30 thoughts on “Well, yes, that’s rather the way it works”
Rob
Ministers have made no secret of their wish to reduce the prison population and drive down reoffending rates, with Justice Secretary David Gauke declaring last week that there is a “very strong case” for abolishing jail terms of six months or less, except for violent and sexual crimes.
“Drive down reoffending rates”. I suppose technically as the criminals will just carry on their spate of offences they aren’t ‘reoffending’ any more according to some arcane Home Office definition, so that’s OK then.
Meanwhile a nominally Conservative government continues to persue its dreams of its own extinction by removing the last deterrent for repeat offenders and just saying “fuck it, do what you want, we despise the millions who vote for us anyway”.
Rob
Let’s reduce hospital waiting lists by simply referring fewer patients to hospital. Problem solved.
Rob
The myth the Left peddles is that the State jails people for first time offences like apple scrumping, and jail turns them into hardened repeat offenders. It’s bollocks. People going to jail for these offences have a long string of convictions behind them already before the courts finally put them away.
They are ALREADY repeat offenders. They are recidivists. Jail keeps them from making the Public’s life a misery, at least for a short time.
A fucking Tory minister (no, don’t laugh) doesn’t have the basic nous to realise he is a mug who has fallen for the Leftist manure peddled to him by the Home Office. He lacks even the basic antennae to be a politician. Or does he just loathe ordinary people and wants to make their lives as miserable as possible?
Ljh
Birching and the stocks might be adequate punishment and deterrent to reoffenders. Cheap too.
Dongguan John
I think it’s almost impossible to go to prison these days unless you’ve done something really awful.
I have an old friend whose heart is in the right place but can’t seem to stay out of trouble.
Few years ago he went down to cornwall and built a cannabis farm. He and another old friend rented some lockup in a commercial park and installed all the cannabis growing equipment. Every few months they would harvest and he’d drive it up to our midlands home town to flog it. Between them they were making about 100 grand a year. Eventually even the Cornish police caught on to them and my friend was caught because he had rented the place in his name (idiot!). He had previous convictions (never jail time) and got two years suspended.
Rob: “Let’s reduce hospital waiting lists by simply referring fewer patients to hospital. Problem solved.”
Yikes! Don’t give them IDEAS!!!
Gamecock
Without consequences for crime, crime escalates. Not just the rate, but the seriousness of the offenses.
It is common in big American cities for judges to give light sentences for crimes, especially for young ethnics. Doing them a favor, they think.
The criminal’s crimes escalate til they commit murder, and the courts then take action. So we get 19 year old murderers.
Homicide by firearms discharge, the government’s official term for murder with a gun, occurs about 11,000 times a year in the U.S.
6000 by black males (6.5% of the population).
5000 by everyone else (93.5% of the population)
Without the black male numbers, the U.S. rate is quite low.
The root of Chicago’s murder rate is Lefty judges, helping the black kids out.
bloke in spain
Ah, Mr Gamecock, but they do mostly shoot each other. So the community’s doing the best it can to reduce the murder rate.
Ian Bennett
abolishing jail terms of six months or less, except for violent and sexual crimes
Why are there jail terms of six months or less for violent and sexual crimes?
Gamecock
bis, Planned Parenthood gets that prize. They have killed millions of black babies.
John B
If they are serious about reducing prison population, then they should decriminalise drugs and regulate them like alcohol and tobacco.
Gamecock
Or don’t regulate them at all.
Edward Lud
“…no secret of their wish to reduce the prison population and drive down reoffending rates…”.
See what they did there? By ‘they’, I mean Whitehall and its faithful (dishonest or stupid) lapdogs in the press.
It’s the sly insertion of the ‘and’: reducing the prison population will drive down reoffending rates.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, prison is rubbish in all sorts of ways. But a miscreant locked-up is a miscreant limited to miscreancy only against other miscreants (and unfortunate prison officers).
There is no ‘and’. You could lock-up, at a conservative guess, 30,000 men in perpetuity and see the crime rate fall through the floor*.
And yes, decriminalise drugs.
* Assumes we don’t continue to import more footpads and cut-throats. No laughing at the back!
Pcar
@Gamecock February 25, 2019 at 1:38 pm
Homicide by firearms discharge, the government’s official term for murder with a gun, occurs about 11,000 times a year in the U.S.
6000 by black males (6.5% of the population).
5000 by everyone else (93.5% of the population)
NiV will be along soon to explain how it’s not the RoPs/Blacks who are a problem
Steve
Rob – Meanwhile a nominally Conservative government continues to persue its dreams of its own extinction by removing the last deterrent for repeat offenders and just saying “fuck it, do what you want, we despise the millions who vote for us anyway”.
