Unbelieveable

Why? The speeding motorist may kill somebody. I see an awful lot of people speeding past a nursery/prep school that I pass on my way to work, but you're saying that's ok, slap them on the wrist and let them do it again.

People learn from their mistakes. Smarter people learn from other people's mistakes too. Where a kid is brought up in a dire nether council estate with benefit cheat alcoholic junkie parents, I would think there's a good chance they're going to end up stealing or smashing or whatever. It's because of societal factors, and not some flaw in their genetic makeup. But you say lock them away for the most productive part of their life because of the situation they were brought up in.

Start the same kid in a middle-class family and do you think the same thing will happen?

All you're doing is increasing the social stratification by preventing people from learning and improving themselves.

 

Pennance

If it was obscenely dangerous, a 10 year sentence can be imposed. Each case is taken on its merits.

My point is simple, Do you support the victims of burglarly or the the burglars.

Personally I regard them as total scum and deserving a 20 year minimum sentence. I cannot understand why these liberals are so keen to "cure" them when it is know that 86% reoffend. If they break in to someone elses house, they are vermin and should be treated as such.

Regards

Mick

 

Nice mature initial response there

Its a case of proportionality with regards to both burglary/theft and speeding.

Would you say that someone doing 90mph past a school at quarter past 3 in the afternoon is only deserving of a fine, despite it being incredibly dangerous and reckless, endangering the lives of many?

Yet a 12 year old who nicks a bag of sweets from a shop or steals from somebodies garden deserved to be removed from society at the first hurdle?

I think when comparing proportionality of a given punishment to the crime, the state in the UK is such that burglars are let off far too lightly, whilst with speeding its too harsh on those people doing 34 in a 30 (which can be unintentional) but bans/imprisonment for those that are doing very high speeds or high speeds in urban areas is perfectly proportional IMHO.

 

Clearly the right foot should be cut off.

Why the discussion?

 

Sorry, thats the point I was trying to make but I didn't feel it came across in your earlier post I was responding to. But once again I am too slow

 

Isaac

You said

"All you're doing is increasing the social stratification by preventing people from learning and improving themselves."

Whilst you are letting them learn and improve themselves, they still carry on burglaring.

No wonder they are doing it when there are people like you around bending over backwards to help them redeem themselves.

Basically you are risking someones house being done whilst they are roaming the streets and I resent that.

Regards

Mick

 

I think Mick's sweeping statements are maybe a tad to generalised. But in all honesty i believe our current society can make us feel this way. We get blinded to reason by the sheer amount of mis-behavious we see in the media and around us in everyday life. It gets hard to keep a level head.

Steve
Obviously they should be kneecaped, starting at the ankle

 

The early Victorians took the same approach and handed out the death penalty to kids, transportation etc. It didn't work then so why on earth do you think it would work any better now?

 

Penance

I am being level headed.

I have no sympathy with a burglar what so ever.

They have a 86% reoffending rate.

Therefore if you lock up a convicted burglar, you cure nearly all of the problem as well as discouraging new ones coming onto the scene.

I am totally sickened by comparisons to motorists, I am only talking about burglars / breaking and entering.

I see no reason not to imprison them for 20 years, even 30 is not unreasonable.

If you think that is too severe, then obviously you have more sympathy with them than what I do.

Tom

you said

"The early Victorians took the same approach and handed out the death penalty to kids, transportation etc. It didn't work then so why on earth do you think it would work any better now?"

Actually there are record burglaries being committed today then ever before.

But then we all know you are a nice guy eager to forgive etc.

Regards

Mick

 

Mick, my comment was in regard to your statement about speeding drivers.
I have no sympathy or compasion whatsoever for burgulars. Why the hell should they take items that some one else has worked hard for? Let alone the phycological impact it can have on the victim.

 

Tom

If you your wife wants to feel safe, walking the streets alone at night, send her to Bangcok where muggings hardly exists.......the reason being, muggers get 20 years in the "hilton". Sort of proves my point.

Regards

Mick

 

Actually they're not. According to the Home Office they are at the level in 1984 having fallen sharply in the last 12 years. AndMy wife regularly runs around the streets and country lanes of our little town and feels completely safely. It appears that the citizens round don't need to have draconian laws to act socially.

And yes Mick, I am a forgiving chap. That doesn't mean I don't believe in the efficacy of punishment either as punishment nor as deterent. It's just that the issue is far more complex than you portray.

 

Having said that I've been to Dawley when my sister taught there and I used to work on the Peckham/Bermondsey border. Neither places you'd want to go out on your own, or stay in either.

 

I;m not sayin' anythin'

oh bollux, can't resist

bangcok is what you get if you put a stick of dynamite down yer kex.

I have another solution, Mick.

Give everyone what they want.

largely, the cause of 'primary' crime is simply people not having what others have.

the cause of repeat offense is offenders back in the situation they can do it in, so bang em up and you take that away, crime falls.

