Clemency suggests

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Not exactly rocket science

Thursday, 22nd May 2008

Yesterday we learned that Labour's youth crime policies have been a costly failure:

Richard Garside, the director of the CCJS, summed up the research: “The Government’s decade-long youth justice experiment was a bold attempt to deploy the full force of the youth justice system to tackle problematic and disruptive behaviour by young people. This new research suggests that the experiment has largely failed, if reported youth offending is the measure of success."

The timing is aposite. Last night, tens of thousands of Chelsea and Manchester United fans arrived at and then left the Moscow ground with barely a trace of hooliganism. Not so in West London, however:

In West London, police in riot gear clashed with scores of Chelsea fans near the club's Stamford Bridge ground. One witness claimed the trouble started after an unmarked police car collided with a fan as it tried to make its was through a crowd of drunken supporters near Fulham Broadway underground station. "Suddenly about 50 of them just attacked the police car, they were trying to rip the lights off and get inside," the witness said. "It was terrifying. Then it all kicked off into a riot. There were about 800 Chelsea fans and only about 50 police. I saw them firing tear gas into the crowd, then the police charged at them with batons."
Gangs of thugs, including a several young women, hurled glasses, bottles and even metal dustbins in ugly scenes around Fulham Broadway Station. Several officers were seen retreating with blood pouring from their faces after receiving blows, and at least a dozen Chelsea supporters, both male and female, were being treated by paramedics on the pavement.

It doesn't take a genius to work out why there was next to no trouble in Moscow, but riots here (and, of course, in Manchester last week). It's very simple. The fans in Moscow were, to be blunt, scared sh*tless that if they put a foot out of line they'd end up in a Russian hell hole. The fans in Britain knew that even if they used a pint glass as a weapon, they'd get a slapped wrist and maybe a few days in a prison barely a step below some bed and breakfasts.

And yet no one in power ever seems to draw the appropriate conclusion.

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Ray

May 22nd, 2008 9:10am

But when, Stephen, has possessing a modicum of common sense ever been a qualification for being a Labour home secretary?

Kiffa

May 25th, 2008 12:08pm

The social theories of the liberal elite - in this case, criminal behaviour and rehabilitation - don't work. Sharia law works because it is based on punishment. Crime exploded to out of control levels in South Africa when the ANC dropped the death penalty and embraced human rights theory of their liberal buddies.
Will any party have the nerve to change the prevailing European theory? I think it is too late.