AC4.3 Discuss how campaigns affect policy making. Flashcards
How can newspaper campaigns affect policy making?
Newspapers can play an important role in policy making, especially through campaigning to change the law.
What is the newspaper campaign that has affected policy making?
Sarah’s Law = Childs sex offender disclosure scheme.
Allow parents, carers and others to ask the police if a convicted sex offender has contact with a specific child.
Came about after the abduction and murder in 2000 of 8-year old Sarah by Roy Whiting.
Roy Whiting was convicted in 1995 for abducting and indecently assaulting another 8 year old girl.
He was convicted of Sarah’s murder in 2001.
What newspaper aided Sarah’s law?
The news of the world.
They supported the campaign along with her parents who were convinced it was a sex offender who murdered Sarah.
What did the news of the world do (Sarah’s law)?
The Newspaper’s support was central to the campaign’s success.
In July 2000, it ‘named and shamed’ fifty people it claimed were paedophiles.
The paper promised to continue until it had revealed the identity of every paedophile in Britain.
Was Sarah’s law successful?
Succeeded in persuading the government
to introduce the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme in 2011.
However, though any person can ask if someone in contact with a child has a record of child sexual offences, the police are not obliged to disclose the information (only if they judge the child is at risk).
What is the first individual campaign?
The Year and a Day rule.
- Michael Gibson was 20 when he was assaulted by David Clark in April 1992.
- Michael died after being in a coma for 22 months.
- Clark was only charged with GBH and was jailed for two years.
- He was free before Michael died.
What was the year and a day rule?
A law dating back to 1278.
The rule said that if victims of an assault lived for a year and a day, their attackers could not be tried for manslaughter or murder.
What supported the year and a day rule campaign?
Michael’s mother (Pat) wanted to change the law.
The Northern Echo newspaper launched the ‘Justice for Michael’ campaign, urged readers to sign a petition that states the year and a day rule should be scrapped.
They published a front-page photo of Michael in a coma in his hospital bed (with pat’s permission).
Thousands of readers signed the petition.
Was the year and a day rule campaign successful?
MP Alan Milburn introduced a bill to scrap the year and a day rule, but it was narrowly defeated (1994).
Following the delivery of the Northern Echo petition a bill was passed by Parliament to become the 1996 Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act.
The newspaper role was vital in achieving success by encouraging public support.
What are individual campaigns?
They are started by a lone individual who feels strongly enough about a particular policy to take action themselves.
Usually later taken up by politicians, newspapers and pressure groups.
What happened to Clare Wood (Clare’s Law)?
36-year-old Clare wood was beaten, raped and strangled, and her body set on fire by George Appleton in 2009.
She dated Appleton until 2008, but still continued to harass her.
Not known to Clare, Appleton had a history of convictions for violence against women.
Had convictions for repeated harassment and threats.
Had a five-year prison sentence for holding an ex-girlfriend at knifepoint.
He killed Clare, then went on the run and was found hanged.
How did Clare’s case unfold?
Clare’s father Michael had strong misgivings about the relationship but he too was unaware of Appleton’s history.
Michael discovered that she had complained to Greater Manchester Police, alleging that after the relationship he harassed, threatened to kill and tried to rape her, the police had taken no action.
Inquest had to wait 26 months while Clare’s death and the police’s failures were fully investigated.
The coroner wrote to the Home Office asking why Clare had not been informed about Appleton’s past.
This influenced the campaign.
How did the police’s failings influence the campaign (Clare’s Law)?
Michael launched a campaign to change the law to enable women to know about their partner’s violent past.
Michelle Livesey reported at Radio Key 103 in Manchester, they worked for four years, gathering evidence, organising petitions and winning support from charities, politicians and the media for a change in the law.
What is Clare’s Law?
A domestic violence disclosure scheme.
The police can disclose information about an individual’s partners previous abusive offending.
The right to ask - Allows the public to apply to the police to ask about their own partner or the partner of someone they know.
The right to know - Allows the police to disclose information to protect a potential victim, even without having been asked to do so.
However the police are not obliged to disclose any information
What is double jeopardy?
Basic principle of English common law that has existed for around 800 years.
Stops people being tried again for a crime which they have been acquitted.
Prevents injustice by stopping the state repeatedly re-prosecuting someone until they manage to secure a conviction.
However, the rule can lead to injustice where new evidence indicates that someone previously acquitted was in fact guilty.
