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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted -  14/11/2010  :  06:26
NEW VERSION TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR MEMBERS WITH SLOW CONNECTIONS TO CONNECT.

Follw this LINK for last version.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 18/11/2010 : 11:44
Bruff.. ...Only partly true.  We also pay them to prevent crime.


I agree, but they do a very bad job with this  part of their remit because of the way our judicial system is over run by the bleeding hearts of The Howard League for Penal Reform and their ilk.

The way to prevent children from misbehaving is to punish them for it. It works...both at home and in school. They realise that misbehaving is not an option for a quiet life. Since children became so sacred that they could not be punished, behaviour has gone wild. That punishment was not meeted out as revenge it was meeted out as corrective training.

Stanley....That's why I hate tribal politics and unthinking adherence to a Party Line.

There should be no Party Line. There should be no Party. The party is the genteel version of a Mafia Family. Party Politics is the equivalent of Mafia Gang Warfare. Might is right. However it is easier for the Mafia bosses to collect tribune from those they are "protecting" by the "Party" system.

I often wonder if the reason that our judicial system is as it is because those who are allegedly in charge of it look at the criminals and think, "There but for the grace.....".

I can't help thinking that the farce with the Vodaphone offshore tax dodge, that is featured  in the latest P.E., has not been nodded through by one of the previously incumbent Godfathers for personal gain.


Every silver lining has a cloud.


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Bruff
Regular Member


479 Posts
Posted - 18/11/2010 : 15:48
It's interesting this.  I was once talking to an official at the Home Office.  He threw this 'thought experiment' I guess, at me.  He said, imagine  you are walking down a street and you see a car door ajar.  In the back, there's a laptop, brand new.  Would you nick it?  If so why?  If not why not?


In following your answers to these through to a conclusion by continually questioning 'why', or what's driving you down one path, or not, you get a really good idea of the complexity of 'crime'.


There's a lot of 'it works' being said on here.  Does it?  Where's the evidence?  We're talking public money here, I think we all agree it needs spending wisely, so best it's not done on a hunch....


Richard Broughton


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catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 18/11/2010 : 17:10


quote:
Bruff wrote:
It's interesting this.  I was once talking to an official at the Home Office.  He threw this 'thought experiment' I guess, at me.  He said, imagine  you are walking down a street and you see a car door ajar.  In the back, there's a laptop, brand new.  Would you nick it?  If so why?  If not why not?


In following your answers to these through to a conclusion by continually questioning 'why', or what's driving you down one path, or not, you get a really good idea of the complexity of 'crime'.


There's a lot of 'it works' being said on here.  Does it?  Where's the evidence?  We're talking public money here, I think we all agree it needs spending wisely, so best it's not done on a hunch....


Richard Broughton
I went through the first paragraph as follows:-

Would I nick it ?......No. 

Why?....Because I assume that the person who owns it bought it with money. He got that money in exchange for expending some of  his energy in productive  work . I should therefore be taking away part of that man's life and using it for my own ends. I would not like someone to come along and take away something for which I had worked.

Regarding public money, there is no such thing. It is actually the money of the majority of private individuals, forcibly taken from them in order to allow politicians to spend it on schemes which will hopefully keep them in power (and living the life of Riley). It is quite surprising how much private money is allowed to be whisked away to be "off shored" with the conivence of the politicians (and some high flying civil servants) in order to prevent it being added to this so called "public money".

If the private individuals  had no money there would  be no "Publc Money".

 

 


Every silver lining has a cloud.


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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 18/11/2010 : 17:17
I once had a engineer friend who worked for Molins, the company that makes cigarette manufacturing equipment. He went out to a project in Indonesia and was disturbed whenthe local villagers started taking tools from his toolbox. But then he found that the tools all reappeared in his box. The villagers didn't have our concepts of possession, objects belonged to everyone, they would pick up a tool, take it away and use it then bring it back. Perhaps it was like that back in the mists of time...until someone said, hey that's mine!


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thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt


2021 Posts
Posted - 18/11/2010 : 17:36
This grabbed me last night, Tizers post reminded me of it. A young African lad with a flair for invention built a windmill out of scrap and bits of tree, the blades were flattened out plastic pipe. The windmill turned a bicycle wheel which had a dynamo on it, and it worked, First comment from one of his village friends, "Good, now we can charge up our mobile phones"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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Bradders
Senior Member


1880 Posts
Posted - 18/11/2010 : 18:00
Peter, I have several friends who were on VSO in places like Papua New Guinea and they have stories like that ...Brilliant !

