muslims to join their fight. 'Teach them that we are a single nation and if a single member is touched, all the others will erupt like a burning volcano.' (Landler) Rioting and turning over of cars has now been for several days a common visual of France on the television. The rioters feel that this violence is necessary because the government do not provide respect for immigrants. They feel this lack of respect is caused by their ethnicity. One rioter claimed, 'It is the attitude of the police People here don't feel they are a part of the political system. There only recourse is to violence.' (Landler) The rest of Europe is watching how this unrest being dealt with because they are experiencing minute but copycat riots. Europe, especially France, is no stranger to this kind rioting. This nationalistic pride related riots has been repeated occasionally throughout Europe two centuries ago. After the attack on America on 11 September 2001, Muslims underwent fierce persecution from the public and even law enforcement placed their very religious practice as well as culture under scrutiny. Islam is considered a religion that promotes a neanderthal way of life and 'a kind of distasteful exoticism in western academic, political and social discourses.'(Basia Spalek, pg.6) In Britain, 'The term Islamophobia refers to unfounded hostility towards. It refers also to the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination against Muslims.'(ibid, pg.9) Muslim communities travail in low-paying jobs and social exclusion as well as inequality are prevalent. In these areas, public disturbances and riots are common. 70 per cent of all British Muslims in prison are under the age of 25. However, in the government, they have almost no say in government. Penal system authorities care little about the Muslim prisoners' welfare. In Addition, the government officials were critical of Muslim counselling cessions with the prisoners after the American economic and military establishments were attacked. (ibid) Britain throughout the last 30 years struggled with overcrowding in prisons. (J.A. Sharpe, pg 109) Therefore, prison quarters and detention centre were meagrely sanitary. Another group that the penal system victimized through their neglect is Muslim women. The state was criticized for their lacklustre responses to victimization on the premise of the insensitivity to religious need. (Spalek, pg.10) Inadequate support deterred Muslim women to look for help outside their abusive domestic environments. After the twin tower attacks, Muslim women as well as men were subject to hate crimes. Consequently, Muslim communities plunged in a state of alert in which they requested frequently police protection and devised circumspectly plans to avoid being targets to hate crime. " France was perceived as dangerously divided among it own constituent populations. The diversity of language was most striking. By some estimates, less than one-fifth of the population spoke standard French with any degree of fluency; the rest spoke a congeries of tongues, including Breton, Basque, Occitan, and other regional dialects of French itself." -David A. Bell France often faced many multicultural issues before the 19th century. Many radical revolutionaries believed they had to eradicate the regional differences to create a cohesive political community. However, that integration of those cultures never came about until Napoleon III and The Third Republic dominated the French political system. Again nationalism was key method used to bring the cultures together. (Esler, pg.234) In the words of Henry Gregoire, the government wanted to "melt them into the national mass." Education as well as establishment of railroads into the country side was used to forge the distinct cultures together and soon the distinct dialects began to fade out. Their nationalistic pride reached in an imperialistic aspect in a drive to match the British grandeur in colonization. The French colonial empire stretched from the Caribbean to Indochina and covered a lump some of land in Africa. (Brington, pg.456) Their prominence was well noticed around the world. Bell said it best, 'It was a point of pride that so much of the world, in effect, seemed to want to become French.' (Bell, pg.28) The French assimilation of foreign cultures was sometimes biased. In the late 19th century, immigration to Europe's most distinguished nations, among which was France, was prevalent. The French public had a prejudice against Roman Catholics and a belligerent hostility to Jews. One of the most was notable cases was the Dreyfus Affair. Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish captain of the French army who was accused of selling military secrets to the Germans. In 1894, French Captain Alfred Dreyfus was tried for high treason and sentenced to life imprisonment in total isolation on Devil's Island, off the coast of the peal colony of French Guiana. It took many years for the truth to be known that Dreyfus was totally innocent of the crime and false evidences had been used to convict him. He was later found innocent of the charges after his exoneration in 1906. Anti-Semitism was rampant in the French army at the time. An unlikely defender came to his aid, motivated not by sympathy for Dreyfus but by the evidence that he had been 'railroaded' and that the officer who had actually committed espionage remained in position to do further damage. Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, an unapologetic anti-Semite, was appointed chief of army intelligence two years after Dreyfus was convicted. Picquart, after examining the evidence and investigating the affair in greater detail, concluded that the guilty officer was a major named Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart soon discovered, however, that the army was more concerned about preserving its image than rectifying its error, and when he persisted in attempting to reopen the case the army transferred him to Tunisia. A military court then acquitted Esterhazy, ignoring the convincing evidence of his guilt. (Jewish Virtual Library) As this analysis has shown, the penal system in Europe throughout the last sixty years depicted its strengths and weaknesses. They dedicated their time and energy to correct the overall public but turned a deaf ear to the cries of the minority. Basia Spalek complains on the behalf of Muslims, 'criminological work has much to gain from an increased focus upon religious diversity. A lack of Muslim criminologists has no doubt contributed to the neglect of research here.' She believes that non-Muslim or 'white' researchers either neglecting the issues of the Muslim communities as a whole or factoring in biases along with their gross misunderstanding and representation of those communities. With that said, the European penal system cannot grasp their Islamic issues without insinuating discrimination. The riots in France are an indication that victims should have enforceable rights