P.K. Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 There have been quite a few cases in the news recently about particularly "senseless" murders (Sophie Lancaster, for instance) where I've felt that the offenders should have been sentenced to a high security psychiatric institute rather than a regular prison. To achieve what exactly? No matter where you commit them to Sophie Lancaster would still be dead. One of my concerns is how readily those who fail to appreciate the situation blame the individual miscreants in isolation as though they have a specific problem and it's not the underclass society as a whole that is at fault. Unfortunately, any attempt to seriously tackle crime is going to meet with considerable opposition - trying to identify and combat the factors that contribute to or exacerbate crime is ultimately more expensive and much more complicated than a lot of people are willing to countenance, and looks far too much like trying to "understand" criminals. Especially when compared with the appealingly, but in my view flawed, simple formula of increased force bringing criminals to heel. I want to see your financial figures that prove identifying the factors that cause crime is more expensive than the cost of increased force bringing them "to heel" as you rather emotively put it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 Vinnie, we are talking about the vast tract of Pulrose here. Which, by the by, is undergoing a substantial refurbishment giving modern, attractive and warm housing to all, hardly a ghetto. Be fair though Glady's - you can upgrade the housing but you can't do anything about the people that move back into it. Just because an estate now looks nice does not mean that anyone living there appreciates it more or that they stop living their lives in a particular way. Exactly my point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snaipyr Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 I can't remember who it was after trawling through so many pages but somebody very early on posted about status, aspiration and probable future. Unfortunately they concluded - inexplicably - that heftier punishments were the answer (because that worked in the US ). Since then other, Maggie Thatcher inspired, posters have suggested that rolling back the welfare system would be a good idea (because that worked in the US ). The causal factors and remedies are manifold but the poster who mentioned status, aspiration and probable future was definitely on to something IMO. I certainly don't pretend to have the panacea but I would like to add something. We all, like other social animals, seek status, consciously or not. For most in Western societies status is derived from academic achievement and/or economic achievement and is usually manifest in pieces of paper and material possessions. Once achieved parents strive to pass on this capital and cultural capital to their children by inheritance and up-bringing. If you have little chance of gaining these achievements legitimately, e.g. if you are trapped in a certain self-perpetuating poor cultural class, then status is sought through different means. If academic skills and/or material wealth cannot be inherited by children why is it a surprise that some grow-up to disregard a system which is inherently unfair and instead seek alternative avenues to achieving status? Or, why not just turn to drugs? There's no hope, no future anyway. The playing ground is uneven at birth, why bother playing? How would heavier punishments help this? The self-righteous among us might be satisfied to read of the teenager with no prospects getting sentenced to 15 years for spraying his name on the back of a signpost. Keep him off the streets. Teach him a lesson. Provide an example to his peers. Well, there's one less thug to worry about for a while, who cares why he ended up in court? And the next one. Serves him right. And the next, and the next. Just like the US and UK. Lock them all up. Put a big, barred plaster on top and forget about the problem. Which is still there. How would rolling back the welfare system help this? Maybe it'd lower our taxes? Maybe it'd make some of us feel, after putting down Atlas Shrugged for a moment, like we weren't helping the retrobates to continue being retrobates? They'd get off their arses if they didn't have benefits to live on. Then they'd make an effort to play by our rules, even though the odds are stacked and many don't even know what the rules are or how to play. In reality, however, the situation worsens (the US again) as the poor get poorer and recourse to status, and indeed survival, is restricted. IMHO, both of these 'solutions' would exasperate the situation. What have the US, UK, Ireland and the IoM got in common? An economic system that creates and sustains inequality, places the creation and possession of money/property at the pinnacle of existence and expects those with the least chance of reaching this lofty apex to know and play by the rules, or even play at all when their actual survival is in doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snaipyr Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 Oops, sorry. Meant to add that I thought Typhoid's was an excellent post. To feel significant is important (after basic needs like food, warmth and shelter are met). I was going to try and be more profound, but have had a few too many - so not up to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manxy Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 Why is Ramsey the better choice for home buyers please Roger Smelly??? Please tell???? (just pulling your leg here Foxie) Ramsey's probably better at the moment due to less roads being dug up as like Douglas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinnieK Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 