Thieving little twats

[big soft moose]

Hows this to beat your security setup.

They find out when you are on holiday, then put up a Estate agents sold notice outside your property and then turn up 3 days later with a van and start taking stuff away, neighbours dont worry because they think its all legit.

i think the neighbours might be a bit suspicious of them having to kick in the front door - not to mention that our neighbour know when we are away as they do the bins and post for us (as we do for them)

 

[Richard D]

Most criminals don't steal because they want (or were denied) cuddles. They do it because they are desperate for their next fix of heroin, and the combined cost of the drugs together with the fact that they have no way of making those sort of amounts in a sort space of time means that they will steal in order to get what they want. People don't risk a couple of years in gaol because they want to play on someone else's Playstation; they do it because they can flog the Playstation for £50 to pay for today's fix, and they worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

If you want to solve the vast bulk of acquisitive crime, you need to do three things. Make it even harder for them to steal from you. Make the drugs cheaper or more available so that they don't have to steal to fund their habit. Finally take away their dependence on drugs. Unfortunately the last two are pretty well mutually exclusive (especially when so many people think that there's bugger all else for them to look forward to beyond the next hit of whatever), so we end up living in Fortress Britain.

I'd execute all of the drug dealers. There's no point in doing much less than that. You have to accept that it could drive the prices up, leading to even more crime committed by the addicts, but eventually the dealers get the message that no matter how much easy money it allows them to make, no matter how many flash cars or bling they get to buy, sooner or later (preferably sooner) they end up with a bullet in the brain. The addicts don't go to prison - they go to secure treatment centres. The bars on the windows are the same, but they come out when they are clean and have something else to occupy their lives with.

But of course someone could rightly point out how prohibition backed up with violence has been tried and doesn't work. Maybe. But I cannot see any other solution, and I've seen enough of the measures tried so far "up close" that I know simply doing the same things over and over will not work. The problem with my solution is that it's extreme, possibly unjust and inhumane, and expensive. The state would have to pay for all of the things I propose, whereas right now the state expects us to simply fit better locks (burglar alarms, guard dogs etc). I suspect that my way would end up cheaper overall, though.

 

[big soft moose]

Most criminals don't steal because they want (or were denied) cuddles. They do it because they are desperate for their next fix of heroin, and the combined cost of the drugs together with the fact that they have no way of making those sort of amounts in a sort space of time means that they will steal in order to get what they want. People don't risk a couple of years in gaol because they want to play on someone else's Playstation; they do it because they can flog the Playstation for £50 to pay for today's fix, and they worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

If you want to solve the vast bulk of acquisitive crime, you need to do three things. Make it even harder for them to steal from you. Make the drugs cheaper or more available so that they don't have to steal to fund their habit. Finally take away their dependence on drugs. Unfortunately the last two are pretty well mutually exclusive (especially when so many people think that there's bugger all else for them to look forward to beyond the next hit of whatever), so we end up living in Fortress Britain.

I'd execute all of the drug dealers. There's no point in doing much less than that. You have to accept that it could drive the prices up, leading to even more crime committed by the addicts, but eventually the dealers get the message that no matter how much easy money it allows them to make, no matter how many flash cars or bling they get to buy, sooner or later (preferably sooner) they end up with a bullet in the brain. The addicts don't go to prison - they go to secure treatment centres. The bars on the windows are the same, but they come out when they are clean and have something else to occupy their lives with.

But of course someone could rightly point out how prohibition backed up with violence has been tried and doesn't work. Maybe. But I cannot see any other solution, and I've seen enough of the measures tried so far "up close" that I know simply doing the same things over and over will not work. The problem with my solution is that it's extreme, possibly unjust and inhumane, and expensive. The state would have to pay for all of the things I propose, whereas right now the state expects us to simply fit better locks (burglar alarms, guard dogs etc). I suspect that my way would end up cheaper overall, though.

Legalise drugs , tax them, and use the tax to pay for rehabilitation of those that slide into addiction. - put the dealers out of business overnight because who is going to buy stepped on possibly poisonous crap on the street when they can buy unadulterated from boots the chemist.

however this wont solve the aquisitve crime issue because no longer needing the money to buy drugs wont stop the theiving little twats from robbing whatever isnt nailed down - they'll just use the money for something else.

 

[studders]

I think a significant number of thieving little gits thieve just for the sake of thieving. Whether they want or need what they steal is immaterial.
Almost a hobby really, perhaps we should open a new forum section for them?

