tinyurl.com/27sbyk9
I suppose they won't shoot bank robbers, unless the robbers happen to be wearing full body armour...
Ah well, at least the guy is dead now...all's well that ends well...
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This really doesn't surprise me. The same thing goes for car pursuits where the driving becomes excessively dangerous and a specific example is where the 'bandit' goes the wrong side of a carriageway. At this stage a pursuit is virtually automatically called off.
So guess what? The habitual car thieves now aim for the wrong side of a carriageway as soon as possible if being pursued.
If the punishments for this ridiculously dangerous past time actually fit the crime, then maybe it could be stamped out. Sadly this is most unlikely.
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>> (pursued criminal) goes the wrong side of a carriageway. At this stage a
>> pursuit is virtually automatically called off.
>> If the punishments for this ridiculously dangerous past time actually fit the
>> crime, then maybe it could be stamped out. Sadly this is most unlikely.
Does the fault lie with the magistrates, judges, "guidelines" or the law?
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>> Does the fault lie with the magistrates, judges, "guidelines" or the law?
>>
There is nothing wrong with the law, plenty of options there.
The CPS have their moments, but there's plenty of them in the game for the right reasons (shame they can't dump the dross who ruin their reputation), but in reality the problem is not there.
Magistrates/ Judges are not often at fault, because they have to follow sentencing policy.
That leaves govt guidelines/sentencing policy. They are RIDICULOUS. I don't know whether it is liberalism or the unwillingness to pay for prison space, but there's going to be an epidemic of crime if we don't lock up the toe rags that really need locking up.
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Shoot to kill, on sight. It's the only way you'll get these scroats.
£17k, stolen, just like that. It's inexcusable.
£17k... Is it really worth a high risk pursuit for the public? I can only imagine SS's reaction to his collateral damage car in a wild pursuit.
Catch them when it's safer to do so. Sure the business is out by it's insurance excess but the theft has already occurred.
Stop them stealing in the first place? You need an effective immobilisation strategy for the persistent offenders first.
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>> £17k... Is it really worth a high risk pursuit for the public? I can only
>> imagine SS's reaction to his collateral damage car in a wild pursuit.
They didn't decide to not pursue because of innocent bystanders. They decided to not pursue because the scumbag wasn't wearing a helmet.
Collateral damage? I suppose you think that, because he wasn't pursued, he did an orderly 30 mph, and then went back to his job as an advanced driving instructor.
He needed taking off the streets for a while, or ideally permanently. Thankfully it is now the latter.
>> Stop them stealing in the first place? You need an effective immobilisation strategy for the persistent offenders first.
No, you need an effective punishment and deterrence strategy, otherwise you just push the problem somewhere else.
On the other hand, you could just let everybody know that if they fancy stealing something, they just have to make sure they don't wear a helmet.
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There should be a motorcycle equivalent of a stinger. Maybe something like cheese-wire between two lampposts. At neck level.
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>> They didn't decide to not pursue because of innocent bystanders. They decided to not pursue because the scumbag wasn't wearing a helmet.
Ok helmet on scenario, 5 mins down the road it gets called off because of the risk to the public.
In this case it was called off before it started. Right decision.
>> I suppose you think that, because he wasn't pursued, he did an orderly 30 mph, and then went back to his job as an advanced driving instructor.
Of course he didn't, and in this case he ended up colliding with something anyway. That does not in anyway detract from the fact the police actively lessened the probability of this outcome.
Would the result have been better or worse if he had been pursued?
a) For the bike owner
b) For the public
c) For justice
d) for the police
How quickly can a bike be stopped? Not very i'd imagine. How many miles of "past the limit" of the riders abilities are the public to be subjected to before the eventual outcome? And in pursuit of what, out of the 4 entities above, who'd gain from the pursuit?
>> No, you need an effective punishment and deterrence strategy
Where are you going to get that from?
You can shackle everyone upfront.
Or
You can hold back and wait and see if anyone does anything "bad" then act.
If you choose the latter (and it's the only choice), then you accept that people must be free to commit crime in the first place. If you fail to prevent the repeat offenders (like we do) we've only ourselves to blame.
There's a limited budget, it's not practical to jail everyone (or you end up with these silly <1 year terms that serve noone). Rehabilitate the offenders. Immobilise the repeat offenders.
We don't do that though. Too preoccupied with short term "fixes"... "chase him chase him!!"
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If he had been pursued and it had the same outcome, the Public would have blamed the pursuit for his death.
Rock and a hard place springs to mind.
Pat
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Only for so long will the people who have strived and paid for a better life (and attained it) put up with these losers. It is a world wide problem. Until we get really tough on them and at a level that to most now would be incomprehensible then nothing is going to change. I don't condone it, but only their removal will achieve the desired end. Nothing else will work.
