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Isn't it nice to know how well your taxes are being used.


Bugsy

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It's not much in the way of compensation, seeing they are being deprived of the full term of "bed and board" that they paid for through their original conviction.....[;-)]

It costs £37,500 pa to keep a person in prison - that's £103 a day - so early release represents a significant saving in taxpayer's money.

 

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It's the weather - stops him going out on his bike.[;-)]

We went out spectating today on the Rallye Nord Deux-Sevres.  Great stuff.  Being on the bike, we were able to get past all the traffic and the parking and nip right up to the  spectator points before having to get off and walk the few yards to see the action....[:D].  

 

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[quote user="Chris Head"]So? People who have made mistakes and served their sentence get some help Bugbear...how outrageous can that be? You must be one bored to death dude.[/quote]

I'm not really sure about that world you live in Mr head but no one ever gave me £170.00 to tide me over [:@]

and bored, maybe, but never boring eh,

Rather more interesting point made by SD though. The government actually save money by letting these people out early. Lets not talk about the victims of crime and how they feel to see a lot of these people serving pathetic sentences and now being released only because of overcrowding.

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I guess some of these early release prisoners are going to have no 'safety net' or support in place - so they come out the prison doors with minimum money and need to find some where to stay, get a job etc. Isn't it beter to give them a small amount to tide them over than them be tempted back to crime to get by ?

From what I saw last week, a lot of the work done to get prisoners back into the community is done in the last weeks of their sentence, this is now being cut short.

Isn't this a way to try and stop there being anymore victims...?

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There will always be victims Gay...the subject is huge, the perpetrators of crime are often the victims too....there are no answers, the armchair protagonists will wax lyrical and the theorists will type clever stuff, personally I'm on the side of the underdog, the kids who feel that desperate that they do what they feel they have to do.

The likes of Bugbear/Gary are just the pits....a bored & ageing cut copy paste merchant followed by a few provocative sentences means nothing to me, merchant banker...or something that rymes with it springs to mind.

>>>and bored, maybe, but never boring eh, <<<

99% of the time Gary, and please...no more weird private messages eh?

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[quote user="Chris Head"]

The likes of Bugbear/Gary are just the pits....a bored & ageing cut copy paste merchant followed by a few provocative sentences means nothing to me, merchant banker...or something that rymes with it springs to mind.

and please...no more weird private messages eh?

[/quote]

"the perpetrators of crime are often the victims too" .................err, no they are just criminals..............

Mr Head, whats with all the offensive name calling........., wa*k*r ?, well I guess it takes one to know one. Are your hormones are playing up again?

You'll get no private messages from me, you don't even register on my 'richter scale'.

You really do need to grow up, fool.

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It is a very interesting subject, isn't it?

Some people leaving prison will benefit from the help provided, others will abuse it - so should we stop it altogether?

A charity shop near to my home regularly had prisoners, coming to the end of their sentences, helping in the shop as part of their reintroduction to society. Recently, one of them stole a fair amount of money from the shop. Albeit circumstantial, the evidence pointed firmly to him as the culprit. The other prisoner also added to the weight of the case with evidence that ought to have convicted the man. But as he was not caught red-handed, the police (CPS) decided not to charge him and he got away with it.

For doing what was right, the honest prisoner was given a rough ride in prison for the last few weeks of his sentence, the dishonest one had a laugh at his expense and benefitted from the proceeds of his crime. The shop stopped taking prisoners because they could not be trusted.

There was only one winner in this case.

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Any attempt at preventing recidivism is a good use of my taxes as far as I'm concerned.  The present sytem of just waiting for people to commit another crime, hoping you'll catch them, then locking them up again, doesn't work that well, does it?  And it just produces more victims, not fewer criminals, which surely should be society's long-term aim, non?
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Understanding and support are far more useful tools than scoffing at the taxes spent on these people, they've had a lifetime of being judged and disregarded by folk who are comfortable and have nothing better to do with their time than to add to the ignorance and prejudice they've suffered over the years. Sure some of them are wasters, some of them aren't, some don't want to be some do, many of them just don't know what's kicking off and what life could be for them. Most of us are lucky to live as we do, I'm most certainly very fortunate, there are many who are less than fortunate for so very many reasons, we actively try and help, with emotional, logistical and financial help.

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[quote user="Mel "]

It is a very interesting subject, isn't it?

[/quote]

I agree with you Mel, but as with most subjects, it brings out the 'left' and the 'right'. I'm firmly on the left I'm afraid and crime and it's effect on me and my family was one of the reasons I left the UK.

There are always exceptions of course as others have posted, but there is now a 'hardcore' of criminals in the UK who simply have no concept of law abiding living and no respect for the law.

In the last four years of living in the UK we (my family) had one car stolen, three car break-ins, one house break-in, my workshop broken into and all my garage tools stolen and even had the gates stolen from the front of our house. I was threatened by a local drug dealer with a knife (I broke his nose and arm and was arrested and held for three hours before the police actually listened to eye witnesses), thats justice for you. Did we live in a bad area, no a really nice market town in Dorset.

So yes, I'm biased. B H Liberals use a wonderful term, 'petty crime', what a lovely expression. It's not petty to the victims of course and can lead to them spending the rest of their lives living in fear. I also love the "well they come from a poor background etc, etc. I grew up on a council estate in the midlands and were very poor, as were my friends. We didn't however go out mugging old people or destroying the lives of others and we did have a respect for the police and the law.

