Alan Turing pardon

I can see no point in pardon or apologies once someone is dead. I think the pardon was discussed in relation to living people whose previous offence was no longer an offence as the law had changed.

I cannot see the point in looking back at the way people behaved in the past through modern moral spectacles. Nobody now would countenance the gladiatorial and other arena based animal/human activities of the Roman period but it would be ridiculous to tut over them and expect modern Italians to be embarrassed by them because 21st century moralists consider such behaviour unacceptable.

Androcur and other libido-reducing drugs have been used on the general population as well as offenders since they were developed. No surgery is involved, and once they are stopped, obviously the effect wears off. It's not that long ago that gay men were being persuaded to opt for this treatment, even when the legislation on homosexuality was being changed.

It does no more than reduce libido. It doesn't affect attitudes, sexual orientation or proclivities. The therapy that accompanies such treatment is designed to change behaviour and challenge entrenched thinking.

Before anyone shouts, "it was a crime in those days", what I mean is, if you pardon it now you are saying that there really was something to pardon.

Is there any way a criminal record can be cancelled after a person's death? Surely that is what is needed. Not a "pardon".

'to'

Yes indeed - and hardly likely turn them 'straight'!

Yes, you're right jane. There was no crime to pardon.

I think chemical castration would do a bit more than reducing libido.

Yes when. I appreciate what the rationale was at the time.

I suppose it was the word castration, with its surgical connotations, which shocked me When. Is that really what libido reduction means? I agree with j08 that sex offenders are different - though I suppose 60 years ago homosexuals were regarded as sex offenders.
I am still not sure that the State has a right to 'forgive' retrospectively - the fact that homosexuality is now not a crime, must imply that at the time when it was, the State must have been in the wrong.
When we have been wrong about something, we don't forgive the person we have wronged, do we ? - we ask for their forgiveness.
It should be Alan Turing forgiving us, not the State forgiving him.
That's why the idea of a pardon seems inappropriate, to me.

Jingle Alan Turing WAS treated as a sex offender and was offered the choice of chemical castration or prison. The rationale was to try to turn him 'straight' by reducing his libido.

Sex offenders are completely different.

jane - that's exactly what I thought when I read that. It's horrific to think it happened only that short time ago! Thank God the world has come on in leaps and bounds in the fairly recent past.

Pardon means being forgiven, not that the conviction has been overturned. Some sex offenders still receive chemical libido reduction treatment along with therapy today, Jane

What does pardoning actually mean? Does it mean that the person was guilty, but has been forgiven, or does it mean their conviction has been overturned, usually because there is new evidence that has been presented on appeal?
The latter clearly doesn't apply in the case of Alan Turing, and it seems arrogant in the extreme for the State to forgive him for something which is now no longer regarded as a crime.
What really horrified me was learning that he had been sentenced to chemical castration - that only 60 years ago, in my lifetime, this country could have been so barbaric.

I think sometimes posthumous pardons can help the family of those convicted (e.g shooting soldiers in WW1 suffering from what we now call PTS) and also it is a public statement that national attitudes have changed or new evidence has come to light. Obviously not going to help the key person concerned!

I completely agree that anyone living with a conviction for something now considered legal should get a pardon, but I still consider apologies fatuous.

I was not thinking of the dead, but of living men who were prosecuted and possibly still have the conviction on their record. I don't see why wrongs cannot be put right, if there is the political will. I don't think they would find an apology fatuous, but a pardon would be better.

I was not thinking of the dead, but of living men who were prosecuted and possibly still have the conviction on their record. I don't see why wrongs cannot be put right, if there is the political will. I don't think they would find an apology fatuous, but a pardon would be better.

You cannot rewrite the past. Of course the treatment of Alan Turing and other gay people was barbaric when we look at it with 21st century glasses and the understanding and acceptance homosexuality now has, but that applies to almost everything that happened in the past from the burning of witches to sending small boys up chimneys.

Are we to apologise to everyone who has ever lived in Britain no matter how long ago because at sometime in their lives, if not all their lives they were persecuted for something now considered if not laudable, at least perfectly acceptable.

Think, 100 years from now people will be demanding apologies for the appalling way we treated some sector of society now and whatever it is that appals the 22nd century citizen it will not be something we see in our society that appals or just discomforts us. It will be something we do now that is seen as totally right and admirable.

Alan Turing's brilliance, the importance he played in winning the war is all widely accepted and his place in the national pantheon is guaranteed. He is dead and is no more aware of the 21st century apology for mid 20th century moral standards than if the pendulum had swung the other way to be more violently homophobic and we were now digging up his mortal remains and hanging them from a lamp post because he was gay.

These apologies are fatuous.

I suspect that there is still a good deal of covert homophobia. The speeches on gay marriage were enlightening.

Galop's leaflet about CRBs:

www.galop.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/crb-previous-convictions-2010-a4.pdf

Bluebell a few gay men have been able to have their convictions for homosexual acts deleted from the Police record (PNC), as they have been dogged by longstanding Buggery convictions showng up on their CRBs when applying for jobs. The gay rights group GALOP has campaigned for convictions to be overturned, but gets little publicity. It certainly would open the floodgates if all such convictions coud be overturned, but the numbers of men who are alive and affected by still having such convctions aren't that high that it couldn't be done.

If banks can deal with improper PPI and bank charges, the criminal justice system could have a simple system for overturning and deleting convictions on application. There woudn't be an onus of proof via appeal by acknowledging that the law was unjust, particularly as there was no such offence or conviction for women.

Maybe it would be a symbolic act of contrition. Australian government said "sorry" to its indigenous people just a few years ago. The injustice in that case was monumental and the effects still very evident today. In the case of homosexuals the injustice was personal so it does not make much sense to apologise to todays gay community.

So Alan Turing is to be pardoned but Oscar Wilde is not, despite being convicted of the same offence. A move for a group pardon was dismissed in parliament Greatnan

I see the floodgates opening for everything that was a crime in the past and no longer is. Loads of time spent in discussing it in parliament, loads of media discussion and not a lot gained. Surely our movers and shakers should be looking to the future?