 

[Richard D]

The two problems with legalisation of drugs is that firstly you put out the message that taking them is all right, which is likely to trigger an increase in their use when in fact they can have a very harmful effect across a wide range of people and circumstances, and secondly if the taxes and duties aren't high enough, they won't pay for the harm done (and if too high, you just get the same black market for the smugglers and dealers that we have now with all sorts of added complications). In an ideal world, with people sensible enough to stay the heck away from drugs, it's the right answer, but I've learned never to underestimate how stupid people can be (and rarely is my pessimism misplaced).

Long way off topic now, though

 

[big soft moose]

The two problems with legalisation of drugs is that firstly you put out the message that taking them is all right, which is likely to trigger an increase in their use when in fact they can have a very harmful effect

but that is also true of alcohol and tobaco - both of which have harmful effects but are legal (not to mention caffeine and junk food)

Long way off topic now, though

you mean this thread has a topic :shock:

 

[big soft moose]

I think a significant number of thieving little gits thieve just for the sake of thieving. Whether they want or need what they steal is immaterial.
Almost a hobby really, perhaps we should open a new forum section for them?

i think you are right - its like twocking - they arent stealing the cars for money but just for the thrill of driving fast and being chased by the polis -I know at least one force that has implemented a no chase policy and seen their twoc rate drop as a result

 

[Lons]

Most criminals don't steal because they want (or were denied) cuddles. They do it because they are desperate for their next fix of heroin, and the combined cost of the drugs together with the fact that they have no way of making those sort of amounts in a sort space of time means that they will steal in order to get what they want. People don't risk a couple of years in gaol because they want to play on someone else's Playstation; they do it because they can flog the Playstation for £50 to pay for today's fix, and they worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

If you want to solve the vast bulk of acquisitive crime, you need to do three things. Make it even harder for them to steal from you. Make the drugs cheaper or more available so that they don't have to steal to fund their habit. Finally take away their dependence on drugs. Unfortunately the last two are pretty well mutually exclusive (especially when so many people think that there's bugger all else for them to look forward to beyond the next hit of whatever), so we end up living in Fortress Britain.

I'd execute all of the drug dealers. There's no point in doing much less than that. You have to accept that it could drive the prices up, leading to even more crime committed by the addicts, but eventually the dealers get the message that no matter how much easy money it allows them to make, no matter how many flash cars or bling they get to buy, sooner or later (preferably sooner) they end up with a bullet in the brain. The addicts don't go to prison - they go to secure treatment centres. The bars on the windows are the same, but they come out when they are clean and have something else to occupy their lives with.

But of course someone could rightly point out how prohibition backed up with violence has been tried and doesn't work. Maybe. But I cannot see any other solution, and I've seen enough of the measures tried so far "up close" that I know simply doing the same things over and over will not work. The problem with my solution is that it's extreme, possibly unjust and inhumane, and expensive. The state would have to pay for all of the things I propose, whereas right now the state expects us to simply fit better locks (burglar alarms, guard dogs etc). I suspect that my way would end up cheaper overall, though.

Absolutely even though it's extreme.

Currently, the addicts don't dry out in prison - they are supplied with alternative drugs at our expense and on release, arrangements are made that they continue receipt via nominated pharmacists.

Your "solution" cannot be more expensive than the current procedures which virtually ensures that the vast majority re-offend and end up back in prison. Additionally, whilst these folk are out (many on early release), they are often dealing also including to kids - the next generation of addicts.

 

[wobblycogs]

While I don't disagree with you (apart from maybe executing dealers) I think your view is far too one dimensional. I'm sure there are addicts that come out of jail on early release and immediately go back to their drug habit while also dealing (especially targeting the children at the local school) but I'd bet that isn't the case for most of them.

Probably a more realistic picture is one in which they come out of jail and then drift back to drug use over a few months as support fades away and they fall back in with their old friends. They might casually deal a little to friends but for the most part they are solitary users. I doubt more than a tiny percentage knowingly deal to minors.

You see the funny thing is I think most people have this mental picture of a drug user as something like a zombie out of a horror movie. Wandering around in a permanent trance like state moaning "druuuuugs". I've not met many addicts but none of them have been like that even when high and interestingly they all wanted to stop.

I admit there is a big difference between wanting to stop and actually stopping but we shouldn't forget that there is a person in there and some of them do manage to kick the habit.

A secure and drug free rehabilitation environment is, I think, probably the right way to treat them. Getting them off the drugs removes the requirement to commit crime. It needs to be a full program though not just a quick in, clean up and out again. These people need to be taken out of the drug world or they will slip back, that probably means finding them jobs and giving them long term counseling and perhaps even drug monitoring. I could even see it going as far a relocating them away from the people they know that are a bad influence. The trouble is this is very expensive but is is more expensive than the crime committed?