What if they IDENTIFY as law-abiding, bigot?
Martin
A female has a stalker. So far he’s been in prison 11 times in 5 years – longest sentenced was 8 months. The only times she is safe is when he is behind bars.
He’s done attempted murder, he’s damaged vehicles, he’s damaged rented houses.
Twice she has been in a battered women’s shelter (really not a place you want to be with 3 kids including a 15 year old boy) when council could not move her.
He ignores court orders, he ignores anything he doesn’t like. And the previous 10 times he has been to prison over the same problem haven’t changed his behaviour.
Prison isn’t working. Prior to being imprisoned for the problems the courts didn’t stop him.
What is the solution? Non prison?
Edward Lud
That’s a good point, Steve.
I remember, about 15 years ago, when two Nigerian or Ghanaian women stood accused at the Bailey of torturing a child, where their defence was that the child was a witch, and both women each day turned up to court with fine 21st Century coiffes – full-on purple and pink hair, the very latest in modern, expensive head-gearing. That nexus of expensive, comfortable tech alongside pre-modernism. And I thought: there’ll come a point where one of these people argues, apparently sincerely, that they simply did not know what the law was and that they, for reasons, could not be expected to know what our law was.
But the more recent version is simpler: they just identify as witch-finders (as part of their vibrant cultural tradition)
Rob
Prison isn’t working. Prior to being imprisoned for the problems the courts didn’t stop him.
What is the solution? Non prison?
Her father / brothers and / or other related males take care of the problem.
Gamecock
“What is the solution?”
Concealed weapons permit, and a Sig P938.
Edward Lud
Or, Martin, a longer sentence. Mebbe, dunno… Ten years, rather than eight months?
Edward Lud
I mean, he can’t do anything to her when he’s in the Big House. Can he?
So what do you mean, when you say prison doesn’t work?
Steve
Edward – Makes as much sense as tolerating Sharia I spose. Can’t be long till the Conservative Party includes muti in its list of British Values.
Maybe that’s why Theresa May was doing her funky little dance in Safaffrica? I was disappointed they didn’t have a nice big Prime Ministerial pot bubbling fragrantly over a fire, but to be fair she’d probably taste stringy.
Edward Lud
She’d need lardons, Steve. Lots of lardons. And shallots.
And even then she’d be gopping. Like the range stew they used to give us on TA weekends in Surrey.
Now I feel besmirched, spotted, soiled.
theProle
Maybe we should multiply prison sentences so that they get progressively longer. Say take all the offences committed over the last 5 years of time spent free (the clock stops while in prison) and multiply the sentence this time round by all those other offences.
So say 1st offence of petty burglary, 2 month suspended.
2nd offence, 2 month * 2 month = 4 months.
4th offence – which is worse, so 6 months * 2 months * 2 months * 2 months = 4 years.
5th offence – 2 months * 4 years = 8 years…
It means that we would get persistent offenders in the slammer for the long term (and thus not out thieving) but without having to increase the initial level of sentencing for fairly minor crimes.
I fear that “solving” crime by locking up what one of my local Bobby’s calls his “frequent fliers” won’t go down well with out current soft left rulers, so I won’t hold my breath for such a system to come into place.
John Duckett
There used to be what was called “Preventive Detention” where persistent offenders were given long sentences in addition to the sentence for the crime(s) they had just committed.Just to keep them out of mischief.
MC
@Martin
In the case you mention, prison has not been given enough of a chance. Attempted murder carries a maximum sentence of life.
Also, regardless of whether the cunt reforms or not, 10 years in the nick for him is 10 years of peace and safety for the woman concerned.
Itellyounothing
Transport to the an island in the north Atlantic, along with enough food, equipment and instructions to farm there.
As others have pointed out, the protecting the public part of the prison sentence prison does work, it appears the deterrence part doesn’t in his case which is why sentences should increase with each offence. For some reason those that know better put maximum prison terms on offences and then arrange for people to be released early as the default.
To this end I like theProle’s idea, it is clear and easy enough for most thugs to understand and gets round the 3 strikes and your out problem of people going to jail for life for stealing a pizza.
Jason Lynch
Martin,
But imprisoning this poor helpless victim of society is not the solution. His misdeeds are the result of confusion. Tory cuts. Austerity. Post-traumatic stress from growing up in the shadow of Thatcher. Toxic masculinity. None of it is their fault and prison will only make it worse. Harassing them or locking them up would be the sign of a fascist police state.
Until this stalker succeeds in murdering his target, and probably her children: at which point it will all be the fault of the police and the judiciary, for failing to act sternly against this femicidal oppressor who so clearly and obviously should have been locked up for the sake of all womyn years ago.
