IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE STARS. PART 2

Sitting in the defendants holding area in the Court No.3, was a young man who had, only two months earlier, began his 20th year of life. And here he was now, looking forward, anxiously, although he gave no real indication of that anxiety, appearing, instead, outwardly, calm and contained, awaiting his sentencing by the court. 

As he sat, somewhat forlornly in the holding area, guarded by a single prison guard, and in sight of those in the court, the young awaited his fate. Which, at this stage of his life, was to hear how many years of the rest of that life the court, in the form of District Judge G, was going to deprive him of. 


Through continued incarceration, and, subsequently, through that most unjust of non-custodial imprisonment; the dreaded ‘extended sentence.’

This might have been the culmination of the young man’s life, up to then, but so much had gone on in his life before, as he strayed onto and remained on the precipitous path of half-life, which he had been leading for the previous 5 or 6 years. 

For those who had been watching but not known the young man, sitting with his head slightly bent forward, as if he was looking at his feet and bemoaning the fact that they had carried him along the perilous path which has taken him to this fateful appointment with the court, there were not many obvious clues about his life.

The young man was appearing to be sentenced for 3 S.16 offences, one of which would be dropped, although two such offences were enough to make him eligible for an 'extended sentence.' However, that is not something that the uninitiated observer would have known. 

For those who are au fait with ‘stereo-typical British justice’, however, there would have been some known stereotypicality about the young man, and how he might have came to have taken the path which had, probably inevitably, led him to the court. 

They would have observed that he was a young black man, about 5’ 9’’ or 5’10’’, of muscular and strong build, and that he seemed to be of Afro-Caribbean appearance. 

Put together with the fact that he was in court, it would not have been surprising if they had concluded that his appearance had something to do with offences pertaining to violence, with drugs probably playing some sort of role. 

For the initiated observer, such a conclusion would also have led them to conclude that the young man was likely to be more severely punished for his offences, than if he had been a white British person. 

Although that conclusion would have been a well-founded one, it would not prevent Judge G from, later in the proceedings, feigning horror. As he read 'between the lines' and concluded that a letter the young man’s parents had written to the court, to plead mitigating circumstances for their son’s action, was implying that the judiciary was racist.

Of course, it would not be inaccurate to probably conclude that the Judge was only being 'racist', in that he was interpreting and implementing laws which could easily merit the description of being 'racist', in how they disproportionately impacted on black defendants.

But, god forbid that any person, and especially a black person, should accuse the British judiciary of racism, when ‘every 'reasonable person’ knows that the only reason why black prisoners form such a disproportionate percentage of the prison population, has to be because 'black people have greater criminal intent and are more prone to offending. 

Such is the logic of 'outcome informed', instead of 'process informed' conclusion. It is the kind of logic which every body can understand, because of it 'simplicity', and how it does not require any exertion of intellectual effort. everybody must know that; don’t they?

To be continued.