The last post was written before I read the reports on the second post-mortem. Having attended the inquests of previous youths who died in police detention, I feel ill. Repeatedly, families were denied the right to an independent post-mortem, and there was strong suspicion why, but because there was nothing but suspicion, because there wasn't the public outcry, the deaths just kept piling up, at the rate of almost two a week at one stage. And nothing happened.
It's good that this has finally come out. It's tragic, shameful and disgusting that so many young men died before even this much of the truth could be known.
Tuesday 3 March 2009
The problem with Kugan....
Now, please bear with me on this post. I want to play a little mind-game that a lot of people may find unpleasant and somehow intrinsically wrong.
Let us just imagine that A Kugan was indeed a car thief. Let's go one further and make him the car hijacker of the urbanite nightmare - after all in previous inquests, there have been serious attempts made (however irrelevant) to establish that the deceased was in fact a criminal. So let's pretend that he was a criminal.
Does his death in custody deliver justice to his traumatised victims, held up in their own cars with a knife or a gun, forced to climb out of their cars after harassment, and left at the side of the road, no phone, no money, no vehicle?
I would argue, forcibly, that it doesn't. Instead, I would be doubly traumatised because - with good reason - Mr Kugan has become a hero. He has become a victim. In some way, he has usurped the position of his victims.
And even if this hadn't happened, even if he had not been made a hero - there is no process here. Part of the point of the courts of law is that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done. The victim gets to feel the satisfaction that the perpetrator has had adequate chance to defend themselves (more than the victim had), but has been found guilty by the state. Publicly and generally incontestably. It may not bring the car back, it may not appease the trauma but it reinforces faith in the country's institutions, at the very least.
Any victims of a person who dies in custody are denied this cathartic process. They are denied justice, and become, once again, victims.
This isn't good for anybody... the police, the judiciary, the victim of crime, or even the perpetrator.
As it is, Kugan (like many before him) died an innocent man - just as all are innocent until proven guilty.
Let us just imagine that A Kugan was indeed a car thief. Let's go one further and make him the car hijacker of the urbanite nightmare - after all in previous inquests, there have been serious attempts made (however irrelevant) to establish that the deceased was in fact a criminal. So let's pretend that he was a criminal.
Does his death in custody deliver justice to his traumatised victims, held up in their own cars with a knife or a gun, forced to climb out of their cars after harassment, and left at the side of the road, no phone, no money, no vehicle?
I would argue, forcibly, that it doesn't. Instead, I would be doubly traumatised because - with good reason - Mr Kugan has become a hero. He has become a victim. In some way, he has usurped the position of his victims.
And even if this hadn't happened, even if he had not been made a hero - there is no process here. Part of the point of the courts of law is that justice is not only done, but is seen to be done. The victim gets to feel the satisfaction that the perpetrator has had adequate chance to defend themselves (more than the victim had), but has been found guilty by the state. Publicly and generally incontestably. It may not bring the car back, it may not appease the trauma but it reinforces faith in the country's institutions, at the very least.
Any victims of a person who dies in custody are denied this cathartic process. They are denied justice, and become, once again, victims.
This isn't good for anybody... the police, the judiciary, the victim of crime, or even the perpetrator.
As it is, Kugan (like many before him) died an innocent man - just as all are innocent until proven guilty.
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