 

[jimi43]

These people need to be taken out of the drug world or they will slip back, that probably means finding them jobs and giving them long term counseling and perhaps even drug monitoring. I could even see it going as far a relocating them away from the people they know that are a bad influence. The trouble is this is very expensive but is is more expensive than the crime committed?

I'm sorry...we are too caring here.

WHY should criminals and addicts have a better life than middle England has at the moment. Why should scroungers of the system have what others struggle to have in the recession. Why should someone who has worked all their life and paid tax and NI not be eligible when these scrotes are?

Why!?

This country has gone to the dogs because of do-gooders, liberalism and open door policies.

It won't stop until there is an uprising...and it ain't going to be long.

NOW...I need to go shave some wood to calm myself....

Always assuming my hard-earned tools are still there where I left them! :roll:

Jim

 

[Lons]

A secure and drug free rehabilitation environment is, I think, probably the right way to treat them. Getting them off the drugs removes the requirement to commit crime. It needs to be a full program though not just a quick in, clean up and out again. These people need to be taken out of the drug world or they will slip back, that probably means finding them jobs and giving them long term counseling and perhaps even drug monitoring. The trouble is this is very expensive but is is more expensive than the crime committed?

Yeah but that's my point.

The prison environment is not at all drug free.

1). Drugs find their way into prison by all sorts of ingenious means and are used as currency.
The friends and relatives even put them into the bodies of dead birds and animals and throw them over the fence. Some of the other methods are obscene and sickening and I won't post on here.

2). Whilst in prison, the addicts receive free daily methedone and some other substitutes and scream blue murder claiming their rights and complaining to their (free) solicitor if a doctor dares to restrict the dose.

They are regularly urine checked and if other narcotics are detected lose their "medication". The lengths they go to to avoid these tests are unbelievable - I wonder why?

Like it or not, the vast majority of offenders end up back in prison very quickly and often well within the period they are being supported.
I agree the reasons can be many but the current system just does not work!

It is also fact that the largest percentage of crime involving theft is related to addiction.

They do need help - but not at the massive expense of the rest of society IMO.

Why when put in prison as punishment for their crimes, they are allowed to grow long hair, play games and watch TV all night (many of these are paedephiles) not have to work etc etc.

Should be a boot camp imo. Up at 6am army style discipline, physical work - don't care if digging holes and filling them in again, limited TV etc.?
Instead of which we give them gym facilities to make them fit so they can run away faster from the arm of the law.


I could even see it going as far a relocating them away from the people they know that are a bad influence.

I'd be very happy about relocation - we used to send them to Australia! Any uninhabited island would do as long as it's a very long way from here and surrounded by sharks.

Makes my blood boil - rant over! :x :x :x

 

[devonwoody]

How can you stop a person taking drugs?

That is the way forward on the drug problem.

If you are poisoned by a snake bite, you are given anti venom treatment.

How could you cure a drug problem, simple give them a anti drug medication that would incapacitate them for 5 years and then tied up in a straight jacket.

I'm sure I could find a cure, but I suspect there are people making a lot of money with the present setup and have power not to want change.

 

[Lons]

The really sad bit about all this is that we have becaome a nation of "grumpy old men".

I personally don't like being that but I now treat everything with scepticism and mistrust until i can verify it myself.

I know I was different years ago and I resent the change which has IMO been caused by todays' society and lack of morals and discipline.

Too far down the road to reverse now and i'm so fed up with it I'm looking at the possibility of semi-retirement in NZ where we found it much more sensible last year. As the UK was 30 years ago.

probably a touch of the "rose tints" at work though!

 

[wobblycogs]

Jim, I never said a treatment facility had to be a pleasant place to be you have assumed that; probably because I don't want to see the prospective inmates hanging from the nearest tree.

It really boils down to whether you think a person can be saved / cleaned up or not. It would seem that many of you believe that no drug user can be saved, if that is the case no punishment except death is appropriate because they will always re-offend. I on the other hand believe that there is a full spectrum of drug users from those that really can't be saved and need to be permanently excluded from society to those that use only casually and never cause a problem for society.

A single response to a problem with a spectrum this broad is inappropriate. I think it is fair to argue that our current spectrum of responses to drug use (note I say use not dealing) is wrong. I would suggest that it's too harsh on a first offence and too weak on repeat offence.

As for prisons, yes I agree they are too soft at the moment but no I don't agree with medieval torture which is where the suggestions are slowly leading. Prisons should provide the bare minimum required to live (e.g. no TV, no radio, no papers, no visitors, no drugs, no alcohol, etc). At the same time they should provide gainful employment with some reward and education. infractions of prison rules should lead to an increased sentence and being moved away from the general population if necessary.