Morning all,
MD
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You may all be very sorry to learn that this worthy citizen was killed a few days ago having been involved in an RTC, riding a motorbike and not wearing a crash helmet.
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Where have you been since 14.05 on Tuesday?
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...In a statement, his family said: "Bobby was a loving and loyal son who would do anything for his family. He will continually shine in our hearts forever."...
Do anything for his family?
Steal anything more like.
The phrase 'only his mother could love him' springs to mind.
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At work.
Last edited by: Perky Penguin on Wed 8 Sep 10 at 10:21
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>> If he had been pursued and it had the same outcome, the Public would have
>> blamed the pursuit for his death.
I do not see how you come to that conclusion.
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Quite easily FT, I'm very familiar with it.
It's called ' can't do wrong for doing right'
Pat
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The young man died on a motorbike. I do hope he didnt leave any grieving children behind.
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We dont want any of his issue to grow up thank you.
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Trust our Z to have the handle on this. Well done young man.
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Isn't it sad that otherwise straightforward and decent folk (I presume), think things like this, because our govt faffs or indulges itself against the wishes of the majority and fails to properly address the issues...i.e. tough penalties on the minority that need them.
I include myself in these thougths of course.
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No doubt the poor van driver will be haunted by what he/she witnessed.
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>> You can hold back and wait and see if anyone does anything "bad" then act.
>>
>> If you choose the latter (and it's the only choice), then you accept that people
>> must be free to commit crime in the first place. If you fail to prevent
>> the repeat offenders (like we do) we've only ourselves to blame.
>>
>> There's a limited budget, it's not practical to jail everyone (or you end up with
>> these silly <1 year terms that serve noone). Rehabilitate the offenders. Immobilise the repeat offenders.
>>
>> We don't do that though. Too preoccupied with short term "fixes"... "chase him chase him!!"
Couldn't disagree with you more.
The only way to reduce crime is to
1) Make the criminals feel that they will very likely be caught
2) Make the criminals feel that if they are caught the punishment will significantly outstrip any gain they would have made
Your idea of letting people get away falls flat on its face with point number 1.
So you don't have to jail everyone.
Chase them, make sure you catch them, then give them 10 years.
That'll reduce the number of bike thieves to pretty much zero.
On the other hand, letting them get away, and then giving them a slap on the wrist if you ever do eventually catch up with them, just encourages every little scumbag to have a crack.
So, "chase him, chase him" is not a quick fix, it is an important part of the above, which is the only way to limit these crimes.
There will always be scumbags who take advantage, unless you make it very much not worth their while.
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My tuppence worth is that over the years I have dealt with numerous junkie thiefs and I am pretty confident in saying that whilst they are high, or desperate for a fix, the thought of what might happen to them if caught does not enter their mind.
Fight or flight. They will not pull over in a car, bike or whatever. They will try and escape. They will not reason and they will not care what damage or harm they do to anyone else whilst in that state. Seeing a junkie in full adrenaline flowing mode is a very scarey sight.
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>> My tuppence worth is that over the years I have dealt with numerous junkie thiefs
>> and I am pretty confident in saying that whilst they are high, or desperate for
>> a fix, the thought of what might happen to them if caught does not enter
>> their mind.
>>
>> Fight or flight. They will not pull over in a car, bike or whatever. They
>> will try and escape. They will not reason and they will not care what damage
>> or harm they do to anyone else whilst in that state. Seeing a junkie in
>> full adrenaline flowing mode is a very scarey sight.
Well quite, people like that can't be left in the population to offend again and again. Catch them early, lock them up and don't release them until they are off the stuff.
That's not to say that I think we should lock people up just for being addicted, only if they are actually caught committing crimes. I'm all for doing whatever can be done to get people of drugs without banging them up.
That said, I don't know how many heroin addicts steal cars, seems like a poor way to get a quick fix, I think shoplifting and mugging are more their MO.
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How do you achieve "1) Make the criminals feel that they will very likely be caught" without making the non-crims feel like they will be "caught"? No-one's ever managed that.
The rest degenerates into nonsense, but, to pick one point and give it a good going over with reality...
>> Chase them, make sure you catch them, then give them 10 years.
50k motorbikes stolen in 2003
rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/r269.pdf
85,000 prison places in 2009. (less in 2003)
www.justice.gov.uk/news/announcement270409a.htm
How many thief's are there per motorbike theft, it's unlikely to be 1:1 so assume that 1 thief steals 50 bikes each a year (comfortably over-egged, right?).
== 1000 prisoners serving 10 year terms
Lets be kind and say they do 50% terms for good behaviour and lack of prison space (they would serve longer so the problem would be worse than my illustration)
Lets be kind to your idea and say 3/4 of all motorbike thefts stop in the next year, thief's are literally quaking in their boots (there is nothing to suggest they would be however).