Even so you need jailspace, and noone wants that in their backyard.

Give all what they want, and crime will not eradicate, but certainly plummet.

And I do think draconian measures would solve problems, but no-one has the balls to do it. Its all nicely nicely these days.

But you could end up with a sanitised society with haves and havenots to the extreme, a ghetto, in other words, you are in or out, thats' a bit scary.

It did solve some problems in victorian times.

 

Actually there are lots of simple solutions thate no lame-ass politician will ever have the guts to adopt. Heres a cheaper one than Micks:

Give out free drugs. You have to be registered, do it via a GP etc. You put contraceptives in the drugs. Thus you empower the junkies to make a choice. Pay some weirdo your dole for drugs, or be stoned for free and improve the gene pool.

No more 'crack babies' 10 years later crime has dropped, less unemployed, orphans, prisons, social services etc. Lets bring evolution back to homo sapiens.

 

graham,
do it with alchohol too and i think you're on to something there....
cheers


julian

 

Mick - what would you rather have, a burglar sitting in jail for 20 years at huge cost to the taxpayer or a one time burglar who has been rehabilitated who has a steady job, is a useful member of society and is paying taxes?

It's been shown time and again that the kind of approach you are advocating simply doesn't work. Even the death penalty is no deterrent. In US States that have re-introduced the death penalty for murder since 1976 the murder rate has either increased or remained the same and compared to states that don't have the death penalty they have fared no better, and in many cases worse.

And you think that speeding is OK but burglary isn't? They're both against the law, so who are you to decides that one is OK and the other isn't? (especially since both can lead to the deaths of an innocent victims).

Michael.

 

Hi Steve, its the fact of the toilet needs that seems to put them off, I got sick of feeling weak as a child after the operation as I've always worked out and looked after my self, I went from 16 stone to 9 stone after the op.

As soon as I could I was working out again, much to the doc's chagrine as he said I was in danger of a hernia on the ileostomy site, the ileostomy was taken down after 6 months and my internal pouch, (made from small bowel tissue) was brought online so to speak but the site where it was remains weak as so much muscle was cut away.

But, I'm back up to 15 and a half stone and can lift the same as I could before, albeit more carefully, I gave a mate a hand renovating his 4 storey house this summer and could still run up 4 flights of stairs with five 4x3 plaster boards on my shoulder, which did my ego the world of good lol.

I do have to tell prospective employers about my condition though, not just about needing the loo as much but, as when most people would eat something that doesnt agree with them they get a dose of the shits and are fine afterwards, I end up severely dehydrated and usually end up on a drip to get my fluid levels back up, I keep asking the Doc to give me the damn stuff so I could do it myself but he wont.

BTW, if ya ever need anyone to solder your crossovers up, I got quals for production assembly & wiring, so gimmee a soldering iron and a portaloo and no problem lol.

 

I've been reading the views of peeps with interest on the rehab/lock em up side of things.

I think its not so much a case of kids that have been dragged up, deprived and dont know any better, whatever the background of the people who do these things, they still "know" that theyre are doing wrong.

The truth of it is that they dont "care" about doing wrong, beit shoplift or burgelry etc. Why? because they have nothing to fear, they know prisons are 23 hour lockups so its a case of do the time and out they come, none the worse. They know they cant be touched, hurt, battered, have theyre blocks knocked off, because as soon as someone does that, they get off even lighter and the guy that was protecting his property ends up in court, or worse, in prison.

My Dad always used to say "its time the Birch was brought back", maybe he was right I dont know, but I do know there is no single answer to the way things are.

Mart

 

yes its partly true about deterrant and all that. I don't know if its the total answer.
Just look at the chaos now in schools after the p.c. brigade swung too far and kids have all the rights and teachers have none. can't do anything anymore.
a simple word from a kid, malicious, as he hates the teacher can ruin a career.
true real abused children don't lie, but there are a lot of bad eggs around.
some kids do some very evil acts.

I may have said it before, but in a book, it postulates that we are now more unhappy than ever, due to the fact that we look at others that do have more than we, compare ourselves, and find we are not quite what we wish.
I think that's spot on, and its one reason I despise the media, it promulgates and proliferates this comparing, this obsession with fame, money, celebrity, and people see what they have and find themselves wanting.

And that I believe is the main reason for current problems we have.
poor kids seeing other 'poor' kids become footballers, and suddenly make it, and they have to pack strawberries for £5 an hour all their lives.

What's the answer, ban the media, solve a lot of problems overnite.If the papers and bbc are partly a force for evil, the womens mags are satanic, just look at the crap in them!!

It seems to simple for our complex brains to comprehend, its complex as the media also has a modicum of decency at times, but I tell you it is the solution, the media is massively complicit in loads of societal problems, people are subliminally influenced big style. that's why its so dangerous, so much we dont' realise it, and society will only get more polarised as we focus on the beckhams more, watch my words in 10-20 yrs.