Well, it seems the Empire's greatest victory, was in your hearts and minds.
14 votes to 4, the 'Empah' was a Good Thing.
Bearing in mind, that some of those voting were probably not Brits, I guess that makes me proud to be British.
Not a Jingoistic, flag waving way, but merely able, as a person living in Britain, to feel validated in my recognition of all those little things I do like about the culture I live in, and which I can see you don't get elsewhere.
I think the British Empire comes from the same roots as pub culture. Brits love to chat and ruminate. We ponder the weather, we moan about the government. We don't get carried way by love or flag waving. Football, maybe.
And even University professors like to go the pub and ruminate with eachother, have a chat, discuss DNA structure, etc.
We're a bar culture. But a very chatty, non-plussed, sensible one.
So good ideas spread fast here.
Silly ones get laughed down.
It helps we live cheek by jowl here- we're all too close to eachother for anyone to get really left out, for society to become too divided. Whatever the xenophobes fear, immigrants to the UK go native very quickly.
We take new ideas, new groups, a bit of something better, we take things in then and add it the whole. That's us. We change our society and our culture and we like doing it. We have no problem with Curry replacing Fish and Chips as the national dish.
We're the most practical culture on the planet.
I think that's always been our secret.
So hey, I'm glad to live in that culture. It is special, and I'm proud of that, if not the whole 'God Save the Queen' thing.
And it did good too.
Anyway, on to tonights topic.
Criminals. And what to do about them.
Quite obviously, because the crime figures keep going up, Prison isn't exactly the most effective cure.
Yet the only solution our wise rulers come up with is 'Build More Prisons'.
Have you seen that film where Manhattan Island is one big prison?
How is a system which turns most of those it processes into habitual criminals or emotional wrecks, a solution to the social problems of a supposedly intelligent species?
Think about it. We all nod when an UNjustly convicted man talks of his traumatic ordeal. We know it must be a traumatic ordeal. Prisoner of war camps were. This obviously must be too. To the JUSTLY convicted as well.
It's Eye for an Eye. It is the same logic that approves capital punishment and mutilation as appropriate in this era.
It belongs in the playground.
'He hit me first.'
Two wrongs don't make a right.
So what can we do?
Here's my idea. Take away punishment, and the role of justice is clear.
1. Remove a danger, if there is one.
2. Prevent a reoccurence, if you can.
3. If the guilty party knew exactly what they were doing, knew the risks, is no threat, just gambled for selfish reasons, make him repay his debt.
Rehabilition. Recompense. Public Protection.
There are three reasons that people infringe society's laws.
First, those who took a short term fix to deal with something that can be fixed.
Poverty, Unemployment, Drug Addiction, Poor Judgement, can all be dealt with by compulsory treatment.
This is supposed to happen in Prison, but the money that could be spent on making it effective, is largely blown by the cost of locking them up.
Puting them up in a securely gaurded hotel, effecting a compulsory remedial treatment, whilst paying their bills during their absence, would be far cheaper, and far more effective.
So we can take these out of prison.
Second, those who knew exactly what they were doing (not made a mistake)and have no character flaws, except they take risks. Most of these are actually quite bright. Fraudsters, Drug dealers, Reckless drivers, Most Murderers.
Make them pay. But in a useful way. Locked behind bars doesn't serve anybody.
Why have upper limits on community service?
10 years weekends on toilet cleaning duties?
Or Life?
Far more productive.
So we can take these out of prison.
They get the point of consequences.
So that leaves with the real nasties.
The ones we just don't want around.
Can't cure them. Lock up them up for ten years, they will come out and cause more evil. That's who they are.
So why ever let them out?
But why be inhumane?
Make their prisons as secure as Fort Knox, but like Butlins inside.
Keep them away from the rest of us, but don't hurt them
It must be hell to be in their heads anyway.
So that's my view.
Let's get rid of these Victorian Houses of Human Misery.
Have your say!
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21 comments:
Quite obviously, because the crime figures keep going up, Prison isn't exactly a the most effective cure.
Not quite obviously at all in fact. We imprison fewer criminals per crime than most other Western country. It's no wonder that crime continues to go up. When we were building prisons crime went down, then when the spaces started to run out, crime started going up again.
Quite obviously you have been "taken in" by leftist mythology.
things that make you go hmm... so no capital punishment in GB??
Crushed,
I don't know the stats on prison inmates, but I am not convinced that it works at all. We have so many repeat offenders. If anything, for the most part, prison fortifies the criminal mind.
I like your assessment of Brits. That seems to fit them like a glove.
I am much more inhumane in the way that I think criminals should be punished. I will choose to withold at the risk of sounding like an inhuman beast!
If prisons are like Butlins how are you going to dissuade people from re-offending? Won't some people find it nicer to be "inside" than doing an honest day's work?
Crushed, you talk about the daily doublethink but you are letting yourself slip into the benign fantasies of the soft left.
It will be very interesting to see some of the comments that come of this one. And your take on them.
