'Thieves' knocked off mopeds by police in London
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simon12
Landlord.
That is a shame I would have tried crowd funding one to buy gunge for crime prevention. Not only would the police get more money but someone would do there job for them.
MyQul
Chairman of the Bored
Dont give him ideas!
dogman
Active Member
Hoppyland
Senior Member
Well, I guess I'm not really liberal - but more pretty left-wing. I also keep dogs, and have had a lot of dogs over the last 30 years that are rescues. Both of these facts feed into my thinking on this.
I've had quite a few rescue dogs that were severely psychologically damaged because of either ill-treatment or neglect in their early, formative lives. In my experience, if the behavioural characteristics are deeply implanted, then you cannot reverse the process. Indeed, you can struggle to even minimise it in extreme cases.
OK, we are not talking human behaviour here, but I would be astounded (as an atheist who spent his whole working life as a biologist) if there were not huge parallels.
My feeling is that, in a society with more than enough wealth to go round (if it was fairly distributed), there should be no need for many people to feel discarded, hopeless. There will always be "outcasts", for whatever reason, but it appears to me that the political system (especially in England), with the anxious help of the right-wing tabloid press, has worked to maximise this division.
OK, I have no time for criminals. But, why then have an economic policy which favours the rich and super-rich, whilst cutting down on police funding to the degree that they cannot do their job properly. Then compounding the situation, by making the disadvantaged - even if it is no fault of their own, even worse off.
What happens then? Well, I have 2 university degrees, have made a successful career in fisheries biology, brought up a son & daughter & now have a happy retirement with my wife. But - in my 20s, I came back from my first job in Saudi Arabia. Thought that with a good degree, and 3 yrs experience, I'd walk into another job in my field. Not so. As the months rolled by, I now realise that I became clinically depressed. It worked out OK for me in the end. Not so my brother-in-law. A decent guy, he worked most of his life for Ilford, the photographic firm. He was made redundant, and worse, found that the pension fund had been "sold off". Plus, having never been married, his close relationship with a divorcee was terminated when she died of a brain tumour. Things worked out for me. Not for him. He started to drink heavily, and is now in a care home because of his physical and mental state. His fault? Yes, of course it is - he didn't "have" to drink so much. But I'm always reminded of the 60s song lyric "There, but for fortune, go you or go I". So true.
Personally, I do not want to pardon criminals for their behaviour - neither to let them of "lightly". What I would prefer is a society where there is less incentive to become an outcast. And a society where, even as a "petty" criminal, you are very likely to be caught. Not the case, these days, from what I've read. I believe that very few burglaries are solved and brought to court. I would like to live in a society where the rich (OK, not just individuals - Amazon etc ) are taxed according to their ability to pay, and the disadvantaged are not judged as skivers and shirkers, but as unfortunate people, most of whom would prefer a life where they could have some dignity, instead of being regarded as "scum". To go back to my beginning, give a dog a bad name........
Linalmeemow
Landlord.
Best post I've read on this forum.
< I've deleted my own comment here because it would drag this thread way off topic>
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simon12
Landlord.
Does any of this have anything to do with the police ramming mopeds or even much to do with crime as you are not (I think) saying anything you mention justifies criminal behaviour?
@Hoppyland a world in which there is no poverty and people going without sounds wonderful but how does this work in reality, you say there is more than enough money in the system and it should be shared out fairly but how does this work we have never been zero unemployment so do we hand out more in benefits so the unemployed can afford to buy the things they are now stealing, if that is the case I will gladly become unemployed instead of driving my truck round the narrow lanes of the lakes where in summer you cannot move for tourists for little more than "the living wage" which we all know it isn't!
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Hi @Chippy_Tea
I know that you know that unemployment = stealing is not correct.
There are many out of work who are honest, law-abiding citizens. There are many in gainful employment who can't wait to get their grubby paws on someone else's money.
I also don't doubt that most thieves are following their chosen "profession" so that they don't have to go to work.
However, there is enough money in the system for everything and for everyone, but the fat cats are creaming it off. The policy of austerity, a political policy, rather than an economic policy, seems to hit the lower echelons of society worst of all - the worker gets it in the neck once again!
