I was discussing in another thread how incredible it was that the social services let Fritzl take care of the children regardless of him being convicted of one actual rape (as well as an attempted rape, and indecent exposure). According to an article in the Guardian, these kinds of records only stand for 15 years in Austria, before they are deleted. Thus the social workers didn't find any record of the incidents, despite supposedly searching for them.
Here's the article (which is long, but really quite interesting): http://tinyurl.com/5jj2x3
How does this work in the UK anyway?
I think all criminal records should be kept..
..and I would have had the same opinion before this descpicable crime took place.
If you break the law you don't deserve any favours. For the safety of the general public and to help prevent the individual breaking the law agian they need to be kept.
really for ALL crimes?
So if you steal something at 16 that should still be with you at 45?
Ok, there should probably be some allowances for children.
At 16 probably not, if it was just for stealing anyway.
should it be because of their age
or the nature of the crime?
The combination of the two.
.
yes. but obviously looking at them one would take into account that it was 'only' stealing and it was at the age of 16. of course if it was sexual assault or murder while you were 16, age doesn't come into it. so looking at past criminal records should be treated with sensitivity to the nature and circumstances of the crime.
but there's no reason why it shouldn't be held indefinitely.
That's massively over-simplifying things.
If all conduct that "broke the law" (that's not just crimes!) was permanently held against people, life would be intolerable. Even for criminal offences it would be. Would you want that minor criminal damage conviction you got as a reckless teenager stopping you from getting a job in the future?
Like all these things, it's a balancing act. It is important to give some people second chances. But it's equally important to stop dangerous offenders from having the chance to commit awful crimes like this. Moral argument can draw no bright line. But there does have to be some element of each or society wouldn't be able to function.
In the UK they mislabel random people as criminals
This paragraph horrified me: "Perhaps the worst fears are for Elisabeth. She is said to be 'deeply distressed', agreeing to talk to doctors and detectives only on the promise that she will have no further contact with her father. At the age of only 42, her crudely cut hair is completely white, her lips are shrunken around toothless gums, her face is deeply lined, her body painfully thin, her skin almost transparent. According to a forensic psychiatrist, Dr Guntram Knecht, she has been 'destroyed by all means'. Of all those Fritzl damaged, she was the only one to know she was a victim. If she can live with her children again, 'it will be because of her desire to be a mother,' he said."
:(
And yeah
criminal records should be permanent. I expect Austria to change its stance in the near future.
"At 16, she twice attempted to run away from home,
but each time was delivered back into her father's violent embrace by the local authorities. Three years later, there was no possibility of escape."
:\
I think it should be dependant on the crime
Murder, rape and child abuse yes.
Shoplifting, graffiti ect no.
it's the old problem of
some people who commit crimes will reform, some won't, and how can you tell them apart at the time?
^ Exactly this.
And the problem the law has is that you can't just give massive discretion to administrators to exercise their expert judgement in every case. We need rules, and the general nature of rules means they can never fit every case correctly. Cases like this will always happen sometimes unless you take the extreme route of never deleting anything from anyone's record.
he had SEVERAL convictions, though
he clearly wasn't putting it behind him, or whatever
Well, yeah.
The odd thing about the Austrian system (as reported in the article) was that the same time limit seemed to apply to all kinds of convictions. There's every reason to keep some sexual offences on record for longer.
that's what i was thinking as well
aside from major offences
criminal convictions should be 'spent' after x years depending on category of crime. else, nobody would ever have a serious chance of rehabilitation which would benefit nobody at all
There would be no harm in keeping..
..a record of their offences. It shouldn't stop them from living a normal life. I don't think employers need to know for example but the records should still be there as reference for the police.
I'm not sure this would work
but yeah I do find it absolutely unbelievabale that the police had no record at all about several sexual crimes that one man has been convicted for.
oh right!
the records were actually deleted?? that's crazy, especially for crimes that are known to be more likely to recommitted such as serious sexual assault
ie when he reported his daughter missing
the police should have been able to check his records if they suspected him at all (which they probably didn't)
or when he wanted to adopt the other children
yeah
according to that article, all records get deleted after 15 years, regardless of the nature of the crime