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> There’s no British equivalent to aggressive, outspoken U.S. Attorneys, who seek out high-profile cases and routinely ascend to elected office. For the most pa
by qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
> There’s no British equivalent to aggressive, outspoken U.S. Attorneys, who seek out high-profile cases and routinely ascend to elected office. For the most part, being a U.K. prosecutor isn’t even a career. Instead, barristers, as trial lawyers are known, both prosecute and defend clients, depending on the case. To put a crook behind bars, they must convince judges and juries, rather than simply threaten a terrifyingly long sentence. Plea bargains in the American sense don’t exist, and jail terms for nonviolent offenses usually max out at about 10 years.
This is a scary take-home message for us in the US.
- pjc50 9y agoWhy is this scary? Please could you explain.
- mcguire 9y agoNot the poster, but without publicity-crazed prosecutors and 'terrifying' plea bargain threats, along with other similarly bad side effects, you end up with endemic corruption that is long-term unstable.
- pjc50 9y agoWhereas with publicity-crazed prosecutors, you end up with the highest prison population in the world. Also elected prosecutors have to fundraise, which is a whole other league of legalised corruption in itself. The United States arguably has a worse corruption problem than the UK in its police system, thanks to "forfeiture" and the lack of an effective complaints system. There was an attempt to import this system to the UK, in the form of "police and crime commissioners" - an almost total failure. They're extremely highly paid, ineffective, and elected on turnouts of about 25%.
- celticninja 9y agoI dont get your point, why is the UK system long-term unstable and rife with corruption just because we dont elect prosecutors and dont try to avoid court cases with plea bargains?