The Brits Have Totally Lost It on Crime Control
A slap on the wrist policy for crimes that clearly deserve jail time (HT Large Bill):
Burglars will be allowed to escape without punishment under new instructions sent to all police forces. Police have been told they can let them off the threat of a court appearance and instead allow them to go with a caution.
The same leniency will be shown to criminals responsible for more than 60 other different offences, ranging from arson through vandalism to sex with underage girls. (OMG, Tell me I didn’t just read that — Ed.)
New rules sent to police chiefs by the Home Office set out how seriously various crimes should be regarded, and when offenders who admit to them should be sent home with a caution.
….. Some serious offences - including burglary of a shop or office, threatening to kill, actual bodily harm, and possession of Class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine - may now be dealt with by caution if police decide that would be the best approach.
Note that this is the exact opposite of the zero-tolerance policy (also known as the “Broken Windows Theory“) that New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani put into place in 1993 to bring that city’s supposedly intractable crime problem under control to the point where Gotham remains among the safest cities in the world.
But the above shows that the Brits are selling out to the bad guys. But they have cameras everywhere to record what they won’t prosecute.
This exactly proves the point Theodore Dalrymple made a few weeks ago (noted in this previous BizzyBlog post) — that all this surveillance (300 camera appearances per day, by some estimates) is doing nothing to protect the average British citizen.
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UPDATE: After seeing some of what is on the list, I would “love” to see the entire list. If anyone has a link to it, let me know.
I have a friend in Canada who is a former Brit. I saw this article yesterday and pointed him to it. He had the following comment:
The punishment situation harkens back to the days when the local bobby knew all the villains in his turf & knew if a clip behind the ear & a warning would keep a youngster on the straight & narrow. Fast forward through the archaic penal system where incarceration (hard time) for minor offences is the norm & recidivism rampant, to the Canadian model where they can get out after serving 1/3 of the sentence. My friends in the local constabulary tend to be frustrated by easy bail, lenient sentencing & early parole.
The Brits in their usual pragmatic way have just taken all the expensive steps out of the Canadian model.
Comment by JoeH — April 5, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
#1, I’d say the expense reduction is short-term. The “recidivism” (i.e., repeat crimes) committed by those who get these wrist slaps would be expected to be extremely high.
Comment by TBlumer — April 5, 2006 @ 2:25 pm