One village my friend Mike was teaching in had one pair of wellingtons....different people wore them ,one at a time ,on different days. .

 


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 05:42
I watched that as well Peter and thought itr was brilliant.

Frank, "Most people want revenge". I don't know whether there is any evidence to support the statement but I recognise the roots of it. I've just heard a piece on World Service about anti-Semitism in modern Germany. The bean counters say that immediately after the war 40% of Germans were anti-Semites, today the proportion is 10% but there are more reports of anti-semitic attacks. There can be many reasons for the dichotomy but I suspect one is that, like any group with an agenda, the anti-semites are more vocal. This could be the reason why you can say that more people want revenge.

 By a coincidence there was also a report about revenge killings inside the Mafia which reminded me that the concept of an eye for an eye is ancient and possibly hard-wired in the human brain, you can even find it in the Bible. The question is whether it is a good thing or effective. 200 years ago the same question was asked about societal revenge in the form of the prison system and the long march towards penal reform started. The treadmill, corpoarl punishment and the death sentence all vanished and influential organisations like the Howard League and individuals like the Quaker Elizabeth Fry (supported by the monarch) campaigned for improvement. So my first response to the proposition of revenge as a reason for punishment is that if we accept it we reject all the effort which went into improvement. In effect we say that they were all mistaken and I can't accept that. So, while I recognise the existence of the desire for revenge I oppose it being used as the justification for punishment.

The questions of sentencing and rehabilitation are complicated and I don't have an answer, however, I feel that a shirt sharp shock early in a criminal career might be a useful tool. Whether this is 'prison' where the budding Fagin can get his criminal education or 'Boot Camp' type institutions for first time prisoners is to me a no-brainer. Whether we should imprison women on low grade technical charges like minor benefit fraud, non-payment of licenses etc seems also to be obvious. If more resource is injected in education, vocational training and drug rehabilitation it has been proved to be effective. Of course the problem is that it costs money. In the good times the problems are made a political football, in bad times they can't be afforded. Meanwhile the prison population rises.

So I haven't any answer beyond the fact that given the choice between revenge and rehab I'll go for rehab, it seems to me to be more civilised and effective. But perhaps people of my persuasion aren't as vocal as the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Ireland bows (slowly) to the inevitable. General Motors rises slowly from the grave. The Audit Commission reports that due to delays in commissioning, the cost of widening the M25 rose from an estimated £650million to over £3billion when it was finally contracted in 2009.It's very hard to grasp 'facts' like that.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 06:41
Two major Tory Party donors become peers today. Regardless of party, such benefits should not follow political donations. Spin it how you will, it's buying office.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 07:42
The goverment even name some of our most Powerful Warships "Revenge"
I think the majority of people in this country would opt for Hanging, I think that's why the vote has never been allowed on the subject.
Are people born wired to be Bad ? I don't know the answer to that but I am sure someone will !!!!



Frank Wilkinson       Once Navy Always Navy Go to Top of Page
Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 10:17
Coincidentally we watched a recorded Wallace & Grommit's Inventions programme last night (they are very good) and it was the one with the African and his wind turbine. Strangely it was only about an hour earlier that I'd been musing about wind turbine blades made out of plastic bottles. Take 4 bottles, slice off one side of each longitudinally so that you end up with four boat-shaped pieces of plastic. Fasten them together at the necks at right angles to each other with the open `front' of each blade facing the back of the previous one. Attach this to an axle and dynamo and set it at the top of a pole, either in the vertical plane or the horizontal plane. The open faces should catch the wind and spin it on the axle, rather like those things on yachts which have little hemispherical cups spinning on a pole. I don't know enough about electrickery to judge whether this would generate enought o light a bulb!

EDIT: After writing this I saw the discussion in Tizer's Science News thread. I should read my own threads first! Let's not start another discourse on the same topic here!

Bradders, if I hadn't read your first line about PNG and went straight to the line about wellies I'd have thowt you were talking about a village in Cornwall!

Frank, I don't think anyone is wired to be good or bad (after all, what is bad in one culture might be good in another) but we do have varying levels of honesty, reliability, morality and the like. Some are near the centre point of the spectrum and others near one of the ends. A drunken man on a bicycle nearly ran down Mrs Tiz by being reckless and dangerous (he hit the kerb and came off before hitting her). He then said he'd just returned from Afghanistan. Perhaps he was very effective in his role as a warrior, yet dangerous on the streets here. it's all to do with context.

