Truthfully I don't know what to make of this. Scottish government ministers are considering a new law which would help stop people stalking and harassing their victims by text or online. Currently those who behave in such a way face a breach of the peace charge.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill (pictured above) wants a new offence outlawing 'threatening, alarming or distressing behaviour'.
The government will seek to change this by lodging an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill which is going through parliament.
Once the new powers are enshrined in law they will give prosecutors the ability to act against stalkers who send threatening messages via email, text, phone calls and on internet sites such as Facebook.
I notice blogs have been omitted but I suspect they are included. Although I've had a couple of bad experiences myself, I cannot see how this new law would have been on much benefit in one instance. Some individuals understand the working of the internet too well to leave any traces behind.
Is this a sake of taking a sledge hammer to crack a peanut?
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3 comments:
This story caught my eye this morning too, Subrosa. As you'll imagine, it is difficult to evaluate quite what the government is proposing absent the clear text of the amendment.
There are some interesting issues we can delve into around the proposal however - I'll hopefully have a post composed by lunchtime on the subject.
Produced with lightning speed, here is my précis:
http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.com/2010/02/macaskill-on-threatening-alarming-and.html
Cheerio,
LPW
Lallands, I was hoping you'd pick up on this, hence my early post.
Thanks so much, I will read it immediately and ask others if they would too.
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