The two sides to fighting crime

GD

But Palmer is also saying that prison is ineffective and that costs a lot more.

Tanuki

"
In the short term, government needs to provide more prison places. But in the long term, the strategy must be to reduce the need for them."

I'd agree 100%. However my approach to "reducing the need for them" involves not some wishy-washy sort of social programs, rather changing the whole ethos of the criminal justice system to reintroduce the presumption of a right-of-action to the homeowner, the ordinary man-in-the-street so that we no longer see criminals bringing actions against their victims. Muggers, burglars - through your choices and actions you have surrendered any form of legal protection and have instead incurred a whole slew of legally-enforcible liabilities. We need bounty-hunters, not social-workers, to bring the scum of society to justice.

Trumpeter Lanfried

We spend far too much time talking about the causes of crime, which are multifarious. The discussion is interesting, for academics and politicians, but of little practical use.

I don't much care why criminals commit crimes. It's probably because they are stupid, greedy, lazy, aggressive, etc., etc., i.e. not very nice people.

Now let's move on to the only question that really matters: how to stop them. Best way yet devised? Lock them up? OK, let's do that.

Tina

I would like to see Cameron put IDS in his shadow cabinet as Shadow Home Seceretary instead of Dominic Grieve. IDS has done some amazing work in his breakdown Britain report and it would be a sign the Tories are taking this issue seriously.

Herbert Thornton

Tanuki -

Well said. The justice system has become so perverted that it's getting (or maybe already has got) to the point that if you arrive home and discover a man ransacking you valuables, and shout "Take your hands off that you ***** bastard!" he will sue you for racism and hurting his feelings and be awarded substantial damages.

Verity

The destruction of our system of punishment has been deliberate. Its purpose, as we are aware: to destablise society.

It obviously goes against people's natural sense of justice that someone should be arrested for assault for defending their own home, or for fighting off a mugger or defending a child against a knife attack. Not justice, but destabilising and turning the normal human sense of justice upside down and then telling the population they may be arrested for hate crimes if they complain about it.

Although the mental wattage in this current cabinet is fairly low, they know what they are doing with regard to the destabilistion of our society. That was why Tony Blair fast-tracked it by opening the borders of our easily defending islands to people from backward societies with a backward - i.e., unreformed - religion. They were ushered in, given taxpayer money (as though Britain were some vast unsettled continent that needed immigrants) and their rights elevated above those of the indigenes (who had developed these rights in their ancient legal system).

I would suggest two radical courses of action. First, I read about a German (I think) experiment recently - I foolishly didn't note where - whereby they either rented, or bought, land in Siberia. There, prisoners got sent. The prisons were heated with wood fires, the wood being collected by the prisoners. If they didn't go out and labour all day chopping wood hauling it back, they had no heating.

We don't need to clutter up Britain with prisons when Siberia is vast and the Russians may not mind us renting, or purchasing, some little tiny bits of it.

As it wouldn't be long before the Russian mafia got in on the act, there probably wouldn't be too many sociology graduates running the joint.

Just a thought.

The other is mass repatriation with the offer of incentives. France already does this, although they're very quiet about it. Anyone who accepted would have a swab of their DNA and a retinal print on record and could never get back into the country on a social or mercy visit. Out would mean out.

In addition, children of immigrant parents (all immigrants) would not get British citizenship at birth. Babies born in Singapore to one foreign payrent do not get citizenship at birth. At age 18, they are accorded the right to choose. If they decide they want to be Singaporean, they become legally liable to accept their military duty over the ensuing, I think it's 23, years for a certain number of weeks a year. Every adult male, from the highest to the lowest, has to undergo this.

I would suggest that all children born in Britain to a second or third generation immigrant family be asked for their decision at age 18. If they wish to be British, they would sign a contract agreeing to be deported without resistance and without recourse to the law if they break laws against terrorism.

This is obviously very ragged, but those are the main points in a nutshell.