There have been quite a few cases in the news recently about particularly "senseless" murders (Sophie Lancaster, for instance) where I've felt that the offenders should have been sentenced to a high security psychiatric institute rather than a regular prison. To achieve what exactly? No matter where you commit them to Sophie Lancaster would still be dead. One of my concerns is how readily those who fail to appreciate the situation blame the individual miscreants in isolation as though they have a specific problem and it's not the underclass society as a whole that is at fault. She's still going to be dead, regardless of what's done. I simply believe that it would be better to have more dedicated maximum security psych institutions where perpetrators of such crimes can be interred indefinitely and subjected to repeated evaluations to determine their release, instead of being put in a conventional prison from which they're allowed to leave once their sentence is up, regardless of the risk they might still pose. I'm not blaming the individuals alone either, I've mentioned time and again that a significant reduction in crime is going to involve dealing with wider issues than simply being harder on the individuals who commit these crimes - and that includes tackling the underclass. I want to see your financial figures that prove identifying the factors that cause crime is more expensive than the cost of increased force bringing them "to heel" as you rather emotively put it. Read the post again and you might just see the bit where I said it would be more expensive to treat and deal with the causes of crime than to simply extend sentences. And no, I've no figures on it - I just assumed that the cost of regenerating entire areas, setting up training schemes, specialist schools for problem kids, combined with the extra police presence and longer sentencing I believe is required is more expensive than simply banging up criminals for longer and taking their televisions away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbms Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 Vinnie, we are talking about the vast tract of Pulrose here. Which, by the by, is undergoing a substantial refurbishment giving modern, attractive and warm housing to all, hardly a ghetto. Be fair though Glady's - you can upgrade the housing but you can't do anything about the people that move back into it. Just because an estate now looks nice does not mean that anyone living there appreciates it more or that they stop living their lives in a particular way. Exactly my point. Exactly you can dress a chimp in a tuxedo but at the end of the day it will still scratch its arse in public and drink its own piss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.K. Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 I simply believe that it would be better to have more dedicated maximum security psych institutions where perpetrators of such crimes can be interred indefinitely and subjected to repeated evaluations to determine their release, instead of being put in a conventional prison from which they're allowed to leave once their sentence is up, regardless of the risk they might still pose. I'm not blaming the individuals alone either, I've mentioned time and again that a significant reduction in crime is going to involve dealing with wider issues than simply being harder on the individuals who commit these crimes - and that includes tackling the underclass. I disagree that they should be in Broadmoor. IMHO there are already far too many excuses for bad behaviour. Read the post again and you might just see the bit where I said it would be more expensive to treat and deal with the causes of crime than to simply extend sentences. And no, I've no figures on it - I just assumed that the cost of regenerating entire areas, setting up training schemes, specialist schools for problem kids, combined with the extra police presence and longer sentencing I believe is required is more expensive than simply banging up criminals for longer and taking their televisions away. Life is too short to read your post again, especially as it's obviously based on too many assumptions. As to regenerating entire areas it would seem you don't understand the situation to wit: Vinnie, we are talking about the vast tract of Pulrose here. Which, by the by, is undergoing a substantial refurbishment giving modern, attractive and warm housing to all, hardly a ghetto. Be fair though Glady's - you can upgrade the housing but you can't do anything about the people that move back into it. Just because an estate now looks nice does not mean that anyone living there appreciates it more or that they stop living their lives in a particular way. Exactly my point. You can take a horse to water.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
immortalpuppet Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 You cant polish a turd. (i fucking love that saying, might not fit in but hey!