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Prison Sentence for Driving 35 in 30 Limit

Jan Janulewicz | 20.03.2010 09:14 | Analysis | Repression | Cambridge

I have been sent to prison for driving 35 in a 30 limit. Are we living in a totalitarian police state?
Courts are passing one sentence for the rich and another for the poor. People who cannot afford legal representation are simply thrown in Jail.

After receiving a prison sentence for driving 35 in a 30 limit, I have written the following to MP David Howeth. Don't expect him to listen of course.

When I ask my peers why don’t they vote, the most common answer is that there is no one to vote for.

I have started to question the criminal justice system recently, and question in depth. When I tell you my story I want you to know that I speak on behalf of the growing and many disenfranchised people in this country. I have appeared in a magistrate’s court over driving 35 in a thirty limit. I have now received a 28-day prison sentence, suspended for 4 months until I pay them fine of 407 pounds. I did not receive the court letters due to short-term homelessness…. The fine is ten per cent of my annual income. I appealed to the magistrate’s court and was not given the chance to speak but given a prison sentence instead. If anything goes wrong for example a direct debit not going through or an unexpected bank charge, I will go to prison. THIS IS NOT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. I am trying to save enough money to continue my studies, and a 400 pound fine and a month in prison for driving 35 in a thirty limit is absurd in today’s society. Debtor’s prisons were abolished over 100 years a go. How on earth is this in the public interest?. Why are people like me going to prison for driving 35 in a 30 limit when people are given community service orders for violent crime burglary and rape? If I am guilty of speeding and don’t have any money, why not give me some community work instead of sending me to the university of crime. I thought we lived in a liberal society yet it from my own experience of society, it is evident we are living in a police state and legislation is simply another form of taxation. Politicians claim to be lowering the rates of tax while raising public spending, yet 36000 new pieces of legislation in the last ten years mean that the poor people who can’t afford to pay their debts off quickly are inevitably charged more. The same systems used on low limit credit cards. This ideology should have been finally and permenantly abolished in the 21st century, just like apartheid was. We have laws against racism and sexual discrimination, yet the entire system is guilty of ‘poorism’ where it claims to be based on socialist principles.

I have come to tell you that many millions of people like myself have no faith in our legal, social and political systems and institutions. We all know that politics is an institution as well.

John Harris has been giving talks on constitutional law all over the country. It has had 100000 viewings in one year on YouTube and all the young people are talking about it. The peoples united community set out to educate the uneducated on how legalese, politics and law, even money…….is all an illusion and the criminal justice system is used as yet another form of taxation by the government. It is good to see a whole generation who does not vote finally take an interest in constitutional matters. The reason that so many young people have started to take an interest in politics and law is because they have no faith in our systems or what they are being taught in our schools.

The Lib Dems. Claim to promote civil liberties yet the courts which you endorse send me the message that we are in fact living in a police state. My grandmother escaped from a soviet Czechoslovakian police state, yet the apparatus of this state not only exist in Great Britain but are also being used against many people like me. The apparatus of surveillance and databases is making the public mis trustful of the state; Which most young people feel is more often oppressive than beneficial.

The unreasonable enforcement of statutes is not in the public interest. It is another form of taxation aimed at group of people who will never be allowed to prosper, continue to be denied their right to education and live in a kingdom of fear: forced to blindly accept a dominant ideology under the pre text that it is for their own safety.

Politicians say they want to see more people young people vote, yet fail to see that intelligent people cannot reasonably have any faith in our system of politics, or ‘pseudo democracy’ , where the people have no say in major decisions such as war and economy.

If you want young people to vote for you, we need fairer policing, fairer justice systems and free universities. This includes the reclassification of ecstasy which currently ranks along side cocaine and heroin, though research shows its use can be safe and enjoyable. Accept that society has changed and the law just hasn’t kept up with it. The reason the police have such trouble tackling the problem is because they simply do not understand it. Amongst police and politicians, and ecstasy user is stereotyped as some kind of crazed and violent criminal, ranking alongside murderers in terms of sentencing. This is far from the truth.

Many people, myself among them feel that they have had the wool pulled over their eyes for far too long. Institutions have replaced communities. Religions have maintained power over us. The state wishes people to be dependent on it. People are starting to have access to more sources of information such as the internet. people are starting to wake up.

I speak on behalf of all the young people like myself who would become teachers, doctors or anything else which benefits society, yet have convictions for cannabis and their details stored on the criminal records bureau. On drugs, why don’t politicians commission some serious science and not just fiddle statistics to promote their own views?

It appears that by definition we do not have a system of justice. What is a small fine (punishment) for one person is a crippling sentence for another. Where is the justice?

Jan Janulewicz

Comments

Hide the following 9 comments

Pedal Power!