Edited by - Tizer on 19/11/2010 10:21:03


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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 10:23
Tizer he wouldn't have had a drink in Sandyland !!!!.
 
2 Royal Marines have been killed up here over the weekend one on a Motorcycle the other in a Car Crash. It is down as one of the things to watch out for when they come home.



Frank Wilkinson       Once Navy Always Navy Go to Top of Page
catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 11:21
Stanley.     There is another extremely important side to the crime and punishment issue that is never discussed and that is recompense of the victim by the criminal.  Rather than type it all out again I shall attach something I wrote some tars ago on this topic. Sorry for its length, but makiing it shorter would miss much of the meat :-

 The basis for all punishment should be the setting right of the wrong committed. The present system of half hearted prison sentences, that “incarcerate” someone in a second rate hotel for a short period, at the publics expense, and then release that person into the world with a golden handshake, is absolutely ridiculous. All crimes have a victim. That victim should be recompensed and the perpetrator should be the one to do it, in such a way that a) he will not dream of doing it again and b) the recompense should be made public and be sufficiently painful as to act as a powerful deterrent for other would be perpetrators.

If a person is “mugged” then the “ill gotten gains” should be repaid several fold and the cost of the rehabilitation of the “mugged” person should be born by the “mugger”. The entire financial responsibilities of the person “mugged” should be born by the “mugger" until the “mugged” is sufficiently recovered to return to his/her former life. Obviously the more serious the attack and the more serious the injuries the more responsibility would have to be taken by the attacker. However, the attacker would not be allowed to shirk his own responsibilities “in lieu”. These he would have to continue to shoulder, in addition to his victims.
 
In the case of murder there is no way that the victim can be repaid, but there is almost always one or more dependants, be it spouse, children, parents etc and the provision for these people should become the primary responsibility of the murderer for the rest of his life. His normal responsibilities would become secondary, but just as compulsory. Now this would be a LIFE SENTENCE with meaning and deterrence. At present murder is so lightly treated that it is committed just as carelessly as robbery. The return of the death penalty solves nothing as far as the victims dependants are concerned. It gives the murderer a very short period of punishment and leaves his dependants to rely on state hand outs. It also demonstrates that killing is not necessarily wrong, because the state can do it.

The same sort of logic could be applied to burglary, embezzlement, and all forms of theft and vandalism. The essence of the scheme should be recompense to the victim. At present it appears as though it is recompense to the Crown (a fine), and the victim has to make the best of it, whilst the public has to support the criminal (in prison) and his dependants (on Welfare/National Assistance or whatever pseudonym is the current vogue).

It would not be necessary for the victim to come into contact with the criminal, because the criminal could well be housed in some form of working prison and allowed to earn money there, not only to pay “his debts” but also to keep himself, and his jailers, whilst there. If necessary he could help build other such establishments, but in all probability, after word got round, few such establishments would be needed.

As for sex offenders, a good example can be found in the Middle East. A thief there has at least one hand cut off. Now there’s deterrence, and, if carried out fully, no possibility of re-offending!

Certain present ‘Crimes’ are nothing more than breaking laws that are on the statute book because of  lobbying by pressure groups and by OBE seekers. These laws are petty laws laid on top of existing laws, which in themselves should have been sufficient had they been policed properly. Their addition is concurred to by the politicians because they are more nails in the coffin of freedom and additional means of creating fear, submissiveness and revenue. These laws are plainly silly, should be removed, and the original laws, which are meaningful, should be used. One example of this is the present on-going furore about road speed. The law already requires a driver to drive with due care and attention, and contravention of this requirement is a criminal offence. If the road is devoid of other road users and pedestrians there is no need for a speed limit of 30 mph or 40mph etc.

Thousands of motorists are hauled before the courts, and have substantial sums of money taken from them, not because they have had an accident, but simply because they just might (in the opinions of others not on the spot) have had an accident.  On the other hand, if the road is full of school children, and their mother’s cars, then even 10mph may be unsafe. The driver should be allowed to use his own on the spot assessment of the situation, and drive with the due care and attention required by the circumstances.   The OBE brigade will say that no driver is fit to use his own assessment and that their judgement is always best, but who, in the event of  an accident is responsible? Not the OBE seekers. If the driver gets it wrong, then he is responsible, and should without doubt, be dealt with along the lines laid out above. He should not be simply fined, or given a short jail term, and then allowed to start all over again. Disqualification for life would be a good deterrent. It would be quite startling how quickly “real” punishment and deterrence put an end to avoidable road accidents. Particularly if parental training and care were to be brought into the matter. Can a parent relinquish responsibility for his child’s safety training and behaviour, and pass it on to the state and any passing road user?