In general terms in the UK, does prison work, probably not, does the justice system work, no. Is there a solution, yes, but it's not one that would ever be accepted in the current PC UK.

I quite like the US model, where they have just accepted that prison is a punishment rather than a means of re-abilitation. Sensible sentences (severe) and, in some states, three strikes and you get life, all work for me.

note:   These are just my opinions thats all......................................

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"Love all creatures and you'll feel better about yourself........................... "

I assume that your "signature" doesn't express how you actually feel, well it can't can it. I don't know anyone that can put their hand on their heart and say that they have never broken the law and the reality is that it's no different in France or any other Country. When I was young there wasn't actually much to nick, apples, sweets, not much of any value in to days terms, but society has changed, many people are materially better of and the example that has been and is being set to young people by "adults" "governments" & "business" is a particularly depressing one, grab what you can, violence as a solution, I'm all right jack,

No, I'm a believer in positive, constructive solutions, not dividing one section of the community against another.

There but good fortune, béte noire, don't you think??     We just happen to be the lucky ones.

Chris

 

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You may approve of the US system of justice, Bugs, but where is the proof that it works?  Perhaps it makes us feel better to know that those with a moral code so at odds with our own are locked up and the key thrown away - is that it?  But it is quite clear from the very high levels of violent crime in the US, that it does nothing to rid inner city areas of the "fear factor" that you experienced in the UK.  The point surely about criminal justice, is that those of us who lead "good" lives and obey the law as far as we are able, should feel protected and safe.  When a system fails - however attractive its principals may seem to some - it is time to review and change it, not just keep offering more of the same.  That is not being "PC" or "liberal", it is being practical and sensible.  We need to be more aware of what causes people to live these kinds of lives in the first place, and work to change it.  I don't advocate letting people get away with wrong-doing but quite clearly, heavy punishments are not a sufficient long-term solution.
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I think we're singing roughly from the same hymn-sheet Coops and I am in total agreement with you that the current system is not working.

If you take, for example, the 'duty of care' that citizens of the UK (not in France) have to abide by in regard to burglars, WTF is that about. I'm old-school in this and firmly believe that when anyone breaks into your property they relinquish all 'duty of care' rights.

I love the "we must do all we can" to help these poor unfortunate individuals, not.

Does that apply to the two teenage thugs (in the news this week) who punched a totally innocent passer-by to death, purely for kicks ?

Does it apply to the gang of youngsters who, for a joke, poured petrol on a tramp in a park and burned him to death ?

How many times do we have to witness the dispair of the family left when they have lost someone through violent crime or drink-driving and then had to witness the perpetrators walking away with a stupidly lenient sentence. Can anyone imagine what that must feel like?

I'm not saying that my personal views are the answer, they are probably not, but until something better comes along, at least the victim would have some satisfaction that justice has been done.

 

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There is ''No Fear'' today. I am from the era where if I am being followed innocently by a police car I get a terrible sick to my stomach feeling.  Yes, we scrumpped apples and had the odd sweet or two but, if we were caught out we took the punishment. If pc Willcox just caught a glimpse of me ducking around a corner he would say That's all right trumpet, I'll see Mum and Dad later......then watch out. PC Willcox used to sit on the parade where I lived, and Kicking out time from all the pubs was no problem what so ever. A bit of banter and home. He new everybody and everybody new him.
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Yes, Gary, it should apply particularly to these sections of society.  Punish them, fine.  However, unless we get to the root of the question as to why they behave this way in the first place, then nothing will change and more and more people with little or no moral compass will populate our world.  Something is horribly wrong with a society in which people can behave in this way and see nothing wrong in it.  Unless we tackle this problem, our gaols will get fuller and fuller and nothing will change.

Also, I'm afraid that victims of crime are rarely those who are best placed to make decisions about criminal justice.  They are far too close to the problem to be able to solve it and the pain which they feel can cloud their judgement - it would be odd if this were not so.  Of course victims of violent crime feel angry and I'm sure that some (possibly most) want violent retribution - but it does nothing to help change things, it simply makes the victims feel better.  I'm not against that as a principal, but it's no long-term solution.

When I hear of these dreadful crimes, the first question I ask myself is "Why would they do such a thing?  What makes them think that their behaviour is acceptable in the first place?"  When somebody is sick, you try to cure them.  When a disease is identified, you try to find a way of preventing it from spreading.  Why do we feel that crime is any diffferent, or should be approached in a different way?  PC and liberal?  Thanks for the compliment.

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There is a strange British trait whereby somebody who commits an offence swiftly can claim to be a victim.

 You see in sport, where a player sent-off for a foul, whinges endlessly about the unfairness and how he has been victimised. How often do you hear a manager say on TV “My player committed a nasty foul and was rightly sent off”?

 Criminals are very adapt at claiming victimhood. The criminal justice system sometimes has trouble dealing somatically with the real victims. However once a criminal has been sent to jail he/she becomes 100% victim. They exploit this perception.

 I am with Gillbert and Sullivan’s Mikado who had creative ideas to make the punishment fit the crime.

 

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"Tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime."  The stupidest political soundbite ever recorded.  When he said this, Tony Blair gave every criminal an excuse for his behaviour.

"It's not my fault, I'm a victim of the causes of crime".  This is a bleat we'll be hearing for ever from people who are simply motivated by laziness and greed.

Patrick

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