You may remember how, following last month’s riots in London and elsewhere, liberal politicians and commentators dismissed claims that the violence and looting were acts of wanton criminality as simplistic right-wing rhetoric. They insisted that the riots were, in fact, an understandable if regrettable protest by the poor and disenfranchised against the Conservative government’s austerity measures; another popular liberal theme was that the rioters were impressionable individuals who’d been driven to break the law by the bad example set by greedy bankers.
Turns out the simplistic right-wing rhetoricians were on to something: it’s emerged that more than three-quarters of the adults convicted of involvement in the riots have criminal records. The revelation that most of the rioters were at best repeat offenders and at worst career criminals, rather than the desperate poor rising up against their out-of-touch rulers, will come as no surprise to those who noted that the looters were stealing TVs, iPhones and sports shoes, rather than bread and warm clothing.
However, it doesn’t appear that the government is drawing the appropriate lessons from these figures: Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke thinks they highlight the failure of the UK’s penal system to adequately rehabilitate offenders. While that may be true for some of those involved, it’s also the case that for many criminals, their experience of the system – short prison sentences, or ‘community’ sentences in lieu of prison – isn’t sufficiently disagreeable to dissuade them from committing further crimes. It’s also highly likely that the more hardened law-breakers involved in the riots are incapable of being reformed – whether by tough sentences or by the most sympathetic of rehabilitation programmes – because they are, to use a word that’s not terribly fashionable in discussions of these issues, evil.
Tinkering with the criminal justice system won’t do much to prevent future riots. Fortunately, the government is also committed to education and welfare reforms intended to address the societal and family breakdowns that have created what Mr Clarke, in a rare moment of clarity, called the “feral underclass” responsible for most of the violence and destruction.
And let’s hear no more nonsense about spending cuts.
This Current UK gorvernment is the must out of touch, ignorant and right wing government i have ever came across.. Dnt even get me started.
….have ever come…..
I’m just curious, can you name just one thing that makes the current British government “right-wing”? Precisely which policy of theirs is conservative in any way, shape, or form?
The Conservative government is conservative to the extent that it is not liberal. That’s about all that you can say about it as far as political philosophy.
It is an aberration of the cliché of ‘standing close to the sun’. In this case, they stand too close to France. Remember that Jacques Chirac was a conservative too.
Note to my British friends and cousins. About two percent of the general population are capable of criminal acts. It’s virtually impossibe to determine if this is the result of heridity or environment, but there you have it. Once the two percent makes the decision to offend they are very unlikely to be re-habilitated. And very likely to re-offend. Some Law Enforcement analysts think that for ever arrest and sucessful prosecution the person convicted comitted (and got away with) eight crimes. The amount of money we spend attempting to re-habilitate these scumbags would be better spent on work programs and better prison security.
“….protest by the poor and disenfranchised against the Conservative government’s austerity measures; another popular liberal theme was that the rioters were impressionable individuals who’d been driven to break the law by the bad example set by greedy bankers.”
Huh?
The arguments put forth by the statists always boil down to nonsensical BS. However, they are not idiots ( ok, some are ). They know very well that their arguments are crap, in fact they are designed to be . Statists are simply opportunists of a more sophisticated stripe than the ones who rioted in London. They dont break into stores, they game us and the system.
I assume these convicted looters were caught because there were videos of them looting. Something that needs to be explained is why the looters were not afraid to loot in front of video cameras.
Did they not realize they were on video?
Did they think they would not be prosecuted?
Did they think the punishment would be light to nonexistant?
Were they just caught up in the mob psychology and couldn’t resist looting even though they thought they might be punished later?
I’m not trying to make excuses, but to prevent this from happening in the future it would be helpful to understand why they looted. Dismissing the looting as caused by poverty is wrong. Dismissing it as simply due to the action of criminals is also wrong if a deeper analysis can help determine how to prevent it in the future. If political spin should not get in the way of developing better policy.
7t
These are crimes of opportunity. Mobs of criminals who see an easy score. The policy to prevent this is to allow the police to knock them up with clubs and stop trying to explain the pathetic excuses that they use to get away with this type of “robbery” because that is all it is. The function of government is to protect citizens from harm. Government is not scoring very well in this effort as long as two bit criminals can get a way with this and the police have to rely on grainy videos to capture suspects.
If you are looking for some happy warm answer…..it is not there.
Not wishing to cut the toerags any slack, but… don’t forget that the rioters were identified by police well after the ‘party’ was over, hardly anyone was arrested on the scene.
And as comes natural to cops, they use what info they have, which is somewhat biased towards said toerags who are repeat customers and thus have a mugshot/fingerprint/DNA sample on file.
Lots of people have not (and won’t be) touched for this one, and many of those caught are the ‘fanclub’ (and the slow and stupid) but not the actual ‘stars’ who organised and led the riots (and who carefully remembered to keep their face covered).
The police are aided not so much by the footage from the ubiquitous surveillance cameras, but by the fact that the ‘hoodies’ were rioting & reveling *right in front of the police*, who stood by & watched in impotent, bureaucratic emasculation, lest they be accused of over-reaction in trying to stop the class outpouring of social rage that could only be assuaged somehow by designer shoes & plasma tellys.
Someone who is not known to the police will not be so easily be identified, that would take local knowledge (which the cops no longer have) or someone informing (which can be deadly if you live on the wrong estate), provided the people who know them also see the mugshot in the paper/tv/ad and recognise who it is. That’s a lot of ‘iffs’.
So, by definition, the process is currently skewed towards catching the already known perps first and whilst I’m quite impressed by the work the cops do, I’m not surprised in the least at the result.
I also don’t think that the right is wrong to claim that criminals tend to commit crimes (duh) but, in this case, it’s a bit like saying that eating ice cream in Brighton causes death by drowning.
http://plbirnamwood.blogspot.com/2011/08/sir-max-hastings-attacks-british.html
How about the S&W method of rehabilitation programme – Smith and Wesson.
Three quarters, eh?
That says to me that a quarter of them got away with quite a bit before this.