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Violent Crime


Shaki

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Guest Gladstone
There is no more violence now than there has been, there is the perception of more violence, but that is almost certainly false. For example; the 50s Razor gangs prevalent and hard-man work culture at a peak, apprentices were frequently beaten, that shit would not fly now...Edwardian days to WWII, two world wars and many strikes for our rights, pummelling left, right and centre, Victorians!!? kids up chimneys, Rippers and death by Pie Ingredients, Georgian phase= Culloden, revolts, didn't you see what they did to Mad King George III, The Restoration? Fires, Plagues and Puritan bashing, the Intereggnum-Royalist bashing, Civil War on a mass scale, Stuarts killing Native Americans/slaves, Tudors offing each other and some monks, hanging for theft. Middle Ages-they executed one King by putting a red hot poker up his arse, what on earth did they do to peasants, Normans killing Saxons, Saxons killing music, everyone ganging up on idigenous Celts.

I reckon the level of violence is pretty steady, if not reduced.

You're right. We hear about the violence through the media more than we used to. There is also a lot of scare mongering by the media. I lived on King Street for 8 years, and almost always walked home after a night out. Not a whiff of trouble, and I sometimes did that walk whilst very drunk. I know I'm lucky to never have anything happen to me, because it does happen, but I don't think it's any worse than it used to be.

The fact that we're still shocked by something serious like a stabbing, or a really good beating, I think shows that we're still way behind other cities and countries. Take the US for example - a high school shooting is shrugged off every now and again. The most recent one has made big news because it was 4 coppers who got executed. Had it been 4 school kids, it wouldn't have got as much news. Shootings / stabbings in cities like London / Birmingham etc (obviously not comparable places to Aberdeen I guess) are reported all the time, which I think also increases this belief that our society is worse than it used to be.

If you tracked back a good few decades, you probably wouldn't have heard about some kid getting stabbed in Birmingham for example. But there have been a good few high profile violent attacks / murders in the UK over the past few years, which I think disproportionately increases people's fear of crime all over the country. Yes, it happens everywhere, but I really don't think it's as bad as it's made out to be (well, not as frequent is a more appropriate way of putting it - some guy getting dragged out of his car and beaten half to death and getting a broom handle shoved up him is fucking atrocious).

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And right on cue...

Aberdeen golfing champion attacked by two men - Evening Express

I live in Rosemount and often walk home from nights out. Thankfully I've never had any bother but you just need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for some knuckledragger to try a cheap shot. Pretty sickening stuff at times and gets even worse when you hear a lot of it being unprovoked. The EE recently reported two lads aged around 18 being sent down for a few months each for being the shit out of someone and the only reason they had for it was one of them fancied a fight that evening. Totally mindless.

I agree with Tubthumper about how it is wrong prisoners get TV's, consoles and such like in jail. Surely prison is a place you serve hard time and somewhere you don't want to go back to? However, in return for ruining someone's life you get luxuries?! Something is seriously wrong there.

I've mentioned this to a number of people when discussing prison, etc...

Back in 2004 during a school visit to Craiginches, the chief prison officer took us outside into the rec area and proceeded to tell us that the prison had just paid 5,000+ to install an astroturf pitch for them to play football on whilst just about 100 yards away, there was a need for a camera to monitor the pavement on the outside of the wall due to folk throwing drugs over. The camera wasn't going to be installed because it would cost too much money. I mean, wtf?

Upon seeing the rest of the prison, Craiginches is fucking cushty if you're a junkie or just a violent twat who needs a home and an easy place to score some drugs.

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Guest Gladstone
And right on cue...

Aberdeen golfing champion attacked by two men - Evening Express

I live in Rosemount and often walk home from nights out. Thankfully I've never had any bother but you just need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for some knuckledragger to try a cheap shot. Pretty sickening stuff at times and gets even worse when you hear a lot of it being unprovoked. The EE recently reported two lads aged around 18 being sent down for a few months each for being the shit out of someone and the only reason they had for it was one of them fancied a fight that evening. Totally mindless.

I agree with Tubthumper about how it is wrong prisoners get TV's, consoles and such like in jail. Surely prison is a place you serve hard time and somewhere you don't want to go back to? However, in return for ruining someone's life you get luxuries?! Something is seriously wrong there.

I have pretty strong feelings about the prison system in our country - it's an absolute joke. The guys that land up in Craiginches are all just there for a few weeks at a time, and it's just a gathering of mates. They don't serve anything like "hard" time up there. It's a fucking joke.