The point is this: if you can rehabilitate a criminal so that they become a functional member of society they then pay tax and will slowly pay off their cost to society. If you just throw them in jail for their crime then let them out with even fewer prospects than they went in with and all the same problems they will re-offend and then you have to put them back in prison again. Rinse-repeat all the time adding up the cost of keeping them.

 

[Dibs-h]

Just noticed something in the school playground this morning - there is a garage just on the other side of the boundary and it's now "ringed" by scaffolding and roofers are replacing the tiles.

This appears to have gone up in shortly after my "visit" - wonder if the erection of the scaffolding and roofing and the theft are coincidental or related. I was wondering of the chance of a junkie having 2' (min) bolt cutters or a scaffolder\roofer\tradesmen having some?

With respect to what you would do with theives\dealers - a couple of 100 yrs ago, they'd have been dragged out and killed. Now before someone goes on about we are civilised - I disagree. Exactly how more civilised has society become in the last 200 or so yrs?

I think the idea of targeting the top of the food chain is interesting - as well as providing treatment. But once the treatment finishes - does middle England bear the cost for ever - i.e. once clean, do we pay for their new life, as the old one full of dregs, no-hopers is bound to drag them back down - so perhaps a bit of expensive social engineering?

IIRC Switzerland provides free heroin in controlled environments - it would be interesting to read more about that - i.e. what's happened to crime rates, addiction rates, etc. Once the profit disappears - no incentive for dealers, but perhaps they'd step into something else - crystal meth, which is making inroads into the UK.

As time goes on - I do find myself agreeing with the Eastern method of dealing with dealers - execution. For larger scale dealers - the motivation is solely financial, I'd struggle to see any other dimension - unlike with junkies, where it could be argued that they are in the grip of an addiction that will make them do things that normally they would never under any circumstances. Dealers - exactly how would they reform? They know exactly the costs to people of what they are peddling - so why bother?

 

[Richard D]

Jim, I never said a treatment facility had to be a pleasant place to be you have assumed that; probably because I don't want to see the prospective inmates hanging from the nearest tree.

It really boils down to whether you think a person can be saved / cleaned up or not. It would seem that many of you believe that no drug user can be saved, if that is the case no punishment except death is appropriate because they will always re-offend. I on the other hand believe that there is a full spectrum of drug users from those that really can't be saved and need to be permanently excluded from society to those that use only casually and never cause a problem for society.

You misunderstood me; I was all for executing the dealers, not the users. The users go into secure rehabilitation program. Treat the addicts; kill the dealers. Simple. I've seen many people who have kicked the habit. But it's probably fewer than 10% of those drug-addicted offenders who re-offend on release.

 

[wobblycogs]

One of the problems I have with these extreme punishments is that they don't seem to work - at least not in isolation. In the nineteenth century people were regularly being deported, hung, given hard labour and locked away for years on end in terrible conditions but the crime rate was apparently much higher than it is today.

That can only lead to the conclusion that punishment alone is not a very good way to bring the crime rate down. Contrast that with today when we have have a weak punishment system and a comparatively low crime rate and it would seem at first glance that lighter punishments leads to less crime which is a bizarre conclusion.

Viewing this as a one variable problem (e.g. punishment is directly linked to crime rate with no other factors mattering) will lead to the wrong conclusion about what to do. I would suggest that equality and opportunity for personal development also play a big part in determining crime rate.

I'd just like to say on a personal note: I don't feel that I'm a big softy liberal, I'd happily support any punishment however extreme if it can be shown to actually work at stopping future crime whilest also not damaging society as a whole. It worries me to see the rise in the number of people who seem to see punishment as retribution especially in cases where they weren't directly involved in the crime. We have to be careful not to become little Eichmanns in our pursuit of an ideal.

 

[RogerS]

One of the problems I have with these extreme punishments is that they don't seem to work - at least not in isolation. In the nineteenth century people were regularly being deported, hung, given hard labour and locked away for years on end in terrible conditions but the crime rate was apparently much higher than it is today. .....

Yes but you're looking at that in isolation. Then there wasn't the welfare state, unemployed benefit, supportive (such that it is) social infrastructure. So your analogy is wrong.

 

[wobblycogs]

Erm, that's my point. Looking at it in isolation is the problem. The only solution people are coming up with at the moment is ever more severe punishment but that has been tried in the past and it didn't work (at least not very well).

I think punsihment of repeat offenders is too light at present but that doesn't change the fundamental fact that this problem is a lot more complicated than: more punishment = less crime.

 

[Jake]

Let's just nuke the whole nation, it's going to the dogs anyway.