A further example of silly law duplication is the nonsense about possession of guns. The reason guns were required to be licensed (and in some cases firearms certificates held) was to protect the interests of the landed squirachy and their deer/pheasants/game from poachers. The result was that virtually all guns were traceable. All those guns, or as many of them as could be collected without bringing trouble to the squirachy, have now been removed and allegedly destroyed, due to parliamentary knee jerk reaction to the insane demands of the OBE seekers. Since the removal of all those firearms the number of shooting in this country has gone up by several orders of magnitude. The firearms that are now being used to kill people are not licensed and therefore are untraceable. The law that prohibited murder is still just as much in force as it was before, but the silly gun law changes have achieved absolutely nothing, other than cause resentment within the legal gun using community. In  a proper democratic society the laws would be formed properly in the first place and there would be no chance of these silly knee jerk amendments for political gain.

When a proper system is in place, and bad leadership examples have been eliminated, eventually crime will cease to exist.  Those who will be “looked up to” will be the every day, good living relations and neighbours, who will have no cause to behave unsociably, and after all, crime is nothing other than serious unsociable behaviour. 


 

Edited by - catgate on 19/11/2010 11:23:07 AM


Every silver lining has a cloud.


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thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt


2021 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 13:45
A certain fairly local store has a problem, as do most big stores, with thieving. A certain element of the community in that area are masters at this and can turn up in there equipped with everything from fake labels to tools for removing and replacing tags, add to this that there are also quite a number of staff from the same community and some work on the tills, this has resulted in some very unpleasant incidents. So the store has a fairly comprehensive security unit, the head of this department was escorted from the premises this week after being caught stealing. This was an older person and I doubt that she will ever find another job of that kind again.

Edited by - thomo on 19/11/2010 1:46:51 PM


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catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 16:50


quote:
thomo wrote:
A certain fairly local store has a problem, as do most big stores, with thieving. A certain element of the community in that area are masters at this and can turn up in there equipped with everything from fake labels to tools for removing and replacing tags, add to this that there are also quite a number of staff from the same community and some work on the tills, this has resulted in some very unpleasant incidents. So the store has a fairly comprehensive security unit, the head of this department was escorted from the premises this week after being caught stealing. This was an older person and I doubt that she will ever find another job of that kind again.

Edited by - thomo on 19/11/2010 1:46:51 PM

If you remove your counter, put all your all your counter staff out of work and let the great unwashed serve themselves, all in the interest of greater profit, then this sort of thing hapens and was always predictable. I feel no sympathy with the shop keeper, his greed is the root of the thieving, aided and abetted by sadly inadequate parental training and a duff judicial system.


Every silver lining has a cloud.


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thomo
Barlick Born Old Salt


2021 Posts
Posted - 19/11/2010 : 20:50
I am sorry Catty, I simply do not understand any of that apart from duff judicial system. It is clear that you do not know of the store mentioned above, I do, as my wife is the assistant manager of one of the concessions in there. This is not a faceless multinational enterprise, it is a family business. This store employs over 800 staff from this area and there are three others in the country. Working conditions are of high priority and the owner supports all manner of charities. I know the man who heads it and he has built it up to be a success even in the face of economic peril. If you see all this hard work and risk as pure self interest, then you are wrong. He has set himself up as a target for thieves. and money that may be spent on good deeds is spent by the mindless minority of the people who may benefit from his efforts. I speak here as someone who has had their life stolen by thieves, I lost my home and livelihood due to crime, and at age 70 I have to rent, no handouts, no favours and little help, but I am not a criminal, maybe I would have been better off if I had been, but it is not in my nature to steal. The thieves, the killers, the rapists, the abusers, the terrorists, all have rights, so do the the rest of us. Or have we?. Lack of education is often blamed, education should start at home. I would agree with Frank that there is no hard deterrent and if someone said to me, "push this button, and rid the world once and for all of murderers, rapists, child molesters, robbers and thieves, terrorists, people traffickers, con artists and the rest" then I would push it, and then have a tot and wait for the flack of the do-gooders to overwhelm me.



Edited by - thomo on 19/11/2010 11:13:36 PM


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