to ensure their needs are met and enable them to participate more in the criminal justice process. Helen Reeves and Kate Mulley has dedicated the lives to unsure the safety, educate, and petition their government on behalf of victims to crimes. They have experienced political figures use the injustice against victims and minorities as ploy to get elected into an office. However, when that opportunity to sit at that office presents itself, they neglect to implement their promises. They, leading Victim Support, an organisation dedicated to help victims recognise their rights, petition their British government to take the 'victim agenda' as a political priority. As for the Muslim issue, Europe must realise that their biases as well as mistreatment of Islamic communities will not abate the insurrections in those areas. The propagation that Muslims as barbarians based on what a few radicals' transgressions is wrong. To maintain unity, they must dispel any biased notions that can potentially harm those within that religious sect. Europeans need a mobilizing myth now more than ever if they want to successfully confront the double challenge of transforming an ever-expanding union into a coherent polity while successfully integrating an unprecedented wave of immigration, mainly from the Muslim world. A common European myth is still lacking. Local nationalisms are such readily available vehicles of identity. A united Europe should encourage their use as an instrument of integration and social cohesion. - Emanuele Ottolenghi One way to aid this process increase minority involvement in government. Therefore, the cries of minority such as the Muslims will not fall on deaf ears. Victims of crime should have enforceable rights to ensure their needs are met because they are the ones directly affected by the crime. It makes sense they should be actively involved in the prosecution since the evidence will provided by them. 'Criminal behaviour is primarily a violation of one individual be another. When a crime is committed, it is the victim who is harmed, not the state; . The offender owes a specific debt to the victim which can be repaid by making good damage caused.'(Goodey, pg.229) If they are not actively involved, they should at least be briefed upon the course of the case. Many may say that victims are not prosecuting the offenders because they lack the proper knowledge of which law was infracted albeit they endured offences. The state, however, possesses the intellect of where exactly or on what basis did the offender transgress. The victim's role in the prosecution of offenders has been vigorously debated. Helen Reeves and Kate Mulley, as aforementioned, play a diligent role in ensuring the rights of their victims. They run Victim Support, an organisation dedicated to victims. In working in the field, they came upon the realisation that more needs to be done to protect victims as well as their rights. They helped to develop a 'One Stop Shop' (Crawford, pg.131) method to keep victims informed and pressured their government for litigation on protection from victims. In 1995, Victim Support drew up a charter of policies called the 'Rights of Victims of Crime.' (ibid, pg.129) This body of policies illustrated the entitlement of victims such as compensation, protection, services, information, and responsibility. They understand that the victims have an obligation to know that offender is being punished and will not afflict them or any other potential victims. If one is afflicted, it is an offence against society. However, some scholars debate the relevancy of 'offence against society' mantra. They believe it gives the victim a possibility tamper with the case. There are constituents in England who are rather opposed to victim's heavy involvement in cases but they are willing utilise the perspective of the victim. This will indirectly prevent an attack on another individual identifiable victim. To me, a victim should play also an important role in the judicial process. First of all, as illuminated by the Victim Support Organization, a victim's testimony is the best tool to convict any felon. Also, their interpretation on what took place will not show only the severity of the inflicted damage but also determine the degree of punishment that felon to receive. This illustrates the principle of the Hammurabi Code: 'Eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth.' (Esler, pg.159) Furthermore, that victim is the perfect advocate for society legitimised by his or her stripes to administer advice in the duration of the offender's case. Albeit they may not possess the skill to properly prosecute the offender, their concerns on behalf of society should be conveyed to the state. Ostensibly, The European penal system has made strides throughout the centuries to accommodate their subjects. However, more is needed to be done. The populace is steadily increasing due to the influx of people. For any potential victims, laws should be established to protect them and ensure their needs are met. Bibliography: Bell, A. David. (28 November 2005) The Shorn Identity. The New Republic: pg. 20-21+ 28-29 Brington, Crane, John B. Christopher, Robert Lee Wolff. (1995) A History of Civilization: 1715 to the Present Vol. II. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. Esler, Anthony, Elizabeth Gaynor Ellis. (1999) World History. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Landler, Mark, and Craig S. Smith. (8 November 2005) French Officials Try To Ease Fear As Crisis Swells. The New York Times Spalek, Basia. (2002) Islam, Crime and Criminal Justice. UK: Williams Publishing Crawford, A & Goodey, J. (Ed.) (2000) Integrating A Victim Perspective Within Criminal Justice. Sydney: Ashgate Dartmouth Pease, Ken & Hukkila, K. (1990) Criminal Justice Systems in Europe and America. Finland: Helsinki Boards of Visitors of Penal Institutions (1975) The Effective Representation of the Community. London: J.P.Martin Cavadino, Michael & Dignan, James. (1992) The Penal System, An Introduction. London: Sage Publications Meadows, Robert J. (1998) Understanding Violence and Victimization. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Sharpe, J.A. (1986) Judicial Punishment in England. London: Faber and Faber Hentig, Von Hans (1948) The Criminal and his Victim. New Haven: Yale U. Press Internet Sources: Ottolenghi, Emanuele. (4 May 2005) Can Europe Do Away with Nationalism Retrieved on 7 October 2006 from http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.22572/pub_detail.asp Smith, Christopher H. (2000) Statement of Rep. Christopher H. Smith Vice-Chairman, House International Relations Committee Co-Chairman, U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Retrieved on 7 October 2006 www.dreyfuscase.com/html/dreyfus-affair.html Jewish Virtual Library. Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair. Retrieved on 7 October 2006 from http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Dreyfus.html Read More