To stimulate the economy we need to spend, but how can poor people spend if they don't have the money?
If a decent level of benefit was available to the unemployed, disabled, etc. etc. they could contributr to the revival of our economy.
Give a rich man £1000 and he'll put it in the bank; give a poor man £1000 and he'll spend it.
Objections to people having a decent level of benefit payments are not economically sound; they are moral or political objections.
But the scumballs DO have plenty.... but it's all nicked, including the mopeds they're using. At 16 I got a job paying £25 a week and ALL of that went towards rent, food, bills etc that my poorly ol' man couldn't cover. Wish I'd thought about the easy way... not. Being a t**t is a mental state, not a response to 'hard times'.
Saisonator
Landlord.
He was not knocked off his bike by a police car, from what I can tell he hit an obstacle whilst being chased by the police.
The best thing to do in that situation is stop when the police indicate that they want you to stop, like I have always done.
AdeDunn
Member
Gunge, when you were 16, and heck when I was 16 too, you could walk into a local employer (I was older than 16, as I stayed on in 6th form, and also college.... but same principal) and get a job, quite literally. In my case, I asked at a local nursing home if they had any care assistant jobs available, and bingo they put me on their bank and I was pretty quickly working full time hours on a casual basis. It actually messed up college for me in fact, as my parents made me go part time on my course so that I could earn money rather than go to college, luckily though I still got the qualification that I needed to go on to university.
This isn't the world that exists now though. All those jobs that you could just walk into? They're gone, they don't exist any more. They got replaced with "work trials", "modern apprenticeships" that when they end there's no job any more as they can just give a new person an apprenticeship and the like. Young folks from a poor background don't really even have the option to just work hard at school and go to uni any more, as there are no bursaries or grants any more either (as the generations who DID get free university education, along with bursaries and grants, decided that nobody should get these any more) and the only way to pay the now extortionate course fees is to go into debt....
So, what do you think happens when young people keep seeing their future becoming more and more hopeless? Less and less chance of getting a job or going into education? Heck it makes me angry.... Look out of your window, and you can see what happens, crime rates go up. Benefit cuts, and lots of lovely punitive "sanctions" where they take the tiny amount of benefits off you for the tiniest perceived "infraction" and you have a lovely little crucible, cooking up a nice meal of social anger and dissatisfaction. This, on top of the already ever present, and ready to take advantage, criminal elements, and you have a nice little powder keg, one which has multiplied and gone off many times already now. Add in a nice dash of cuts to the number of police and their funding, and whammy, you have increasingly lawless streets, and policies like the one where only even numbered houses get a call from an actual police officer after a burglary.
Oh, and to those of you who consider yourself right wing, take care not to confuse left wing with liberal. It's a common mistake to make these days. Left wing can have a strong belief in law and order not present in those with a more moderate, liberal, leaning. We just believe that law and order should apply to all, equally.
The ultimate application of liberalism is anarchy, and that's not at all left wing.... 
I'm all for dealing with moped crime using whatever methods work. I'm all for punishing criminals. However, you have to attack crime from both directions at once, cause and effect. Otherwise it's an endless money pit of locking people up in increasing numbers, with no end in sight, if you don't also do something about the social and economic factors contributing to the reasons SOME people turn to crime in the first place (as yes, some people turn to crime because they are a-holes, and that's what prisons should be for). It's like the rise in Spice use in areas particularly hit hard by austerity, it can be directly linked to the rise in homelessness and poverty, with people looking for a way to basically escape from the world, if only for a brief time. If all you do is lock the Spice users up and punish them, you'll just have more and more users locked up at the cost of the tax payer.....
Austerity is costing this country far more than it has allegedly saved it....
Oh, and for the record, it's not just about making sure that those in need get the benefits they need. It's also about making sure that workers get paid a fair living wage too! Won't happen though as long as corporations are allowed to be so greedy for profit, as wages will never be able to keep up with prices. Make employers pay more, they just charge more for the products been sold in the shops.....
AdeDunn
Member
I actually agree. It's all too easy to just not run from the police.