I think that prison sentences are too lenient. The risk that you're taking to do something that is deemed wrong by society is not the same value as the punishment.
I haven't been to prison. So I don't know what its like. But it should be more about rehabilitation than punishment. Sadly, most of the time its not, due to a distinct lack of resources.
The stats are grim. In 1961, at the height of the long post-war boom, there were 31,500 people in prison in Britain. A quarter of a century later that number had risen to 51,000. The prison population has now reached 80, 000. There are currently 137 prisons holding men, women and children in England and Wales. But they are too few it would seem. Two rather unappetising options present themselves: sending convicts to police cells-a waste of police time and manpower- or releasing prisoners early. Neither are acceptable measures. Indeed, the government is still considering the use of prison ships as a way of tackling the growing crisis of overcrowding in jails, according to media reports today.Yet, even "The Guardian" was discussing the extent of the UK prisons crisis 5 years ago. The dangers of prison overcrowding were much debated back then. And long before then. This is not a new problem.
Clearly, the current government has failed to act on prisons because it has had more important issues to spend tax-payers money on.In August 2006, we learnt that developing the controversial National ID cards scheme has cost the government £46.4 million over the past three years. To put that figure in perspective, Kilmarnock Prison which opened in 1999 and is able to hold up to 700 prisoners was built at a cost of £33 million. The Home Office is shovelling money into a black hole at an ever-increasing rate. The Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Ukip and virtually every other political party have said the money budgeted for the introduction of ID cards - £8 billion, according to the government, but up to £20 billion according to independent estimates - would be better spent on conventional policing and security measures.
NuLabour still disagrees.
Prison isn't just a way society extracts justice and administers punishment. It is also a deterrent aimed at others who are committing or intending to commit the same crime. But in much of the western world it isn't a strong enough deterrent any longer...The ldea that "we could make prisons like Butlins inside" is not politically sellable I'm afraid.
Phishez,
A new avatar I see. And very nice too.
hey, I like British ppl - I think in some way I'm British at heart.. dont ask me how that adds up
"Anyway, on to tonights topic.
Criminals. And what to do about them."
Hmm, what abt finding a new Australia to send them too?
Cuz isn't that what we do - we go for the quickfix rather then trying to find the root of the problem.
Ed- I was under the impression, that excepting the US, the UK imprison a higher proportion of our people than anywhere in the civilised world, yet 75% reoffend.
But to be honest, that's peripheral. Giving someone a lethal injection stops them murdering again, cutting a mans' hands off £stops him stealing.
But it's still barbaric, because it based primarily on a revenge principle, the false idea that future actions change the past, They don't. You can only look to changing the future.
Poody- We got rid if 1965 for Murder, though only very recently for treason and Piracy, not that anyone has been actually been hanged here for decades.
I used to think there were circumstances when it was excusable, but it can't be.
Thou shalt not kill. Period.
And I was suckened that they hanged saddam- it made liars and hypocrite s of the West and destroyed any pretence of giving Iraq a better model of life.
Alexys- The mystery is why anyone thinks it will. It works in that it temporarily removes problem people, but that's about it.
You are right, it DOES make many habitual criminals, because they have a made a load of criminal friends, who they can turn to when they get out, when they find themselves turned away by an prospective employer.
And most of them didn't exactly have great CVs to start with.
Jenny- It is easy to feel like that, certainly when we look at some of the truly evil people there are.
But what of the nineteen your old, pasty faced, pidgeon chested car thief?
A few months inside, in that environment, bullied and sexually abused, will he be cured, or scarred for life?
Ed- You didn't read properly- I said lock the dangerous ones away, the ones you CAN'T cure, and NEVER let them out.
But just make it humane in there.
I recommended harsh community punishments, for life if need be, for those who can learn that their gamble didn't pay.
It's about humanity.
We should look at how to make our society more humane, or we'' ll never escape the cycle of hate that consumes our species.
Phish- The average prisoner costs £100,000 per annum to the taxpayer. The taxpayer is NOT getting value for money.
The problem is, that really dangerous people are never deterred, so for them, anything less than life is pointless.
For the rest, it should by about rehabilition and repaying their debt to society.
By paying debt, I mean actually giving something back.
Stan- Well, you have the nail on the head, politically sellable.
We are more advanced than the Romans, in that we don't like to watch random people being torn about by lions, but it suits our vindictive side to know that people who 'deserve' to suffer, are.
It's a nasty sentiment, but that's what 'Hang em and Flog em' is- the cheer of the man who tortured cats as a child, and the woman who loves to run people down to the neighbours.
It is Schadenfreude.
Crashie- Now you see, I'm in Irish on my heart, but I couldn't live in Ireland outside Dublin.
I need a country of citylife.
And where the cities are near. That's partly it.
London-7,000,000 is 115 miles from
Birmingham- 1,200,000 is 130 miles from Manchester-1,500,000
We only started using prisoners as a method of sentence in the 1840s after all the colonies in Aus had refused to take any more.
