Ms. May, a fine and handsome woman in many ways, has done away with ASBOs. Farewell to the unworkable crap, but what is supposed to replace them? They should just be shovelled away to the dung heap of Zanu PF Nulabour. ASBOs would deter us and ‘little old ladies’, but the were supposed to deter the evil poor or other louts. Much of our criminal system seems only to deter those of us who would not commit crime because of the shame we would feel. Legislation never seems to get to grips with any understanding of stopping and deterring the criminal mind-set, whether of the evil poor or commercial crooks who pollute or rip-off in transaction madness.
The test of much ConDem will be to produce workable goods. So far we have only bluster about ‘community’, long dismissed by criminologists as bolloxs ideology. Sure, cops and community should be dealing with the dire situation, but how and with what resources and protection? Theresa may be the best Home Secretary since sliced bread, but she may also be the worst if we don’t get radical reforms.
On recorded crime stats, about 1 in 20 offences leads to a conviction. That would be 1 in 40 on the BCS, maybe 1 in 80 if we include recorded antisocial crime. Most reprobates I talk to say 1 in 200 is more like it.
My own view (eventually) is we need to give up some civil liberties in order to get a big boost in them generally. This means a new discipline system and a Bill of Rights. At one end we need corporal punishments and at the other representation for victims. Community action that starts with a trip to a law centre and representation for the community or aggrieved individual – rather than one in which scrote get legal aid paid for by the very communities they screw – and protection from the very agencies that foist the evil poor on communities not theirs would be a start.
We can’t trust police or Town Hall agencies – look at what comes out on the few occasions any serious review is done. I’d start allowing universities to produce legal eagles who could work in new law centres to qualify as lawyers by representing the interests of victims. Our senior cops (I know quite a few who are personally great) are more corrupt than Gadget indicates and, sadly, even the grass-roots need some education out of their rut. Town Halls are worse, and the jobsworth cover-up mentality is evident allover.
Nice smile Ms. May and I’ve seen you talk sense. What we need more of is the theory-in-action, which may entail recognising Ken Clarke is out to lunch.
Allcoppedout's Blog 
It’s going to take a long time to put right the damage that has been done to society over the past 50 years.
There is not one area that has escaped the vile corrupting influence, be it the so called “evil poor”, or the “evil bureaucrats” within local and central government, and the “evil greedy industrialists”.
They all have one thing in common. They lie without shame and do not care who they abuse, exploit, and/or hurt.
“Community” does exist, so that just shows how much the criminologists really know! Within urban and rural areas the “ordinary folk” do still look out for each other, but that’s not a strong in action as it used to be. Why?
Because NuLabour policies, many of which were Stalinist, undermined the fabric of society, family and parental authority, because the state assumed far too much control and interference in everyones day to day lives.
Theresa May has said that the solutions to the problems of feral yobs and anti social behaviour will come from “us” within the community, and not from government.
If this means that the ordinary Joe and Jane public, and parents, will be re-empowered to keep unruly kids in line, without being arrested or accused of “child abuse” by Health and Social Workers, or Teachers…. GREAT.
The government will have to rein in the local authorities mind set of assuming that normal discipline of rebel kids is “abuse”, when it is in fact the opposite. Kids need to learn boundaries, and respect for adults, which has sadly been lost since the 1990’s, and everyone was told to not smack their children. Beating or whipping them without mercy is obviously child abuse and not acceptable.
However, it was a big mistake to “spare the rod and spoil the child” – some kids do need firm discipline, even army style sometimes, to learn how to behave properly. Agreed that not all kids need firm discipline, and it is best to accentuate the positive, more so than always being an authoritarian. But parents need to be able to decide how best to raise their own kids, without too much interference from the agencies of the state. Then, and ONLY then, will this country reverse the rot that has set in over the past 20 years.
There could be an obstacle or two to this however, from EU policy and rule by Brussels, as they have been considering a total ban on parents even slapping a child for bad behaviour. Who do they think they are? Seriously?
Parents have a duty to raise well behaved law abiding kids who show respect and consideration for others. If those kids who do need a firm hand, don’t get that because the government has made it illegal under the “rights of the child” laws, those kids grow up FERAL.