20.03.2010 14:44

Maybe you should have been driving safely then!?
Has your sentence made you consider driving more safely?
Don't for one minute assume I am condoning prison as a punishment
(Having been in prison myself for activism I am more than aware that it does not work)
Cars are dangerous and driving is a responsibility.

Anarcha-Bicyclist


Speed limit enforcement is designed to make profit,

20.03.2010 16:20

not to make the roads safer. This man is not being imprisoned for speeding, he is being imprisoned for refusing to pay money to the court which is a profit making company, assuming he dosn't pay that is. If it was really about road safety we'd be stopped and reprimanded in whatever way, on the spot, not photographed and invoiced later. This is really a stealth tax.

Any way 30MPH is a maximum speed limit not a minimum. Control your vehicle properly!



a cyclist


Not tough enough

20.03.2010 18:12

You should be locked up for driving a fucking planet-killer. Go take your pathetic sob-story elsewhere. There are people being incarcerated, tortured and beaten to death in cells all over the world for speaking the truth, children being put away for being asylum-seekers in the UK, so quit your whining.

anon


Numbskull

20.03.2010 19:59

Nobody gets jailed for driving 35 in a 30. People do however get jailed by persistant non payment of fines.

Carlos André


jail all motorists? ffs!

20.03.2010 21:39

> You should be locked up for driving a fucking planet-killer.

You think locking up all car drivers is a good idea? Come on.

You don't even know this person's circumstances. They may have a decent reason for not cycling, walking or using public transport.

Yeah, OK, I find it hard to sympathise with a motorist too, mainly because of the daily experience I have (as a cyclist) of a fair number of them who are careless fucking idiots with my life. But lots of people drive, and you ain't gonna change their minds by condoning state repression of them! Show some solidarity when they've been harshly treated by the authorities, though, and you might get somewhere...

k


Total crap.

21.03.2010 19:39

I think you are either talking out of your arse or your not telling the whole truth. The prison system is dangerously overcrowded and you more or less have to murder someone to get a castodial sentence these days, hence the reason our streets our controlled by gangs and chav cunts.
No body gets a £400+ fine and 28 day (suspended or not) for doing 5mph over the limit, it just does not happen like that. The police guidlines say you can do 10% +1 before they have to prosecute and even then its only a fixed penalty of £60 and 3 points. And i should know because i got done for doing 46mph in a 30mph zone on a dead road in the middle of the night and all i got was 3 points.
So either you are a total idiot or as i suspect just talking shit, because to warrent that sort of sentence you had to of got done for far more serious traffic offences as well or you have a long track record of driving like a total cunt !

And id just like to say to the car hater "shut the fuck up you twat" ! We don't all live in a city (thank fuck) and have access to public transport 24/7. I live in a rural villiage and have to comute 36 miles to work and back BY CAR every day as there is only 2 busses a day into the city and back 08:00 + 10:00 in and 15:00 + 17:00 coming back. As i start work at 06:00 perhaps as your are such a fucking genius you could tell me how to over come this problem ????

What would you suggest numb nuts ?? Quit my job, claim benefits, go live in a commune and grow organic vegetables ? You Tosser !!!

Over population is the biggest threat to the planet we have ever faced not cars.
FUCKING DUMB ARSE ECO-WARRIOR !!!

D


death to car drivers

21.03.2010 19:47

so when I go hunt sabbing, in a minibus or landy, I'm being a bastard and should be locked up?
bullshit alert!
the computer your typing on is made of oil-based plastics... morons.
I hate cars, occasionally ride with critical mass, and don't disagree with anti SUV stuff.
but for fucks sake, car travel is pretty nessisary sometimes.
your food gets brough to the shop in a big lorry, your veg is mostly taken up in a big tractor (and if you start with the "i grow all my own" bullshit you can F/O as everything you eat thats processed was made that way.

dont attack car drivers, attack the fucking industrys.
fucking hippys.
cut your hair and get a wash, you give us all a bad name.

not a fucking hippy


Don't drive then

22.03.2010 17:50

Cars suck. The legal regime of motoring is designed to empower the rich and the middle classes over pedestrians and cyclists.. Your problem is you're a marginal member of the motoring class..

anon


Judge Dreads...

24.03.2010 16:55

It's appalling how many people are eager to put on the dead-sheep judge's wig to judge other people! A lot of people would prefer NOT to have the bother & expense of a car, only public transport is expensive, unreliable, & impractical, with the last few bus-trips I took smelly & under-used, besides which, it's a poor option for anyone with a disability....stop blaming all drivers for the problems of the planet; we are all at fault in some way. It would help if we could have work near our homes again.

Chrissie
mail e-mail: cableco@waitrose.com