JS

I find it incredible that people are so happy to spout such ill-informed opinions in public. In particular, the comment at 9.02pm is legally illiterate. Not only are 'racism' and 'hurting of feelings (or equivalent)' not causes of action in either civil or criminal law, but the idea that any court in the land would convict of anything (unless you had acted GROSSLY disproportionately) in such circumstances is absurd. Remember, criminal convictions for all but minor offences must come from a jury of peers. People like you. How sympathetic do you think juries are to muggers and burglers? The fact that the Tony Martin case got so much publicity was exactly because it is so rare for actions to be brought against victims of crime. A picture is being painted - probably based on ill-founded urban myths - that is wholly at odds with what actually goes on in courts. If I am wrong, then please cite the cases that contradict me.

Tanuki

JS @9:33pm - I truly look forward to the time when juries are guided by the judge to refuse-to-try and discharge as 'having shown exemplary conduct to the overall benefit of society' any case where someone is charged with topping an intruder/mugger.

JS

I have no sympathy for criminals either.

What I take issue with is the sort of comment that you made earlier, where you say that you seek a system where: "...we no longer see criminals bringing actions against their victims." What are you referring to here? Name me the cases where criminals (or the CPS) have successfully brought actions against victims - I have already referred to the Tony Martin case. You imply that there is an epidemic of such instances - please name a few. I am keen to see the evidence that you base this on.

Verity

To what I am sure will be loud jeers because the British inexplicably think they are superior to Texans - who run a safe society - but we might consider adopting gun laws similar to New Hampshire, Texas, Colorado, Utah and around 35 other states. The laws of each state are different, but all the legislatures of these states are aware that as long as criminals have access to arms, so should the law-abiding for purposes of self-defence.

I have written about this before. The only state with which I am sufficiently familiar is Texas. In Texas, you are absolutely free to shoot someone dead who steps over your threshhold without your invitation.

When I had an incident at my home, the police, on the quiet advised me to shoot to kill. If you shoot to wound, they recover and then claim you invited them in. As in, "I wuz jes' passin' and the lady ast me in to help her move a heavy couch. Said she'd give me 10 dollars." Or "... and the lady said she wuz lonely and would I like a drink."

This is a pragmatic, non-socialist approach. Everyone is aware of the law. That is why you get virtually no "hot" burlaries in Texas and similiar states. (I only know the gun laws in Texas, but I think New Hampshire, Colorado and many other states have laws based on similar thinking.)

Tanuki - I didn't understand your post.

dilys

Verity said "I would suggest two radical courses of action. First, I read about a German (I think) experiment recently - I foolishly didn't note where - whereby they either rented, or bought, land in Siberia. There, prisoners got sent. The prisons were heated with wood fires, the wood being collected by the prisoners. If they didn't go out and labour all day chopping wood hauling it back, they had no heating."

Marginally better than building them in Poland and then putting the prisoners in the fire.

Verity

OTOH, perhaps we could up the discomfort by forcing them to converse with hectoring lefties.

What on earth is your point, Dilys, you uppity moral dwarf?

Frank Pulley

There is a formula that explains all this: Organised Crime = Disorganised Policing.
Widespread violence on the streets = pussyfooting policing = political interference.

At the risk of ad nauseum repetition, the answer to increasing crime and violence is to dismantle the CPS, give back the prosecutorial powers to the police; up the criteria for recruitment to the police, rather than continually lowering it. Kick out all the 'community leaders' and liberal busibodies who now infest police stations and let the police do their job.

To ensure that experienced police patrol on foot and in prowl cars, there should be no promotion to Sergeant with less than 5 years service. The basic pay of Constables with more than five years service should be raised considerably to encourage them to remain and be happy policing the streets (the most important element in the police function, which has been devalued beyond all measure over the past 20 years). There should be no promotion to Inspector with less than 10 years service. The middle and upper administrative ranks should be populated with officers who have earned their bones with successful investigations and a proven track record of leadership and inspiration, No promotion to Chief Constable in less than 20 years service - preferably more, but deserving exceptions could be made, occasionally when a star shines so brightly it should not be ignored.

Every London Magistrates' Court should be staffed mainly with hard-nosed Stipendiary Magistrates who are capable of dealing with shysters who waste the Courts' and police time. JPs should be restricted to traffic cases.

In other words turn the clock back to pre-Sheehy times and put the fear of Christ up the villains.

Today's street police are mainly inexperienced; they lack nous, and are cowed and resentful. They have been stripped of their discretion and independence in favour of stultifying line management ‘chain of command’. Most upper ranks are over-promoted, incompetent and 'politically correct' (aka politically subverted).

