Law as a Set of Rules - Assignment Example

Law can be termed as a set of rules that are enforced by social agencies to govern the behavior. Laws are made by government and defines the economic, political and social relationships among people. Law involves many sub laws each defining and stating the scope of crimes and parts it dictates, some of the classification of law includes; contract law, property law, law of tort, trust laws, constitutional law, criminal law, international law, international law. Public international laws are concerned by the relationship between states or nations. Conflict laws concerns the jurisdiction of disputes between different parties and with which the jurisdiction’s law is applied, we have also the constitutional and administrative law which deals with the governing of the interactions within a state. The aim of this paper is to analyze the three articles concerning the criminal law and thereby analyzing them with regard to legal issues involved and thereby giving views concerning the press reports’ overall accuracy. If there are any inaccuracies, the paper will identify the common reasons for inaccuracies depicted by those reports. According to the article in the Daily mail on-line, 15 January 2011 about the jail for Sainsbury’s IT boss who stole 17 million Nectar points’ the fraud crime is identified. Fraud is said to be a deception made for personal gain that the intentions is either to hurt another individual. Fraud is a civil law violation that is punishable. According to the article about Sainsbury’s he was able to fraud the Nectar points because he had access to the internal administration systems there for fraud occurs when one have the authority or connections to the individual or the intended media of fraud. His fraud was motivated by personal greed of money, after carefully planning he found a way which he could implicate the fraud, Stevenson had worked in the Sainsbury’s company for 20 years before he was arrested of the Nectar points fraud. During his prosecution he gave an explanation for the fraud, he admitted that he had found a loophole in the system of the company that he used to put points to his own card. Therefore a fraud occurs when there are loopholes in a company that reads to people to gain access and manipulate the resources also being trusted can lead to manipulation of resource. Stevenson said that he was trusted employee so no one was looking over his shoulder. In relation to this Mr. Stevenson was given a penalty of 20 months in jail for the fraud. The related law according to this article is fraud which is under the criminal law which has the following effects on every level of society. Fraud has a negative impact on organizations, businesses, individuals, and communities involved. Individual or organizations that fall as fraud victims experience financial, social, physical, psychological and social damage. The impact of fraud to the business organization may be fatal that sometime they are unable to recover from the financial and reputation damage caused. The law in this case of Stevenson portrays that the criminal law is able to deal with cases like fraud by giving proper jurisdiction according to the law. Fraud can be controlled to avoid the costs involved, some of this measures that can be used to avoid fraud include; reviewing the bills, statements every time to avoid and detect unusual activities. All the mails and trash in your email should be well protected to avoid anyone getting personal information, all the finished with paper having any important information (bank statements and financial solicitations) in the office should be shredded before disposing them off. One should also report any stolen information immediately, one should avoid giving personal, or organization information through the phone without proper authorization and if the person is unknown. In reference to the article about a policeman who stole 70,000 pounds’ in bank fraud to fraud affair with fellow officers... but walks free from court. This fraud happens when the police officer made several false claims during the application that he was a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police and even that he was a soldier serving in the Afghanistan which enabled him to gain the access to the money. During his trial he admitted that he had committed the crime of fraud, and claimed that he had amnesia while committing the accused crime, the judge sympathized with him and he withdrew the sentence of two year imprisonment. The law was not fairy practiced because the police officer committed a fraud that affected the reputation the institution that the fraud occurred. The persons included in this case went free without any fair trial of the criminal offence committed. In relation to the policeman stealing 7000 pounds and the article about the jail for the boss who had stolen 17 million Nectar points, the two cases are of equal capacity of fraud and require same judgment; the law was not well practiced in both situations. Rehabilitation was to be enacted to the police office in order to transform him into a valuable member of the society which would have prevented and created a good example to others in order to prevent further similar offenses never to happen in future. According to the editorial comment about School catchment area ‘fraud’ case dropped against a mother. It brings out the fraud committed and how the law solved the offence. The mother in this case used false information of the address to get her son