Gunge, when you were 16, and heck when I was 16 too, you could walk into a local employer (I was older than 16, as I stayed on in 6th form, and also college.... but same principal) and get a job, quite literally. In my case, I asked at a local nursing home if they had any care assistant jobs available, and bingo they put me on their bank and I was pretty quickly working full time hours on a casual basis. It actually messed up college for me in fact, as my parents made me go part time on my course so that I could earn money rather than go to college, luckily though I still got the qualification that I needed to go on to university.
This isn't the world that exists now though. All those jobs that you could just walk into? They're gone, they don't exist any more. They got replaced with "work trials", "modern apprenticeships" that when they end there's no job any more as they can just give a new person an apprenticeship and the like. Young folks from a poor background don't really even have the option to just work hard at school and go to uni any more, as there are no bursaries or grants any more either (as the generations who DID get free university education, along with bursaries and grants, decided that nobody should get these any more) and the only way to pay the now extortionate course fees is to go into debt....
So, what do you think happens when young people keep seeing their future becoming more and more hopeless? Less and less chance of getting a job or going into education? Heck it makes me angry.... Look out of your window, and you can see what happens, crime rates go up. Benefit cuts, and lots of lovely punitive "sanctions" where they take the tiny amount of benefits off you for the tiniest perceived "infraction" and you have a lovely little crucible, cooking up a nice meal of social anger and dissatisfaction. This, on top of the already ever present, and ready to take advantage, criminal elements, and you have a nice little powder keg, one which has multiplied and gone off many times already now. Add in a nice dash of cuts to the number of police and their funding, and whammy, you have increasingly lawless streets, and policies like the one where only even numbered houses get a call from an actual police officer after a burglary.
Oh, and to those of you who consider yourself right wing, take care not to confuse left wing with liberal. It's a common mistake to make these days. Left wing can have a strong belief in law and order not present in those with a more moderate, liberal, leaning. We just believe that law and order should apply to all, equally.
I'm all for dealing with moped crime using whatever methods work. I'm all for punishing criminals. However, you have to attack crime from both directions at once, cause and effect. Otherwise it's an endless money pit of locking people up in increasing numbers, with no end in sight, if you don't also do something about the social and economic factors contributing to the reasons SOME people turn to crime in the first place (as yes, some people turn to crime because they are a-holes, and that's what prisons should be for). It's like the rise in Spice use in areas particularly hit hard by austerity, it can be directly linked to the rise in homelessness and poverty, with people looking for a way to basically escape from the world, if only for a brief time. If all you do is lock the Spice users up and punish them, you'll just have more and more users locked up at the cost of the tax payer.....
Austerity is costing this country far more than it has allegedly saved it....
Oh, and for the record, it's not just about making sure that those in need get the benefits they need. It's also about making sure that workers get paid a fair living wage too! Won't happen though as long as corporations are allowed to be so greedy for profit, as wages will never be able to keep up with prices. Make employers pay more, they just charge more for the products been sold in the shops.....
No you couldn't... it was 1981 and I lived smack in the middle of the S.Yorks coalfields when all the **** was going down - it was a very bad time. I knocked on doors and didn't give up. Result - full time work for £25 a week and the lot went on essentials, not the stuff what today's youth deem 'essential'. And ye, I walked the 4 miles to work and back, soles hanging of shoes etc etc. Scooter yobs... I've sh*t 'em.
simon12
Landlord.
Unemployment is lower now than it has been since the mid/late 70s and well under half that of 1981 so the jobs are there. Its only 1 job in 1 area but where my sister works (caring for adults with mental disabilities) they are always desperate for people. Anyway linking benefits to crime is like saying if the government stole it for them they wouldn't need to steal it themselves. A also hate people saying we have austerity as surely that should mean we are not spending more that we have but we are still borrowing every year to maintain spending true austerity will hit when we can't keep borrowing.
Col i didn't say it is.
Many people don't earn much more than what they would get on benefit now how close to the living wage are you planning to raise benefit and if you do will the living wage also have to raise?
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I have removed two posts (the OP's know which ones) calling other peoples views BS is not the way we do things here.
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Isn't it about time this thread was closed, now it's got to the point of removing posts. It's got far removed from the original subject, irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with some of the stuff that's been recently posted. Threads have been closed for much less.
simon12
Landlord.
I agree if the topics it's now one wants to continue it should have a new thread on the topic.
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