Year 2 we have a population of 1125. Y3...
5 years of growth, just from bike crime (assuming this fixes it, there's nothing to suggest it would). The prisons are already full, so we'll need to release some other crims, maybe car thiefs, to make way for the bike thiefs.
Or we can build more prison places, because that's more important than funding aunt nettie's hip replacement or whatever.
Completely devoid of reality.
>> Your idea of letting people get away
I have no support for letting thiefs go un-punished, but also don't support recklessly endangering others for no discernable benefit.
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The mistake you are making Skoda, is to assume that, if you lock people up for a long time you will still get high rates of offending.
If you assume that, with very stiff sentences, rates of offending will fall, then you end up with a very small number of people in prison, and a much greater chance of crimes being detected.
Right now, because criminals think there is little chance of getting caught, and little chance of a harsh punishmnent, there are a huge number of offences, meaning that the police are overwhelmed, which in turn means that there is, in fact, only a small chance of getting caught.
That leads to more crime and more people imprisoned, albeit for short periods of time.
So your logic is flawless, but the whole argument fails on that one mistake.
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SS>> ... you will still get high rates of offending. ...
Skoda>> ... say 3/4 of all motorbike thefts stop in the next year ...
>> but the whole argument fails on that one mistake.
Even being over generous at every turn, i can't find the case to support your idea.
In my view, your failing is to assume prison fixes anything. It only stops re-offending for as long as the person is imprisoned, it does absolutely nothing else, that's as far as it goes.
It's one tool to be used, but not in the way you say, it's just not workable. Even if you scrubbed civilisation out and started again, your justice system would necessarily cave in under its own weight in time.
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>> SS>> ... you will still get high rates of offending. ...
>>
>> Skoda>> ... say 3/4 of all motorbike thefts stop in the next year ...
Why only 3/4? Didn't you lock up all of the bike thieves in the previous year? Sure, the population grows, and a few more bike thieves comes of age, but 25% more?
BTW I think your figure of 1,000 is too high anyway. This is what they do for a living. Why would they only nick one a week?
>> In my view, your failing is to assume prison fixes anything. It only stops re-offending
>> for as long as the person is imprisoned, it does absolutely nothing else, that's as
>> far as it goes.
You think that it has no deterrent effect at all? You think that a bike thief, knowing that there is a very good chance of getting caught, and that they would go to prison for 10 years, is still going to want to steal a bike that they might make a couple of grand on?
The vast majority of crimes (not all) are committed because:
The chance of getting caught * The cost of getting caught < The benefit of getting away with it
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Thu 9 Sep 10 at 00:03
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>> You think that it has no deterrent effect at all?
Do you have any proof to the contrary?
I'll burn for quoting wikipedia, but the article is reasonably well cited (although you have to do your own google for Andrews & Bonta, 2003 there's no direct link) --> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison#Rehabilitation
Prison is not a deterrence. It is an (effective) immobilisation device, nothing more and nothing less.
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>> but 25% more?
12.5% new crims, 125 crims doing 6250 thefts, we can revise up or down, the figures still dont work. The position is untenable.
I'm conscious we're ignoring the increase in car thefts, or shorter life expectancy to accommodate the bike crims in prison too.
>> BTW I think your figure of 1,000 is too high anyway
Revise it further, 1 per day? 365 bikes each per year.
That's 125 car thiefs go free or (assuming £36k / to keep a prisoner) or £4.5mil of hip replacements backing up on the waiting list.
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If any person isn't a criminal and/or hasn't committed a crime they haven't anything to worry about being "Caught" for.
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Indeed, penguin.
And anyone who has ever had that nervous feeling while going through customs - even though they 'haven't done nothing wrong'- knows it.
It is the knowledge that you MAY be nicked that keeps most of us on the straight-and-narrow.
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With customs it's also the way they question you that makes you feel guilty.
We use Eurotunnel a lot and frequently get stopped. French customs are very polite but sadly I can't say the same for the English equivalent.
It's a very aggressive way of asking the same set of questions each time that bugs me.
Last time we were asked who was the car owner, as usual, which is me.
The very brusque and triumphant female customs officer then said to my somewhat younger Husband 'Ahhhh so, what connection do you have with the car owner then?
Both looking at her dead in the eye, he said 'I married her'
One very redfaced lady soon let us go:)
Pat
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Could well be Martin:)
Pat
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...Prison is not a deterrence. It is an (effective) immobilisation device, nothing more and nothing less...
Correct, but the benefit of this should not be underestimated.
If you visit your local magistrates' court a few times, you will see the same names, time and time again.
The majority of offenders are young men in their 20s, and records running into hundreds of offences are not uncommon.
So, if Johnny Thief, 27, or Freddie Thug, 28, had been locked up for a real 10 years when they were 20, the public would have been spared the dozens and dozens of offences each subsequently committed.