Crooks, many of them children, now call the shots on the streets of England, with rare exceptions (where pockets of good policing still remain under the guidance of senior officers who have managed to retain their balls - God alone knows how).

Is any of this possible at this late stage of the Gramscian era?
No, but I can dream can't I?

Can things be improved with the current politicised set-up? No! Not in your wildest dreams. Get used to it, formulate your own ways of self-defence, insure your property and your person wisely - or emigrate! It will get far, far worse before it gets better. Just look and listen to the current Home Secretary, and her Minster with responsibility for the police; if that doesn't illustrate the nadir we have now reached in 'lawranorder' then you are myopic and stone deaf.

Herbert Thornton

JS - Your reference to me as legally illiterate is so misplaced that I can only conclude that you are so generally illiterate as to be unable to understand plain English. I did not say that it was the law. I stated my opinion that the law was moving in that direction.

As for the safeguard of trial by jury, how long is that right going to last? The government has made more than one attempt to limit trial by jury and there is no telling whether the right is going to survive.

Water

Hard problem if you have nothing to loose, then what is to stop you. Marrin haha “The world is not thy friend,” Romeo said to the poverty-stricken apothecary as the way to persuade him to commit the crime of selling poison” moral and money an age old dichotomy.

Nicholas

JS: J L Malcolm's 'Guns and Violence: The English Experience' provides the details of some rather shocking cases where the victims of crime have been prosecuted for defending their homes.

Even those self-defenders not actually prosecuted but subject to initial arrest and subsequent release will have been traumatised by the experience, and of course alienated by the police, because it goes so far against their sense of natural justice.

The current police default position seems to be to arrest before any investigation, which is a strange perversion of the old Judge's Rules and not required by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act which supplanted them. As in the past there are probably secret procedural and policy agreements between the Home Office and police which have little basis in the rule of law or common law tradition but which lead to these strange protocols. There is little or no transparency, judicial or parliamentary scrutiny over the way the police interact routinely these days. Accountability and due-diligence are prompted only by media headlines.

There is no doubt that the present government has connived with the police to eliminate the right to defence of home and hearth, long established by common law. At the beginning of the 20th Century British people still had the right to possess firearms and to use them to defend their homes in accordance with the 1689 Bill of Rights. Ironically, at the time, this was also seen as a protection against tyranny by government. In the Victorian era the police and the law-abiding public were seen in partnership against crime under the shared rule of law. That dynamic has now changed with the police moving closer to the state and becoming more and more an arm of enforcement against the law-abiding public. The British Government and the Home Office conspired throughout the 20th Century to undermine the right to self-defence, using very dodgy evidence to do so. Since Labour's 1997 act finally made the possession of handguns by law-abiding citizens illegal there has been a dramatic rise in their criminal use. The police were eager to support this draconian law because it relieved them of their irksome and costly obligation to administer licenses (a requirement originally introduced at their behest anyway) and also diverted public attention from their failure to prevent the Dunblane tragedy by acting properly on the information already known to them.

The modern British law enforcement message, whether intentional or not, is "We cannot protect you but if you endeavour to protect yourself we will use the full force of the law against you."

Nowadays, in our craven decline, we take satisfaction that a rogue firearm licensee cannot run amok whereas all around us are illegal guns in the hands of criminals, a growing gang culture and worsening divisions in society along economic and ethnic fault lines.

And if we look to the Home Office and police for succour we will be disillusioned. Confidence in those institutions is a half-remembered response to times past and now sadly misplaced. Both need root and branch reform, de-toxifying and re-establishing with the fundamental principles that brought them into being in the first place. They have both wandered too far up the garden path and, alas, now dwell with the fairies.

Water

"shocking cases where the victims of crime have been prosecuted for defending their homes" you can't help but think of the Tony Martin case.

mckenzie

These are mostly bitter and twisted comments. But this is what we can expect from a "post religious" attitude.
Christian belief has acted as the core, or pillar of decency running through the centre of our culture. It has it's problems and difficulties, but it's ideological principles are mostly clear.
Of course life is a major bloody struggle, but we need a core central avenue of high moral principles to guide us through, like it or not.
To speak in terms of "deals" about respecting personal property, only adds superficiality to the already shallow and stagnant status quo.
And this is the very cause of greed and covetousness which is ripping us apart in an orgy of alienation, discrimination, separateness, deceit, etc etc etc.
Respect work in different directions, but if it's only about material possessions, then watch out, because you can never have enough, and who's to say what the rules are about acquiring them?

