quote:
The moment you start saying that it is better to jail ten innocent people than let one guilty person go because of a relaxed burden of proof is the day I check out of this society.
Really interesting Doc that you spewed that out, as it is rubbish. Of course, the reverse is often advocated - that it is better to let ten guilty people go than jail one innocent person (which I assume is why you turned it on its head).
However, 2 points occur to me.
1. If it meant jailing ten innocents for one guilty, then I too would check out of the society, but that is so extreme a figure that I would actually rephrase it like this. If one innocent person went to prison for every 50 guilty ones, that might be a price I could bear. Why? Because at the moment...
2. Ten guilty people at least seem to be being let go to avoid jailing the one innocent. (The statistics most recently discussed in the UK said that with rape, the percentage of rapists being sent down (for pitifully short sentences) is is minimal, perhaps as low as 1 in 20 or 50 (a lot is supposition, but such is the nature of this one - I can understand that might offend your scientific mind, but alas nowt I can do on that front!)
Sure, there are HUGE dangers in changing the burden of proof, but something does need to be done (and there is a lot that can be done before we get to changing the burden, but I am not discounting the possibility), because at the moment, men are literally getting away with it, nearly all the time, nearly all over the place.