And who would government blame for that? The parents!
There have been news reports of cuts in police officer numbers and a drive to enlist more special constables, as part of the reforms being planned. If that gets rid of some of the useless ones and any thugs, it will be a good thing for people generally. But changes will take time to have a positive effect on the whole country.
When I read stories in the press about police officers failing to act with common sense, or clearly abusing their powers, police reform cannot come soon enough.
Apparently, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu has been stopped and searched EIGHT TIMES by police, under the dubious justification of them thinking that he “might” be a terrorist. Dr Sentamu told peers in the House of Lords that even “when the policeman suddenly realised that I was a bishop, that didn’t stop me from being stopped and searched.” He went on to say that such stops and searches were often upon the basis of “he doesn’t look like one of us”. How ridiculous…….
But then Dr Sentamu was one of the members of the Macpherson Inquiry in 1999, which accused the Met Police of “Institutional racism” over their handling of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
I really do not want to believe that this country could sink any lower than it is at the moment, and has been.
I think we need more description of what the “mess” is Mrs. Magoo. I believe racism and the rest are side issues to a greater problem of incompetence. Do you remember those experiments in which white people ‘went black’ and discovered just how badly they were treated? We can find much the same going undercover in most of our institutions, ‘colour bar’ aside. I ended-up feeling the Lawrence enquiry covered-up incompetence with the institutional racism charge.
Cops are only like the rest of us in many ways. We need to encourage them to do the right job. I’d have been tempted to stop Dr. Sentamu for a chat – interesting guy.
“.On recorded crime stats, about 1 in 20 offences leads to a conviction.”
And when you get a conviction, what then? Well, you can, it seems, rack up another 51 quite easily:
“Judge Alan Saggerson, sitting at Basildon Crown Court, said he had an “astonishing criminal record” containing 52 previous convictions dating back to 1992 for thefts and burglaries, and breaches of prison sentences and an Asbo.”
The crims claim they only get caught once a year or so, even when committing crimes daily.
Mr Average Citizen has a qualitative feel for the problems you describe, Allcoppedout. No government would dare hand him an accurate quantitative assessment.
When police, lawyers and CJS are parts of the problem rather than parts of the solution, Mr Average Citizen must wonder what miracle could possibly come to his rescue, if he himself declines to take up arms against corrupt powers.
It’s amazing what Mr & Mrs Average believe MTG.Maybe we don’t need to take up arms, just train the crooks not to rob from their own and focus on the average?
Well Melv- since you do nothing to help either way (except take the piss of course…)
I do not believe you are qualified to comment…
You muppet.
I think that you have already detailed in an number of posts, what “the mess” actually is Champ…..corruption and cover ups! However, I did make a brief comment about the “mess” of the child protection policy which appears to have undermined parental authority and resulted in quite a number of spoilt brats and feral kids.
Most institutions have made their fair share of mistakes, be that from human error, misunderstandings, or malice.
The “mess” is that those who have made the mistakes, often rather large ones, really don’t want to be put in the position of losing jobs and pensions because of them. So elaborate cover ups take place, rather than acknowledging human error, or worse, and moving on from it, or “clean sweeps” and genuine changes towards improvements.
There have been a few people who have been exposed by the media in recent years, because of failures, low standards and/or bad practices. Interesting that the scapegoat for the tragedy of Baby Peter, was the female head of the Social Services. The buck for that one ultimately stopped with the then children’s minister…..but he stayed!
And then there is the “mess” of the nasty sods within society, who appear to cause a great deal of suffering to others, and nothing much appears to be done to stop them.
Some decent and well intentioned people’s lives have been spoilt by people who act in a spiteful manner. The damage done is often very difficult to put right, especially if it’s malice or misinformation written in the system’s records, or in the media. Large numbers of people can end up convinced that total rubbish is actually true.
Yes. Plato recognised all forms of government tend to be in the interests of an elite. Writing his own version (the truly dreadful Republik), 400 pages supposedly remembered from a conversation 30 years before when he was seven, he invents a vile prison society of communism policed by fascists.
We need to recognise we won’t get perfection. My own view is that the political philosophy never changes, but technology and true history could help us get the real story into the open so we could work on it.