London Calling

I believe there should be a three-tier approach to
resolving crime. The first stage one dealing with it at source through parental advice, support and preventative
strategies.

The second, support within the community working through mentors, the church and youth projects.

The third, creating opportunity for teenagers to regain
Confidence and life skills through re-education and youth projects.

We have to approach all three steps in conjunction to face
the challenges we now face as ‘Locking them up’ in the long run should mean our failure as a society rather than a solution.

There will always be those in our society who for all
the support we may give them, remain unchanged, but
it is the influence these individuals have on others around them especially those who are younger that we must steer away from in which to guide and give hope to, and this can be done, by getting them off the streets and active mentally and physically.

Knife crime can only truly be reduced if we work together
Within the community collectively by supporting each other.

The standards have to be set at home, at school and throughout
our society, not in a controlled
authoritarian manner, but by example and nurturing.

Across the board, in Goverment, Law and the community, all need
to work together, rather than against eachother, only then will we see change we can truly believe in.

Across the board, in Government, Law and the community, all need
to work together, rather than against each other, only then will we see change we can truly believe in, and it starts with us all.

Water

“The standards have to be set at home, at school and throughout
our society, not in a controlled authoritarian manner, but by example and nurturing.”

I sympathise with you but in an age of broken families the only example that will work with most youths (who are largely born out of such environments), it seems, for me, is an authoritarian approach. In an age of disarrayed family structures a cohesive communal approach seems almost dream like, (not that such a dream isn’t most desirable, and at time feasible), but if families can’t keep themselves together I don’t expect them to yield any difference by trying to pursue a cohesive approach, though admittedly in trying nothing would be lost? It’s something I would wish for but I don’t see having any real effect, unfortunately.

Of course constructive example should be put forth at all levels, enough of these intoxicant swilling morally devoid individuals that we pedestal in the public eye. Children, young adults or what ever label you wish to give them no longer have a sense of dread a sense of fear, this needs to be once again instilled in society. The words ‘the law’ no longer seem to resonate, in a climate where a 11 year sentence means 5 years I can begin to understand why the respect no longer remains.

An atmosphere that facilitates for a nurturing environment is something I would most welcome, though, those that are ignorant and aggressive must be taught by means of the fear and suffering they wish to inflict upon others; equality should be extended to violent criminals, an equality of abhorrence a hard line needs to be established (I’m no left winger), someone property is exactly that and if you incur a debt you pay.

This said churches, mosques, mandirs, synagogues and even think thanks what ever encourages a sense of morality and cohesion will always have a positive yield, though for all of them to work in sacrosanct fashion a strict objective boundary (as embodied in the judicial system and its ramifications), must be enforced in an authoritarian manner (for the moment), beyond which you do not stray (for any individual who does will fall circumstance to repercussions) must be established, even if this boundary doesn’t align with all religious beliefs.

I have no problems with hugging a hoodie if he is mistaken and has stolen some food to feed himself, that I can sympathize with (and even if he is a crack/heroine fiend who cannot control his mind because of the cravings). But if he is wielding a knife looking bring about some serious suffering (regardless of whether he is on drugs or not) I’d rather see the delinquent dropped to the ground with pepper spray/rubber bullets and beaten to within an inch of his life and given a jail sentence (which doesn’t waver) so he knows never to do that again.

Verity

Frank Pulley and Nicholas - masterly!

I am wondering, if the right to own firearms is in our Bill of Rights, is the ban on the private ownership of handguns legal? Did anyone challenge it on that premise?

For the people above who analysed the problem, yes, yes, but what are you going to do about it. Only Frank Pulley has offered solutions, which will be ignored, for returning the police force to its original function and not beemployed as a body of outreach workers and experiments in social engineering.

The socialists have worked like beavers on destroying the role of the father in the family. These little scumbags have had no male authority and no male role models in their vicious little lives. They've never had a clip round the ear. They've never been grounded. They've never had their TV privileges suspended. Their only role models are their contemporaries on the streets.

