Yes – but the UK press doesn’t report the routine executions, whereas it does routinely report the mentally ill, the under eighteens at the time of the crime, the Guilty of Being Black etc. We know wrongful execution does happen, and any chance is a big one when compared to no chance whatsoever*. Likewise we don’t see the sensible policemen with guns in the USA and so worry about them being trigger-happy, whereas though I’m sure there have been wrongful shooting of French people by French armed police, they aren’t part of our crime narrative about France (well they are, but only in terms of when I was a teenager it was routine for the first time people saw guns to be on a trip to France. It was part of the school trip excitement).
And for me - and this is probably because I'm inside my culture - the odds of somebody in the US getting unfairly railroaded all the way to an execution feel like they've been lessening.
I think the being inside the culture issue is crucial. I'd probably rather be tried in the UK than anywhere simply because I understand the UK in a different way (though I'd probably rather be in prison in Iceland :-) ). THere is a huge difference in comparing Us and Them and Them and Them. The UK press doesn’t report the routine executions - they are simply mild;y wrong and we shrug - whereas it does routinely report the mentally ill, the under eighteens at the time of the crime, the Guilty of Being Black etc. We know wrongful execution does happen, and any chance is a big one when compared to no chance whatsoever*. Likewise we don’t see the sensible policemen with guns in the USA and so worry about them being trigger-happy, whereas though I’m sure there have been wrongful shooting of French people by French armed police, they aren’t part of our crime narrative about France (well they are, but only in terms of when I was a teenager it was routine for the first time people saw guns to be on a trip to France. It was part of the school trip excitement).
*On this thought-frame, it’s notable that the UK executions that remain most in the public consciousness are those among the last performed that are now felt to be “wrong” even if the individuals concerned had committed the crime. It's also been the framing of more recent miscarriages of justice.
I don’t think we’ll agree on Preston/Perugia, so I’ll leave that! However I also found the sentence nigita quotes interesting, as it is something I have seen elsewhere from Americans (and Canadians) in relation to the Kercher case in terms of "concepts of justice" that I think are about profound cultural misunderstandings.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-07 08:13 pm (UTC)And for me - and this is probably because I'm inside my culture - the odds of somebody in the US getting unfairly railroaded all the way to an execution feel like they've been lessening.
I think the being inside the culture issue is crucial. I'd probably rather be tried in the UK than anywhere simply because I understand the UK in a different way (though I'd probably rather be in prison in Iceland :-) ). THere is a huge difference in comparing Us and Them and Them and Them. The UK press doesn’t report the routine executions - they are simply mild;y wrong and we shrug - whereas it does routinely report the mentally ill, the under eighteens at the time of the crime, the Guilty of Being Black etc. We know wrongful execution does happen, and any chance is a big one when compared to no chance whatsoever*. Likewise we don’t see the sensible policemen with guns in the USA and so worry about them being trigger-happy, whereas though I’m sure there have been wrongful shooting of French people by French armed police, they aren’t part of our crime narrative about France (well they are, but only in terms of when I was a teenager it was routine for the first time people saw guns to be on a trip to France. It was part of the school trip excitement).
*On this thought-frame, it’s notable that the UK executions that remain most in the public consciousness are those among the last performed that are now felt to be “wrong” even if the individuals concerned had committed the crime. It's also been the framing of more recent miscarriages of justice.
I don’t think we’ll agree on Preston/Perugia, so I’ll leave that! However I also found the sentence nigita quotes interesting, as it is something I have seen elsewhere from Americans (and Canadians) in relation to the Kercher case in terms of "concepts of justice" that I think are about profound cultural misunderstandings.