And if you think about clear-up rates of under 15 per cent, Johnny and Freddie have probably dome seven or eight times the number of crimes they've been nicked for.
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Look its radical, but effective and will work and is cheap.
Read on
Crime, criminality and violence is hereditory, criminal, abusive, drunken, druggie, antisocial families breed criminal, abusive, drunken druggie antisocial families.
They should be steralised. The male and female member of the species. YOu need to carefully work out your criteria for such treatment but its simple enough.
IN 30 years your crime problem has gone, the IQ of the nation would improve, prison costs are down, justice costs are down, social services costs fall through the floor and if you extend the policy to criminal caught here who are not UK nationals, then your criminal immigration problem disapears as well.
YOu can not argue the basic facts of the benefits of effectiveness of this policy.
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iffy, i agree completely.
Zero, not saying i would definitely like to see it happen but can't fault the idea.
The sudden about turn in crime rates in new york in the 90s, when all commentators were predicting crime to continue rising and get really out of control, was attributed to better policing, then it was attributed to large parts of the drug problem going away, then it was attributed to... just about everything that fancied 5 mins of fame.
In more recent years causation (not just correlation) has been shown from the legalisation of abortion 15 years earlier.
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>> The sudden about turn in crime rates in new york in the 90s, when all
>> commentators were predicting crime to continue rising and get really out of control,
>>was attributed to better policing, then it was attributed to large parts of the drug
>>problem going away, then it was attributed to... just about everything that fancied >> mins of fame.
That was down to a forward thinking Mayor who introduced 'broken window system' and coughed up for shed loads more cops. If you go there now as a tourist, there are loads, everywhere, it is reassuring. It has been done on purpose.
Broken window system is such that if you see a broken window, you immediately fix it, otherwise it can make an area look uncared for and before you know it you've got another one, etc, etc and it spirals downwards. It costs a lot to start with because you have to have the structures in place to keep up the momentum e.g. graffiti clearance. It also applies the same principle to crime so the small stuff is hit hard, to prevent the medium and big stuff coming in to play. It works.
NY is an equivalent city to London. Thery have in excess of 45,000 cops now (they didn't in the past). London has about 33,000 (up from about 28,000 5 -10 years ago). My guess is London, like the rest of the country is about to go seriously backwards in police numbers... so unless there is about to be a radical re-think, it is not going to happen here.
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The "broken window system" was indeed backed up by a lot more police, but that also included a no tolerance law enforcement policy.
Any infringment of the law, no matter how slight, ensured you were dragged up before the beak.
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>> That was down to a forward thinking Mayor who introduced 'broken window system'
That's the common understanding. Some other ideas exist - a hard drugs one where hard drug usage dropped, crime dropped and an economy one.
However, none are as compelling as the current strongest theory -->
The demographic most likely to commit crime in new york is male 18 to 24 from broken background. It turns out this is shared across most of america.
Crime started an abrubt about turn in 1992 against all expert commentary at the time (1 year before Guiliani introduced broken window after being elected 1993).
Legalisation of abortion in NY in 1973 corresponded with a drop in young boys growing up in broken homes throughout the rest of the 70s & 80s (as recorded by the school system and social dept). Just as the now missing boys should have stepped up to take their place as the demographic, crime rates fell off a cliff.
This phenomenon of dropped crime was also found to have been shared by Washington, Alaska & California at the same time. None of whom implemented a broken window policy.
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How come the Yanks are at an all time high with their prison populations then, if their major cities are having low crime spells?
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>> How come the Yanks are at an all time high with their prison populations then,
>> if their major cities are having low crime spells?
Because all the scroats are filling up the prisons and not on the street?
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>> How come the Yanks are at an all time high with their prison populations
3 strikes = 25 years rule?
There's loads of well documented small time larcenists doing 25 years.
25 years is a lot of cost for petty crims.
Small time larceny under $400 is booked as a felony not a misdemeanour so it counts as a strike. There's documented cases of guys doing 25 years for stealing pizza + juice off kids - you can score your 3 strikes in one case brought against you.
EDIT: also the penal system is largely privately contracted. Crims are rarely let out, it's not in the business's (prison's) interest to let them out and there's ways they get themselves between a prisoner and his parole.
Last edited by: Skoda on Thu 9 Sep 10 at 21:55
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Coming back to the original point, one has to ask, what was the purpose of the original intention to give chase, before it was aborted?
Was it a) to catch the thieves so that they could be charged or b) to recover the stolen bikes?
If (a) then there was no need to give chase at all, helmets or not. The police knew who the rider was, as they confirmed when identifying him after the subsequent crash.
If (b), then what is the point of chasing the stolen bikes and causing them to be smashed up in a crash?
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If you want to steal a bike, don't wear a helmet - Westpig