Re-institution of the family - on which IDS is doing such soldierly work, and I hope Cameron listens to him - is number one priority. That means an end to benefits and free housing for "single mums" and their "partners" du jour. Teenage girls who gete pregnant would have no recourse but to stay at home with their parents, who will not be pleased. It is unlikely that kid would drop a second one before she was married or self-supporting.

We all know these things, and Tony Blair knew them too. But he is the most vicious, destructive, vile spirit that has ever occupied Downing St. His disciples are still in government, loyally serving The Master.

I have absolutely no idea where Gordon Brown stands on anything as he is clearly mad and unfit to be running a government. We are the worst governed country in the developed world. It beggars belief the damage one malevolent spirit with power can do.

Obviously, the British should take to the streets. But where? The capital, which would be natural, but where half the population is foreign or at least not indigenous and does not have a strong sense of British birthright and may object, and the the police are on the other side? And coverage on the BBC would make it look like a bunch of louts disrupting that holy entity: traffic.

Frank Pulley

mackenzie

Bitter and twisted comments are in order when the government is conniving to subvert the country it was elected to protect; when it knowingly allows alien elements to enter our borders on false pretences and plot to supplant our culture and traditional religion with a hate filled oppressive creed; kill us if we don't accept dhimmitude.

And when retired senior police officers accept peerages in order to further the interests of a leftist government intent on facilitating these aims, we should get a lot more actively bitter and twisted. But we won't and the decline will continue.

As for expecting the criminal fraternity to be in any way interested in morals or have a conscience. Remember what Sophocles said,"What we call conscience, is, in many instances, only a wholesome fear of the police." Things will never change in that respect.

Not only is there no longer a a wholesome fear of the police, but worse it is now regarded by most persistent professional criminals as no impediment whatsoever to their business. Straight business is over-regulated by increasingly draconian law imposed from outside our shores and the 'queer ladder of social mobility' - crime, goes mainly under-regulated, mainly due to 'ooman rights' laws also imposed from outside these shores.

And the prisons are filled with clients of the international crooks - the drug barons. Bitter and twisted? Indeed we are. Why else would we be posting on this blog? It's not the C of E site is it? I hope not. I understand their website is going to merge shortly with Pink News.

David Short

There was no such thing as 'Tony Blair's government'.

The only Government is that of Her Majesty.

But, yes, the administrations of Tony Blair creaed and achieved nothing.

mckenzie

Frank
You have had too much violence in your life. you need to speak with Jesus.
Pink News sounds gay to me.

Water

"As for expecting the criminal fraternity to be in any way interested in morals or have a conscience. Remember what Sophocles said,"What we call conscience, is, in many instances, only a wholesome fear of the police." Things will never change in that respect." We sound very similar in this respect though there are other comments I would stray from, personally, though otherwise fair play.

Nicholas

Verity, the wording in the Bill of Rights is problematic and as much open to interpretation as the wording in the US Constitution.

"That the subjects which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law."

Firstly the right was only conferred on protestants, a major loophole enabling gainsayers to attack it as being anachronistic. Secondly the phrase "as allowed by law" gave subsequent governments, but particularly the Home Office and the police, the opportunity to connive in enacting laws that circumvented the intention of the Bill. For the whole sad, sorry story I can do no better than recommend Professor Malcolm's book on the subject.

The particular phrase could also be interpreted as meaning that the right to hold arms for defence is protected by the law, e.g. the common law right to defend hearth and home. The gentlemen of 1689 would find it very queer that modern Englishmen could not defend their homes from criminal intrusion using arms.

As for mckenzie, I think that he presents a perfect example of pure New Labour socialist thinking, dressed up as Christian values, which has undermined the concept of private property to the point where the Home Office and police now do not consider burglary a very serious offence. The argument about materialism and greed is weak. If we do not respect the private property of others why should criminals? Most victims of burglary feel personally violated in a way that goes far beyond any base instincts of materialism or greed. New Labour have attacked and intruded upon hearth, home and family and now wish to convince us that we should not be upset or seek to defend ourselves when criminals intrude into our homes and steal from us. Maybe that is because the government have become so expert at it themselves.

