Feasting on Power

John Upton continues his survey of the criminal justice system under David Blunkett

David Blunkett’s latest Criminal Justice Bill, this Government’s 12th piece of such legislation since coming to power in 1997, will go a long way to producing a caste of untouchables in this country: those accused of committing a crime. It will strip away safeguards that have taken centuries to accrue, and alienate criminal suspects further from society as a whole. It is an appeal to the baser sentiments of Middle England by a Home Secretary who does not accept the need to preserve a balance between the powers of the state and the rights of defendants. It signals that those accused of crime do not deserve our protection.

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[*] Demos, 188 pp., £8.99, January 2001, 1 84275 024 0.

Vol. 25 No. 13 · 10 July 2003 » John Upton » Feasting on Power (print version)
Pages 15-17 | 5188 words