Unpopular Opinion

As ever, I find myself out of step with public sentiment, or rather, what the media would have us believe is public sentiment.  I speak, of course, about the whole 'early release' furore whipped up by the press as stick with which to try and beat Andy Burnham - ignoring the fact that this is a policy he inherited. rather than something he came up with.   Anyway, most of the 'outrage' centres around the early release from prison of two of the three people jailed for their part in a police officer's death.  Now, I'm not going to try and argue that his death wasn't a particularly horrific crime - he was dragged behind a car while trying to foil a robbery.  But the fact is that the two people whose release is being mooted were convicted of manslaughter, rather than murder - they were passengers in the car which killed him so, arguably, had little agency in the events that unfolded.  The driver - whose release isn't being contemplated - was convicted of murder.  The reality is that manslaughter is considered a lesser offence than murder, mainly because there is no 'malice aforethought' or premeditated intent to kill involved, so is it so unreasonable that those convicted of it who have served a proportion of their sentence should be released on licence?

Now, if it was someone close to me who had been killed, then I accept that I might feel differently about this, but when dealing with matters of justice we surely need to try and be objective.  Nobody is talking about putting 'murderers' back on the streets, despite what the tabloids would have you believe.  OK, so you might think that I'm just being a contrarian here, but there's another issue related to this case which is the real sticking point for me: the suggestion that simply because they were involved in the killing of a police officer, these particular offenders should be singled put for harsher treatment.  Indeed, it goes beyond that, with suggestions that any murder of a police officer should be treated more severely than the murders of other people.  Really?  So some lives are worth more than others?  Personally, I think that all murders, regardless of who the victim is, are equally heinous and should all be treated with the same gravity when it comes to their investigation, prosecution and the punishment of the guilty parties.  I notice that in some quarters of the press they've tried to qualify this outrageous and offensive notion by saying that the 'extra severity' should apply to the murders of all 'emergency workers'.  But the same response applies - we cannot measure the value of peoples' lives in terms of the jobs they did in life - all life is sacred.  Even that of some down and out who fried their brains on meth, or that of a sex worker or even someone who is themself a criminal.  Just because a person is a scumbag doesn't give anyone else the right to take their life.  Not a popular view as far as the gutter press go, but tough - it's the right view to take.