Martin
In the stalkers case the only time she isn’t scared of him is when he is in prison. Within days of release he’s back tracking her down again.
Rob – her disabled dad couldn’t take the guy on. Her older brother could but the cost is a prison sentence.
Jason – yes, probably right there.
Ministers have made no secret of their wish to reduce the prison population and drive down reoffending rates, with Justice Secretary David Gauke declaring last week that there is a “very strong case” for abolishing jail terms of six months or less, except for violent and sexual crimes.
“Drive down reoffending rates”. I suppose technically as the criminals will just carry on their spate of offences they aren’t ‘reoffending’ any more according to some arcane Home Office definition, so that’s OK then.
Meanwhile a nominally Conservative government continues to persue its dreams of its own extinction by removing the last deterrent for repeat offenders and just saying “fuck it, do what you want, we despise the millions who vote for us anyway”.
Let’s reduce hospital waiting lists by simply referring fewer patients to hospital. Problem solved.
The myth the Left peddles is that the State jails people for first time offences like apple scrumping, and jail turns them into hardened repeat offenders. It’s bollocks. People going to jail for these offences have a long string of convictions behind them already before the courts finally put them away.
They are ALREADY repeat offenders. They are recidivists. Jail keeps them from making the Public’s life a misery, at least for a short time.
A fucking Tory minister (no, don’t laugh) doesn’t have the basic nous to realise he is a mug who has fallen for the Leftist manure peddled to him by the Home Office. He lacks even the basic antennae to be a politician. Or does he just loathe ordinary people and wants to make their lives as miserable as possible?
Birching and the stocks might be adequate punishment and deterrent to reoffenders. Cheap too.
I think it’s almost impossible to go to prison these days unless you’ve done something really awful.
I have an old friend whose heart is in the right place but can’t seem to stay out of trouble.
Few years ago he went down to cornwall and built a cannabis farm. He and another old friend rented some lockup in a commercial park and installed all the cannabis growing equipment. Every few months they would harvest and he’d drive it up to our midlands home town to flog it. Between them they were making about 100 grand a year. Eventually even the Cornish police caught on to them and my friend was caught because he had rented the place in his name (idiot!). He had previous convictions (never jail time) and got two years suspended.
Rob: “Let’s reduce hospital waiting lists by simply referring fewer patients to hospital. Problem solved.”
Yikes! Don’t give them IDEAS!!!
Without consequences for crime, crime escalates. Not just the rate, but the seriousness of the offenses.
It is common in big American cities for judges to give light sentences for crimes, especially for young ethnics. Doing them a favor, they think.
The criminal’s crimes escalate til they commit murder, and the courts then take action. So we get 19 year old murderers.
Homicide by firearms discharge, the government’s official term for murder with a gun, occurs about 11,000 times a year in the U.S.
6000 by black males (6.5% of the population).
5000 by everyone else (93.5% of the population)
Without the black male numbers, the U.S. rate is quite low.
The root of Chicago’s murder rate is Lefty judges, helping the black kids out.
Ah, Mr Gamecock, but they do mostly shoot each other. So the community’s doing the best it can to reduce the murder rate.
Why are there jail terms of six months or less for violent and sexual crimes?
bis, Planned Parenthood gets that prize. They have killed millions of black babies.
If they are serious about reducing prison population, then they should decriminalise drugs and regulate them like alcohol and tobacco.
Or don’t regulate them at all.
“…no secret of their wish to reduce the prison population and drive down reoffending rates…”.
See what they did there? By ‘they’, I mean Whitehall and its faithful (dishonest or stupid) lapdogs in the press.
It’s the sly insertion of the ‘and’: reducing the prison population will drive down reoffending rates.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, prison is rubbish in all sorts of ways. But a miscreant locked-up is a miscreant limited to miscreancy only against other miscreants (and unfortunate prison officers).
There is no ‘and’. You could lock-up, at a conservative guess, 30,000 men in perpetuity and see the crime rate fall through the floor*.
And yes, decriminalise drugs.
* Assumes we don’t continue to import more footpads and cut-throats. No laughing at the back!
@Gamecock February 25, 2019 at 1:38 pm
NiV will be along soon to explain how it’s not the RoPs/Blacks who are a problem
Rob – Meanwhile a nominally Conservative government continues to persue its dreams of its own extinction by removing the last deterrent for repeat offenders and just saying “fuck it, do what you want, we despise the millions who vote for us anyway”.
What if they IDENTIFY as law-abiding, bigot?
A female has a stalker. So far he’s been in prison 11 times in 5 years – longest sentenced was 8 months. The only times she is safe is when he is behind bars.
