Roland

Little story from the other week.

Went to my local pub at about three in the after none on a sunday to meet a couple of mates. We went and sat in the garden only to be met in a situation where some block who'd had one two many was kicking off at a load of people who were trying to mind their own business.

The bar manager was trying to get him to leave when the man punched him in the face. Getting fed up with the situation I went over grabbed the bloacks arms and started forcing him to the door.

As I got to the fount door the police turned up. So I let go and thought i'll leave them to it.

The police then sat him down gave him a good talking to then drove off.

Given that he'd physically assaulted some one I'd have thought the very least that would happen is he'd have been put in a cell to sober up.

It just doesn't make sense.

BonnieDundee

This is all what you expect from police and I have come to expect. Petty tyranny can be the worst and police have a little power and seem intent of abusing it. From my short time in Australia I have seen they are much the same here and from what I know of America they are even worse.

The problem of crime to me seems more a sign of social and cultural malaise than of law enforcement. More police power and harsher treatment would probably simply cause more recentment and more crime and prisons are universities of crime anyway. The solution seems to me in rebuilding communities, families, locales and other intermediate social and political bodies rather than turning prisons into Lubyanka street, Auschwitz or the Bastille and police into the gestapo.

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"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

Aardvark

Advocating the enforcement of the laws we have will not do any of those things. In some villages you can still see the one or 2 man lock-ups. The police held the key and would put the violent or incapable drunks in for the night to sober up. They were released without charge at breakfast time the next day and didn't go running to HR lawyers for compensation, but accepted a fair cop. The policeman lived in the village and would know the publicans (most villages had more than one) and would get assistance from other locals in putting the drunks in the lock up. It seems harsh, but it worked.

Nobody is suggesting torture as in the Lubyanka or mass murder of innocents as in Auschwitz or almost mediaeval conditions for people held without trial as was common in the Bastille. Banging up a few thugs for a short period isn't even a close parallel.

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When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

David Agnew

It is even worse than I thought.

What I would really like to know is whether there is anyone reading this who has never been the victim of a crime?

Bett Nwar

Some git took the shilling bus fare from my pocket at a football match when I was 12 and I had a 3 mile walk home.

When I was a teenager I always seemed to be drunk and smiling benignly whilst thugs would confront my mates and thump them. One of my school friends was beaten up 14 times before he was 20, but he did say some provocative things. My older brother got attacked a lot as well. Perhaps I was just too insignificant for the thugs to bother with.

The joys of inner city living.

ChrisB

Me. Woohoo!

Relatives have had a couple of bikes stolen, though.

Roland

I think almost every one has been the victim of crime.

Take for example a Friday night out in town trying to have a pint with a few mates the chances are at some point in that night you will meet some sort of criminal threats or hostility.

I think most people have had some sort of criminal damage as in vandalism or say a car wing mirror kicked off.

So I think most people have been the victim of crime in that respect but it's impersonal and I think we all know it's just a part of life.

But as in crime that we feel to be real crime I know few people that have been burgled or say mugged at knife point in the street.

Another situation and at a still harder level is rape. I'd say 90% of the girls i've known which quite a few have found them selves in a situation where they've gone out with a man which they've in most cases known on a date
and at the end of the mans been so pushy that the girls just felt she had no choice but to agree although none of them would have regarded it as consenting sex. But on the other hand I've only known one girl thats literally
been draged into the bushes and raped.

I think as a rule we're liable to go through one maybe two exprianses of real crime in our lives not enough in our opinion to look ourselves in the house with the door bolted thinking the whole worlds going to kill us.

Maybe others here have found different.

Westcountryman

Several assaults, but all relatively minor (never needed hospital treatment, thankfully).

Several thefts, one fraud (lost £500). Several incidents of criminal damage.

Only ever secured one conviction, the perpetrator got a "3 month referral order".

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Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam - "This hand of mine, which is hostile to tyrants, seeks by the sword quiet peace under liberty."

BonnieDundee

Well actually people are suggesting such things like the mass murder of drug dealers. If the drugs laws were repealed it would help no end to lessening crime. Whenever I hear of a large seizure of drugs I always wonder just how much it will put the price up and just how much it will increase the amount of crime.

__________________
"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

David Agnew

It might be a bit glib to say that it is easy, but it's certainly straightforward. This is how I would do it:

Complete Cure For Crime

I think that because of the miserable failure of British politicians to cure crime (and sort out other problems), the electorate assumes that it is difficult to do. They are being too charitable: the issue isn't the difficulty of the problem, the issue is the hopelessness of our politicians.

Why British politicians won't sort out crime puzzles me, as they would make themselves more popular if they did. Some problems (such as the scandalous Common Fisheries Policy), they can't sort out even if they wanted too, because they have given their powers away, but they are still largely in control of the criminal 'justice' system.

Maybe they haven't got any ideas, maybe they haven't got the political will, maybe they don't want to sort out crime. I just don't know.