into a popular state school, after the fraud was detected she was taken to court and she admitted that she had committed the crime accused of, because of the love of her child to get better education, the judge dropped the case due to the love of the mother to wards her child and the sincerity she showed. Justice prevailed because both sides were considered and there was no fatal offences caused by the fraud the punishment was to be offered to maintain and give good example to other parents who may think of committing such offences. Law is never accurate in offering its jurisdiction when it comes to some matter like the case of the mother who committed a fraud and the police man who was let free just because he was not in his correct form of his mind. In the case of the student who tried to murder his father minutes after being released from the hospital complaining of panic attacks. The student (jack Archer, 24) who plunged a kitchen knife into his fathers back (Ian Archer) after becoming sure that architect wanted to kill him. After the court herd the history of the boy on how he had involved himself in cannabis, alcohol and cocaine taking bark from when he was a teenager. He had a series of panic attacks that led him to attacking his father nearly killing him. The court decided that the boy was not guilty giving the evidence that it was not intentional and that if the boy was in his normal status he could have not committed the criminal act. The law here is portrayed in making sure that all citizens are represented equally and justice prevails, in this article law protects the boy who is mentally disturbed and a drug addict. It was fair that the boy who tried to kill his father is not sentenced to jail because it would be unfair to him because he denies the attempt to kill his father. Both the defense and the prosecution are priding with the jury to return the verdict of not guilty by the reason of insanity shown by the boy. The views of this case are that the jury will give a verdict that will favor the boy due to his health status. In relation to other articles discussed above the outcome of this case are predictable and the case will have been fairly tried. The article about Stalker who bombarded model Sophie Aderton with the alarming and distressing texts avoiding jail it presents personal law that protects every individual from any harassment from the public or any other source. Sophie accused the stalker of sending him distressing messages that were uncomfortable, after an intense investigating the jury found that the text messages were offending but he claimed that he had started sending the messages because he was suffering from a bipolar disorder. The London magistrates’ court stated that the stalker was not in correct order of his mind. From these analyses it is evident that law is a system of guidelines and rules which are enforced through social agencies to control the behavior of people. It is classified into different classes like, criminal law, contract law personal property law, trust law, international law and Administrative law among others. The article discussed above brings out how law is practiced shapes economic, political and it acts as mediator between the ways people relate with each other. The main objective of law is to probe the occurring of the occurrence of crime and punishing the law breakers. Other objectives of law are; restitution whose goal is to repair, the hurt caused by the offender, rehabilitation is another objective that its main objective is to transform an offender into a valuable member of the community, it prevents further offences by making the offender realize that what he had committed was not right. Incapacitation is simply formulated to eliminate the offender from the society so that it is protected from their misconduct. Deterrence is offered to the offenders in order to discourage them from the criminal behaviors, and retribution is the commonly used objective used to make the criminal who has committed the offence to suffer in some way, it is aimed at transforming the offender. References Report (author unnamed), ‘ Jail for Sainsburys IT boss who stole 17 million Nectar Points’ (Daily Mail On-Line, 15 January 2011) Kerry McQueeeney, ‘Policeman stole £70,000 in banks fraud to fund affair with fellow officer... but walks free from court’ (Daily Mail On-Line 22 February 2012) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104132/Policeman-guilty-70-000-fraud-fund- affair-fellow-officer-walks-free-court.html Editorial comment, ‘School catchment area fraud case dropped against mother’ (Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2009) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5730062/School-catchment-area- fraud-case-dropped-against-mother.html Charlotte Gill and Daniel Bates, ‘Student tried to murder his father minutes after being released from hospital complaining of panic attacks’ (Daily Mail On-Line, 16 June 2008) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026888/Student-tried-murder- father-minutes-released-hospital-complaining-panic-attacks.html Tom Kelly, ‘Stalker who bombarded model Sophie Anderton with alarming and distressing texts avoids jail’ (Daily Mail On-Line, 26 March 2010). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1260583/Sophie-Anderton-stalker-Paul-Davis- escapes-jail.html Jane Perrone, ‘Sleepwalker cleared of murdering father’ ((The Guardian, 19th March 2005) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/mar/19/janeperrone?INTCMP=SRCH Read More