He’s done attempted murder, he’s damaged vehicles, he’s damaged rented houses.
Twice she has been in a battered women’s shelter (really not a place you want to be with 3 kids including a 15 year old boy) when council could not move her.
He ignores court orders, he ignores anything he doesn’t like. And the previous 10 times he has been to prison over the same problem haven’t changed his behaviour.
Prison isn’t working. Prior to being imprisoned for the problems the courts didn’t stop him.
What is the solution? Non prison?
That’s a good point, Steve.
I remember, about 15 years ago, when two Nigerian or Ghanaian women stood accused at the Bailey of torturing a child, where their defence was that the child was a witch, and both women each day turned up to court with fine 21st Century coiffes – full-on purple and pink hair, the very latest in modern, expensive head-gearing. That nexus of expensive, comfortable tech alongside pre-modernism. And I thought: there’ll come a point where one of these people argues, apparently sincerely, that they simply did not know what the law was and that they, for reasons, could not be expected to know what our law was.
But the more recent version is simpler: they just identify as witch-finders (as part of their vibrant cultural tradition)
Prison isn’t working. Prior to being imprisoned for the problems the courts didn’t stop him.
What is the solution? Non prison?
Her father / brothers and / or other related males take care of the problem.
“What is the solution?”
Concealed weapons permit, and a Sig P938.
Or, Martin, a longer sentence. Mebbe, dunno… Ten years, rather than eight months?
I mean, he can’t do anything to her when he’s in the Big House. Can he?
So what do you mean, when you say prison doesn’t work?
Edward – Makes as much sense as tolerating Sharia I spose. Can’t be long till the Conservative Party includes muti in its list of British Values.
Maybe that’s why Theresa May was doing her funky little dance in Safaffrica? I was disappointed they didn’t have a nice big Prime Ministerial pot bubbling fragrantly over a fire, but to be fair she’d probably taste stringy.
She’d need lardons, Steve. Lots of lardons. And shallots.
And even then she’d be gopping. Like the range stew they used to give us on TA weekends in Surrey.
Now I feel besmirched, spotted, soiled.
Maybe we should multiply prison sentences so that they get progressively longer. Say take all the offences committed over the last 5 years of time spent free (the clock stops while in prison) and multiply the sentence this time round by all those other offences.
So say 1st offence of petty burglary, 2 month suspended.
2nd offence, 2 month * 2 month = 4 months.
3rd offence 2 months * 2months * 2 months = 8 months
4th offence – which is worse, so 6 months * 2 months * 2 months * 2 months = 4 years.
5th offence – 2 months * 4 years = 8 years…
It means that we would get persistent offenders in the slammer for the long term (and thus not out thieving) but without having to increase the initial level of sentencing for fairly minor crimes.
I fear that “solving” crime by locking up what one of my local Bobby’s calls his “frequent fliers” won’t go down well with out current soft left rulers, so I won’t hold my breath for such a system to come into place.
There used to be what was called “Preventive Detention” where persistent offenders were given long sentences in addition to the sentence for the crime(s) they had just committed.Just to keep them out of mischief.
@Martin
In the case you mention, prison has not been given enough of a chance. Attempted murder carries a maximum sentence of life.
Also, regardless of whether the cunt reforms or not, 10 years in the nick for him is 10 years of peace and safety for the woman concerned.
Transport to the an island in the north Atlantic, along with enough food, equipment and instructions to farm there.
Martin,
As others have pointed out, the protecting the public part of the prison sentence prison does work, it appears the deterrence part doesn’t in his case which is why sentences should increase with each offence. For some reason those that know better put maximum prison terms on offences and then arrange for people to be released early as the default.
To this end I like theProle’s idea, it is clear and easy enough for most thugs to understand and gets round the 3 strikes and your out problem of people going to jail for life for stealing a pizza.
Martin,
But imprisoning this poor helpless victim of society is not the solution. His misdeeds are the result of confusion. Tory cuts. Austerity. Post-traumatic stress from growing up in the shadow of Thatcher. Toxic masculinity. None of it is their fault and prison will only make it worse. Harassing them or locking them up would be the sign of a fascist police state.
Until this stalker succeeds in murdering his target, and probably her children: at which point it will all be the fault of the police and the judiciary, for failing to act sternly against this femicidal oppressor who so clearly and obviously should have been locked up for the sake of all womyn years ago.
In the stalkers case the only time she isn’t scared of him is when he is in prison. Within days of release he’s back tracking her down again.
Rob – her disabled dad couldn’t take the guy on. Her older brother could but the cost is a prison sentence.
Jason – yes, probably right there.