JUDGE FOR YOURSELF How Many are Innocent?

Softcover. Foreword by Paddy Joe Hill, Birmingham, 6. Think you could possibly end up spending twenty years lost in the British prison system serving time for a hideous crime that you never committed? No? Think again. "Judge for Yourself" is a book that is long overdue -- a well researched lay person's guide to the British legal system's appalling number of miscarriages of justice. Even more interestingly, it is an exploration of how such mistakes are allowed to continue, and how, despite an often blatant lack of evidence against them, many people have been -- and still are -- languishing in jail for crimes they did not commit. The author starts from an intelligent and irrefutable premise: that any system of justice, being human made, is prone to error. That is not, she argues, a problem per se; the problem lies in the fact that the Establishment, in its indifference, arrogance and/or incompetence, refuses to take any serious action to correct these errors and prevent them from happening in the future. Included are the vivid testimonies of six prisoners at different stages of the criminal justice system. James Baldwin once said, 'If one really wishes to see how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the lawyers, the policemen, the judges or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected -- those who need the protection of the law the most -- and listens to their testimony.' This is precisely what the author has done with startling revelations. Nothing will seem quite the same after. This is an original piece of work that highlights a serious problem and questions the very nature of the democratic processes that govern our lives. Featuring : Paul Blackburn, Sue Lucas-MacMillan, Keith Li, Rob Brown, Satpal Ram and Mark Barnsley. With Index. 285pp. trade size softcover. Nr. F. Extremely Scarce.