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbms Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 As for the point of the Armed forces changing people, I fully agree, I joined at 17 an evil little scroat, left the Army at nearly 30, 5 A levels and a degree later with a commission and a few years of being a legal evil scroat, but with more respect for others and without the attitude that I could punch my way out of any problem. So for me I would make 3 years national service an option to courts as an alternative to prison. I defy anyone to go through 3 yrs with some of the old style NCO's and go back to their old ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinnieK Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 I disagree that they should be in Broadmoor. IMHO there are already far too many excuses for bad behaviour. It's not about making excuses for bad behaviour. Randomly kicking a woman to death whilst trying to do the same to her boyfriend for a laugh is more than simple bad behaviour, it's serious fucked in the head sociopathy and I'd prefer violent mentals being committed, potentially indefinitely, than imprisoned for a fixed amount of time. Life is too short to read your post again, especially as it's obviously based on too many assumptions. As to regenerating entire areas it would seem you don't understand the situation to wit: Tee hee! I can tell you fully understand the situation and speak with considerable authority - an inability to read even a simple report such as the one provided by Skedden and answering entirely in clichés (can't lead a horse to water, psych units are just finding excuses for crime) is the sign of a truly honed and knowledgable mind. God bless you though, you'd be nowhere near as entertaining if you weren't so choc full of shit. Anyway, now that stock token of antipathy is out of the way, redevelopment of deprived areas as a way of tackling crime is always going to be controversial, seeming too much like rewarding criminals, but it seems to have worked in at least one case: The Broadwater Farm estate in London was one of the worst in the country, and it took a riot and the death of a policeman to sit up and notice. Methods of policing the estate were changed, and a huge amount of investment went into the area, with the result that crime has fallen dramatically - so much so that it actually allowed the police to lessen their presence on the estate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lonan3 Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 Vinnie, we are talking about the vast tract of Pulrose here. Which, by the by, is undergoing a substantial refurbishment giving modern, attractive and warm housing to all, hardly a ghetto. Be fair though Glady's - you can upgrade the housing but you can't do anything about the people that move back into it. Just because an estate now looks nice does not mean that anyone living there appreciates it more or that they stop living their lives in a particular way. Exactly my point. You can take a horse to water.... There are posters on here who seem to think that Pulrose equates to Moss Side or whatever. It doesn't. The vast majority of Pulrose residents are decent, honest, hard-working people - and I say this as someone who spent of the first forty years of his life living there, and as someone who's job involves picking up or taking home many of today's residents. There are a few who are, quite simply, trouble. There are a few who are going to spend most of the early part of their lives in conflict with the law and with society in general. Interestingly, there are at least as many similar people in other estates - including the privately-owned and upwardly-moblie ones - who are every bit as bad, or worse, than those in Pulrose. I have never had a passenger from Pulrose who tried to intimidate me - the same cannot be said for Farmhill, Governor's Hill - or even Howstrake Heights (the day that one succeeds in intimidating me is the day when I give up working nighttimes) These are generally the ones who have (or have had) difficulties with educational development, either due to such factors as mental or emotional development (e.g. ADHD or dyslexia - both often undiagnosed due to an educational system that is only gleaming on the surface) that have made them the butt of cruel jokes and treatment in early life, until they find that bullying, or clowning, establishes a form of 'status' among their peers, or due to parents who have shuffled off their responsibilities either through neglect or over indulgence. Solutions? There aren't any. At least there aren't any that society is willing to genuinely undertake and to pay for. VinnieK Posted Today, 03:24 AM ...it would be more expensive to treat and deal with the causes of crime than to simply extend sentences. And no, I've no figures on it - I just assumed that the cost of regenerating entire areas, setting up training schemes, specialist schools for problem kids, combined with the extra police presence and longer sentencing I believe is required is more expensive than simply banging up criminals for longer and taking their televisions away. That is the beginning of what needs to be done although, as I'm sure Vinnie would agree, it has to be a very long term programme and one that is backed up by evryone - politicians, educators and the general public (who, to judge from some of the posts on this thread, need to get their heads out of their Daily Mails and start looking at a little education for themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverfoxie Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 well said lonan3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottishcriminal Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 my scottish m8s the 25 yr old thats been charged for this n surely it is self defence if anythig haha. he'l b joinin my other 2 scottish m8s that r helping accomodate your jail one of thems coming home in just over a vveek. no doubt i'll b visiting your island soon and se hovv a get on lolol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottishcriminal Posted April 21, 2008 Share Posted April 21, 2008 for lonan yr kinda right in a vvay it is people vvho hav had education problem n mental health problems but a can say threvv my ovvn knovvledge that its people being brought up by single parents vvho tend 2 go off the rails bcaue they do not hav the mother father support that people really need and ano that most of the crimes commite recently on the island hav bn caused by people vvho either dont hav family support or are being brought up by a single parent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.