Up till the, prisons were just used to hold people.
It was just because no one could think of anything better.
Ubermouth- A lot are as much victims as criminals, this is true.
But a hell of a lot of people go to prison for acts of pure stupidity.
Even highly intelligent people.
Take the speeding Salesman, late for his meeting, who cuts a corner at 40 in a built up area, and mows down a child?
Culpable? Yes.
Thinking straight? No.
Under Pressure? Yes.
Unlucky? Be honest, Yes.
Will he do a hefty sentence? Yes.
I think the best thing about the British is our ability to laugh at ourselves. True, we are a bar culture in a way and are more likely to meet each other outside the home than people do here in Italy.
With regard to criminals, I sort of agree that the taking away of liberty is enough but do you and I really know just how nasty the "real nasties" are?
I was under the impression, that excepting the US, the UK imprison a higher proportion of our people than anywhere in the civilised world, yet 75% reoffend.
Indeed it might be but CRUSHED I was not quoting that fact. We imprison FEWER people per crime committed than most western countries. That is not the same thing! Can you see the difference?
The reason we have more people in prison is because more people commit crime in the UK than in other European countries. Cause and effect, not effect and cause. Can you tell the difference?
So come on the Crushed, how do we "cure" crime then?
By rubbing people with jojoba oil? By sending them on a lovely holiday camp? By giving them a nice bung to stay quiet and watch TV?
What is the really obvious answer that we've all been missing all these years?
Welshcakes- It's what I miss after a week outside the British Isles- abroad they have bars, which sell drinks, here we have Public Houses- the Pub. It's a different ball game, different ethos.
Basically, I just do not believe I would have as many people involved in my life to the degree they are, in any other culture.
We are a caring, but thinking culture. It is true, much as I hate and despise so much of what is done to our people by our rulers, our culture is the best there is.
As I said, the real nasties, never let them out.
Of course you can tell- the system already does, we know the difference between a convicted sex monster and a convicted shoplifter.
Ed- I have already stated in my post- lock the incurable away for ever- humanely.
Deal with the rest appropriately, MORE money into rehabilitation, less into locking them up for a finite period.
What do you wabnt?
Human suffering, or your safety?
Which is most important?
Should society be responsible for perpetuating a cycle of hate?
ed, the obvious answer is REMOVE THE CONCEPT OF PUNISHMENT.
And judge each siuation on the basis of.
Has the offender a debt to pay? (Full responsibility)
Is the offender dangerous? (protect the Public)
Can this person be redeemed? (Re-education, or if you wanto be disingenuous, rehabilitation.
What sort of society do you want for our kids?
And is Eye for an Eye part of that?
Can the bright future of man be built on retributive hate?
True.
I know I'm late to this discussion but I agree in a large part to what ubermouth says. Most of the prisoners in jail should be in a mental health facitily. They have had fucked up lives. Until people stop calling these opinions, "Oh the bleeding hearts" and look at the reality. Put the money in early intervention -put the money in teaching young children/people EMPATHY. Empathy is the biggest concern of all, because if you have none for your fellow man, you'll find it a hell of a lot easier to live as a 'monster'.
There's not much anybody can do to pay back 100,000 pound per annum (sorry, no pound key), especailly if they are undergoing the kind of rehabilitation necessary to integrate them back into society. So a true repayment is pretty much out.
In Aus (and I know of some programs in the States too) inmates get special needs pound dogs from death row, and care for them, train them, groom them and socialise them. Apparently, they get quite protective of their dogs. But it works really well for their rehabilitation. It reinforces social skills and responsibility, and a heap of other things that I don't remember right now.
Remove the concept of punishment altogether?
OK I'll come and rob your house tonight then. Woohoo no punishment for meheheee!
> Make them pay. But in a useful way. Locked behind bars doesn't serve anybody.
Why have upper limits on community service?
10 years weekends on toilet cleaning duties?
Or Life?
Far more productive.
You've made your point... ;-)
Jenny- :)
Short, but as ever, sweet!
Betty- I agree with what you say in those cases. Blair got in with a lot of crap about being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, but we've had more of one than the other.
There are a lot of white collar criminals in there though, we don't need any treatment at all, just be made to feel they gambled and lost- Long years of community service for them, in my opinion.
Phish- I was actually meaning separating the principles.
The drug addict who commits crime should be treated.
The company emebezzler should repay his debt- through serving the community some way.
Ed- If you burgled my house, and were caught, I just want my stuff back and steps taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.
I don't really care if you're punished. Why would I want you to suffer?
If you needed help, I'd hope you get it.
That's what I mean.
Eve- Well done, I wondered if anyone would spot my train of thought.
Yes, this does follow on from the sermon on the mount post.
I just twigged that you twigged that.
Well I think that both need rehabilitation. Though they are very different classes of crimes.But it needs to be aimed at the crime that was performed. As well as any deeper troubles that the individual may have.
I was using the dog story as an example of a type of rehab for the prisoners.
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