All the 19th century warnings about the over-weaning state and the police have now largely come about. The steady erosion of long held liberties and the relentless imposition of suffocating laws that stifle reason and common sense have proceeded on the basis of lies and continue to do so. They will not stop, because the protocol is now to legislate for every aspect of our lives which is not already controlled. Each area of freedom comes under the legislative microscope, the extreme, worst case scenario is trotted out or the media headlines are trumpeted and we meekly accept the imposition of yet more laws "to protect us". The next focus of attention will be blogs.

Frank Pulley

mackenzie

>"You have had too much violence in your life. you need to speak with Jesus"<

I speak with Jesus every day, Mac, when I pick up the newspapers.

"Jesus Christ!" I mutter, "WTF is going on? Bring Nipper Read out of retirement and resurrect Bert Wickstead. Somebody needs to reclaim the streets!"

>"Pink News sounds gay to me".

Yerrsss!

(Sighs deeply and scrolls back up to the comments of Verity and Nicholas, wondering whether they could be persuaded to join in an assault on Whitehall with a posse of retired SPG officers - an Inspector, two sergeants, twelve PCs; Verity in FSMO, me and Nicholas armed with 12 bore shot guns and the SPG key (a battering ram): we could piss it.

Now: who would we put into No.10 to hold the fort while we sort things out? Melanie Phillips? Nah, she would have to be Home Sec! (I was about to say that she takes no prisoners ... then I remembered ... she does! And bangs them up for 42 days - at least - and doesn't tell them why, lest they warn their cohorts). Even I would agree to that in a State of Emergency! But only on the grounds that the practice would cease once we had restored democracy and reclaimed our sovereignty.

Serious nominations for PM please. Please don't say David Davis, Verity. He would insist on being re-elected every three months so that he could repeat his principles while ogling Miss Great Britain's boobs.

Verity

Nicholas - Thank you!

"That the subjects which are protestants," ... might this not mean, in the usage of the time, "people who are protesting"?

I would have expected "protestants" in a religious sense to have been capitalised, although I'm not educated in this period.

"The gentlemen of 1689 would find it very queer that modern Englishmen could not defend their homes from criminal intrusion using arms."

Actually, so do I.

" New Labour have attacked and intruded upon hearth, home and family" Oh, yes, indeedy. Just like Stalin and Andropov and Mao. Just like the nightmareish regime in "Brave New World". (I don't know why this book doesn't get mentioned more often, by the way. Certainly, "1984" is apt, but so is "Brave New World" with its submissive soma people of test tube babies.) There is daily evidence of soma-creep in Britain. Abortion ever later, and repeat abortions on demand - paid for by taxpayers who may have moral or religious objections. Ever and ever earlier forcing children into "sex education" (it's now been reduced to age four; how long before they crawl inside the womb?) and more underage girls giving birth to new subjects of the state. (As they'll be passengers, I haven't figured out why they're needed.) Yet the fathers not prosecuted ...

Water

The point that certain examples provide "a perfect example of pure New Labour socialist thinking, dressed up [...] which has undermined the concept of private property" in its stated form, I would agree with, well said.

Verity

Frank - I don't know what an FMSO is, but I would want to be armed. I lived in Texas, don't forget. Personally, I favour the Glock.

I would like David Davis for PM because he is brave and clear-sighted, but it's your party, so I won't nominate him.

Well, St Mark of Steyn springs nimbly to mind, but he wouldn't be interested, although his press conferences would be wonderful. And PMQs. Quentin Letts and Anne Trenenman would be stealing his lines ...

In sharp contrast to the authoritarian, totalitarian, jackbooted mode of the past 11 years, we might like to take a rest by nominating Perry de Havilland, the articulate owner of Samizdata, a very high quality libertarian blog. Or Brian Micklefield, a frequent contributor to Samizdata. Either gentleman would run a government of strict non-interference in people's lives.

Professional politician-wise, I would like to see John Redwood running the country, or William Hague. They both have strong libertarian and capitalistic tendencies. I have a feeling either would begin to dig us out of the EUSSR (and the coming Mediterranean Union, for God's sake!) and would dump the EHRA on their first day in office. With any luck, they would also dump the UN. And the iniquitous BBC, which isn't salvageable.