England Prevails

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I live in merry old England and I have mixed feelings about these ideas.

Firstly, I have no reason to disagree with having everyones DNA on file, what I would NOT agree with is keeping samples cos that just opens a whole avenue of corruption of people selling and buying DNA to frame people or get away with something (just a paranoid possibility).

Secondly I have nothing against more police, I have to admit that where I live, which is quite a busy town west of London, I hardly ever see police or atleast I never see them where the youths hang out...and I have NEVER seen an arrest.

We have gangs of youths, and to be honest they ignore most people. Even at night after the pubs have shut, I have walked home alone past several gangs and have been completely ignored (I am pretty scrawny, and so they would certainly not feel threatened by me). I will admit to having verbal abuse thrown at me on occasion, and seeing it done, but to be honest they're just words that probably apply more to the abuser rather than the abusee. Plus words only hold meaning if you choose to listen, and listening to abuse is stupid.

The "instant justice" thing....well...I have mixed feelings but overall I would disagree. I think justice is better decided when not in the heat of the moment, emotions get involved when put on the spot which is not what we need in our legal system because that causes debate about moral standings and whats right and wrong and HOW right or wrong it is.

You know theres a simple, yet maybe not morally correct solution to the overcrowding of prisons, make them worse. I mean prisoners get a simple, but comfortable life in prison, sure they get less freedoms but it'll all be over eventually. If prisons had a more opressive, mysterious feel, put around some rumours about happenings inside (maybe make some true), would people REALLY want to go there?...just a thought .

 

In South African prisons, 80% of men will be raped, usually by HIV infectees. If that isnt a horror story, I dont know what is. Despite that, crime is rampant because conviction rates are low and sentences are too lenient. Theres an old joke, that a murder was given R500 bail (about £40), while someone who didnt pay his tv license was fined R1000. So the joke goes, if the TV license guy pitches up at your door to demand payment, shoot him dead - you will save R500.

The problem with prisons is that rehabilitating people is extremely difficult - I dont think punishment has proven effective in getting people to stop committing crime. I dont know of a better way, I'm just saying if punishment really deterred crime and prevented repeat offences, crime would be far lower than it is now. the other problem is send a one time shop lifter to prison and you expose him to rapists and murderers and drug dealers, and someone who made a mistake is now pressed into a gang.

 

Why shouldn't they?

Maybe they just want to buy something? Maybe it's just a nice place to hang out? There's nothing inherently bad about hooded youths gathering outside of an Indian owned corner store. This pre-crime stuff is ridiculous - if they cause trouble then the police have grounds to stop them, arrest them, whathaveyou. If they're a group that say, is regularly arrested for beating up Indian owners of corner stores, then I'll be more open to the idea of the police driving them away from them.

Dispersing people on the grounds of 'Well they look like they're bad people in a gang!' is ridiculous. Protesters tend to look like 'bad people who might potentially start a riot', but if police were given the ability to disperse them whenever they gathered then I'm sure even you might start talking about civil rights abuse, buts it's pretty much the same thing.

@Proteus_za:

I think how criminals shoud be treated deserves a different thread. These people that are being monitored, dispersed, and whatever are *not* criminals, and it is ridiculous to treat your entire population as though they are criminals. The potential for abusing these systems is pretty damn large.

 

Thats true - treating your entire population like criminals is another reason why I loathe and detest DRM. but thats a whole other debate altogether.

Anyway, you need some control. Make laws to lax, and crime happens as a result. Make them too strict, and you have human rights abuses aplenty.

In the case of hooded youths, I would say treat the cause (ie why do they not care about getting jobs, why arent they ambitious, can they get good access to education, are they encouraged to be educated?) and treat cases of shopkeeper abuse fairly harshly, like a 1 or 2 year prison sentence. You want them to know that gang life isnt an option, but there are other options, and all you have to do is care enough about yourself to want a better life to get other options.

 

you dont need to, just walk down a high street

you dont seem to bve getting where im going, the despersal orders arent aimed at simple moving any youths along, these orders are in place in troubled areas, areas which regularly see vandalism, racial and physical abuse at the hands of mobs of youths.

what?
pre-empting crims is a massive part of a police officers job, if they didnt you would have alot more vigilante behaviour going on - people dont want to be victims, the police are there to protect them, not offer them support afterwards.

 

I fully agree with the idea of treating the cause. If you don't treat the cause then you're simply going to get a different gang the next week, not to mention more people wasting their lives in jail.

Yes, I understand that. I still don't think that it's justified. Naturally I agree that those things that you mentioned need to be stopped, I just don't think that this is the way to do it.

Well, I disagree with you about the role of the police. While it's not all that great that mostly all the police can do is support afterwards (by catching the criminals...), I find it far better than giving the power to guess when a crime might take place and violate people's rights to 'stop' it.

Removing certain group's freedom of assembly leaves the door open to so many more things like it. Tell me, should police have the power to disperse large crowds of angry protesters, just in case they riot?

 

you do realise that protests in most civilised countries have to be planned out and that plan presented to local authorities before they are allowed to gather, otherwise it is illegal and the police can take immediate action?

the police are there to protect and serve, that is their job and duty, what you describe would be like the fire birgade putting out a fire by letting the building burn down.

 

Well, they could always put it out when it's happening, which is pretty standard fire brigade behaviour. Sure, they *could* wet down every old house, maybe spray some water in places where fires might break out (in the kitchen, maybe?), but that would be pretty silly. Oh, it might stop some fires. After all, if you spread it out wide enough eventually you'll hit somewhere that could have had a fire if the fire brigade didn't dampen it down...

... but that's a pretty stupid idea, so let's not do it, hmm?

The job of the police is not to sit back and watch the crime be committed ('let it burn down') - they should try and catch criminals when they're breaking the law by responding swiftly to calls, or if that fails, catch them afterwards. Catching them *before* they break a law is absurd.

 

There's nothing ridiculous about trying to prevent crime, so long as it's done by the proper people. Police are there for enforcement of laws when they're being broken. It's the job of the rest of the social structure - parents, teachers, aid organizations, religious groups, etc. - to instill a sense of ethics and justice and morality that makes people stop before they do something to break those laws. No matter what you do, it's always easier to do the job right from the beginning instead of trying to patch in a fix later.