Why the kid should have gone to the chair

Towards the end of the classic 1957 American courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men, the toughest juror turns bitterly on his colleagues: ‘Brother, I’ve seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day, but this little display really takes the cake.’ Furious that the rest of the jury now seem to be inclined towards a ‘not guilty’ verdict in a murder case, despite a wealth of evidence against the defendant, he protests, ‘You all come in here with your hearts bleeding all over the floor about slum kids and injustice …What’s the matter with you guys?’

It is a question that could be addressed to those who now run the British criminal justice system. Recent decades have seen the triumph of the bleeding hearts throughout the institutions that should be protecting our society. Offenders are increasingly viewed as victims of oppression or deprivation or racism or a mental disorder and therefore deserving of support rather than of punishment. As a result of this enfeebled approach, even serious violent offences rarely attract heavy jail terms, while sentences have become almost meaningless. Community penalties are a joke. Burglary and shoplifting are hardly treated as offences at all.

The enraged juror from Twelve Angry Men, brilliantly portrayed by Lee J. Cobb, would have been appalled at the mess of our so-called justice system, ‘What is this? Love Your Underprivileged Brother Week or something?’ he shouts at his colleagues when he can sense their mood wavering towards the defendant. He would be driven to apoplexy by our youth workers who plunge into jargon about teenagers ‘at risk of offending’ or by police chiefs who endlessly prattle about ‘social exclusion’.