Solicitors in Carlisle

Which Personal Injury does it concern?

personal injury slip trip fall compensation car accident slip trip and fall road traffic whiplash motorbike accident neck injury claim industrial disease accident at work criminal injury medical negligence industrial accident

Name

Telephone Number

E-mail

All Email Addresses and Telephone Numbers are kept private and confidential and not used for any other purpose

We will contact you within 24 working hours. Although ... Depending on the time of day it maybe, we may contact you within 10 minutes.

Best Regards, The Injury Lawyers Team

*******************************

Big is not necessarily better
Courtesy: Marcel Berlins, The Guardian ...

It is not often that prison officers are in total agreement with the probation, prison reform and civil liberties lobbies about the best way of dealing with criminals. But there they were, among the 34 signatories to last week's passionate letter to the Guardian, which included just about every organisation with expertise of the prison system. They agreed on one important issue. The government's plan to build three large "Titan" prisons - each catering for some 2,500 prisoners - will just not work.

Jack Straw's hasty decision to proceed with the Titans followed the recommendation of Lord Carter, whose inquiry into the future of the prison system was widely criticised for being superficial, and based on insufficient evidence. The virtually unanimous condemnation of the plan comes in two parts. There is no need for more prison places, because already too many convicted criminals are being sent to prison - a proposition that has been put to the government again and again and has the support of almost every knowledgeable organisation. There is no dispute that long terms of imprisonment are justified for violent and sexual offenders, but prisons are full of inmates who are neither, who have not committed the worst kind of crimes, and who are often suffering from mental conditions that prison exacerbates.

But even if the government's argument is accepted that more prisons may be required, Titans are emphatically not the answer. Large is inefficient and potentially dangerous, experience in other countries shows. If new prisons are to be built, they should be relatively small and localised.

Coincidentally, last week also saw publication of a report by Professor Rod Morgan, former chairman of the Youth Justice Board and one of the country's most respected criminologists, pointing to the twin drawbacks of the dramatic increase in the use of police cautions as an alternative to sending low-level offenders to be tried in the courts. The policy was well meant, aimed at dealing with petty criminals as quickly and cheaply as possible. But the police have been criticised for using the caution on the wrong people and unnecessarily, to enable them more easily to meet their targets for apprehending criminals.

Morgan points to two consequences of the overuse of cautions. First, they are too often being dished out to deal with not just small-time crime and criminals, but more serious offences, including assaults and other violent and thuggish behaviour, which deserve to end up in court. Secondly, minor offenders, especially youths, are being given police cautions, which criminalises them, when their behaviour should have been dealt with informally.

So, at one end of the sentencing and punishment spectrum, we're imprisoning too many offenders who ought not to be there and should be handled by non-custodial methods. At the other end, we're issuing cautions to people who ought to be treated more severely in the courts and to others who ought not to be brought into the criminal justice system at all. What a mess.

******

New UK Sexual Harassment Law Dips Under the Radar
By Sally Bolton

On 14 March 2008 the UK government introduced a new anti-sexual harassment regulation which will come into force on 6 April 2008. No I have not made a typing error, that is a whole 3 weeks from introduction to implementation.

The new rules mean that every member of staff must be protected from sexual harassment by ANYONE they meet carrying out their work duties. That includes members of the public, suppliers, people they meet at seminars, etc.

They managed to bring in the new regulation using a statutory instrument, meaning there is no requirement for debate in Parliament. I am left wondering where the democratic process has vanished to. Of course I believe people should be free from sexual harassment in any walk of life but surely we deserve notification and time to develop and implement a plan of action seems only reasonable.

The price you, as an employer, could face for failure to protect from sexual harassment is unlimited, there is no cap on the amount you can be sued for.

I came across this snippet of information today when I was asked to write to my MP demanding this regulation be delayed until employers can be informed about the change and decided to have a search around to see what I could find.

To give you an idea of how far under the radar this one has flown, as I type there is nothing on the Business Link website and a google search brings up only 3 websites with information (which are all Human Resources websites and not related to government).

The UK website HRZone has quoted a spokesman for Harriet Harman who stated that the timeframe was "perfectly normal", "it more than meets all the requirements and has not been shortened".

I am left wondering where the requirement to inform employers of changes in regulations has gone to?

All employers must look into this new regulation and should of course write to their MP expressing their opinions and requesting that it's introduction be postponed until October 2008.

Sally is proud to be a country bumpkin and is the owner of Country Couples, a dating and friendship website for UK singles with a love of the countryside. She invites you to visit her website at country-couples.co.uk

Article Source: EzineArticles.com/

SITEMAP | PRIVACY | CONTACT | COMPENSATION ENQUIRY | SOLICITORS IN

Copyright 1991 - 2009 (online 2002)