As much as I like the fuzzy warm idea of rehabilitation, what these fuckers need is some discipline. Make them work hard when they're in prison. Any luxuries (if they get any at all), should be limited to something as simple as a TV, and has to be properly earned through a combination of good behaviour and hard work. Prisoners should be allowed access to books, instead of mindless TV/computer games etc. I do strongly believe that a stint of disciplined hard work would do far more to "rehabilitate" an offender than mollycoddling them will do. And, it should also have a "fear" factor in it as well. The accommodation should be very basic, and not particularly comfortable. They should have to work solid 12 hour shifts etc. and not get to piss about in there at all.

People are far too afraid of breaching someone's human rights these days.

To cite a much higher profile example - the Bulger murderers. These are 2 kids from council estates in Liverpool with very little prospects. They horrifically murder a 3 year old kid - one of the most brutal murders I can remember. The opportunities that these kids got in return for ending little Jamie's life so brutally, was to be plucked out of those council estates, and given luxuries such as playstations in their rooms etc. a decent education, and a completely new life when the reached adulthood. I know they were only 10/11 when they did it, and you can't really send kids that age into hard labour, but what sort of message does that convey to other 10 year olds in council estates with little or no prospects? The quickest way out of this shit hole is to kill a child??

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I lived on King Street for 8 years, and almost always walked home after a night out. Not a whiff of trouble, and I sometimes did that walk whilst very drunk. I know I'm lucky to never have anything happen to me, because it does happen, but I don't think it's any worse than it used to be.

Ive never thought of King street to be a very bad part of town after a night out, am I wrong?, most the things Ive heard or seen have been up town.

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The thing is, to take away the prison luxuries they are used to now, would probably be seen as more of an infringement on their human rights than not letting them have them in the first place! Mental. I wouldn't mind starting a petition, as I'm sure it would get a lot of support nationwide, but it would never be implemented.

Plus, any media coverage gained would ultimately end up with being on the receiving end of the cunts just out of prison who saw you on their 50 inch widescreen TVs while they were inside. D'oh!

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Guest Gladstone
Ive never thought of King street to be a very bad part of town after a night out, am I wrong?, most the things Ive heard or seen have been up town.

No, it's not a bad part at all, but I used to walk home from say Belmont Street, by myself, pished, up Upper Kirkgate, down Littlejohn Street, through Morrison's car park, up St. Clair Street then up King Street. There are plenty of dodgers going about, and Morrisons car park / St. Clair Street would be ideal mugging territory, and I have heard of people being attacked in the car park. There are also some real dodgy streets just off King Street (Jasmine Terrace and Summerfield Terrace have quite a bad name).

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Guest Gladstone

Shite - I just realised why you were asking... Hope I haven't scared you into getting taxis home...

I haven't heard of anyone that I know getting any trouble walking home to King Street. I occasionally walked home the George Street way, the Gallowgate way to Mounthooly, and up the Spital, right up Union Street/King Street etc. and never experienced any bother whatsoever. I did avoid the dark path up the side of Morrisons - where the entrance / cash bank etc is, because if someone happened to be in that bit, there'd be nowhere to go.

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I reckon the majority of people in prison are just poor unfortunate souls who were at a disadvantage right from birth. Broken homes, drug habits, poverty, no education etc. Most of them wouldn't hurt a fly. They'd nick your fly in a second if you had one of course. It would be a bit unreasonable to subject these people to 23 hour lock down when their stints doing bird (check me being all Danny Dyer) are their best chance of having some resmeblence of a 'normal' routine. However, I do agree that acts of violence should be punished severely. The legal system unfotunately isn't set up to allow differing punishments depending on the crime.

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Guest Gladstone
The legal system unfotunately isn't set up to allow differing punishments depending on the crime.

Yes it is.

The Sheriff can dish out whatever punishment he sees fit, from prison sentence, community service, fine, compensation. Community Service Orders have quite a bit of variation within them as well. It's something that isn't well enough utilised in my opinion. The kind of lost souls you talk about are the kinds that should be rehabilitated, and encouraged to gain skills that could see them further themselves and perhaps earn their way rather than steal their way through life. A bit of community service for these types would be far better than throwing them in jail to rot away and/or get influenced by other "bad" people.

But, regardless of the crime, if a sheriff sees it fit for you to be chucked in the slammer, it shouldn't be a fucking easy time in there. There should be at least an element of deterrance involved.

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Aye, right enough. Wrong wording... I meant more the prison system. i.e. you can't have each prisoner with a different level of comfort depending on what they've done. Shoplifting gets you all the trimmings, manslaughter gets you an Xbox, Murder the same but no Fifa10, Pedophilia gets you a PS3, etc.

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My walk home has been up King Street (and aforementioned Schoolhill, Littlejohn St, Morrisons car park, St Clair St) for the last 6 years or so and the only trouble I have ever encountered is a tiny drunk girl trying very hard but failing to beat up her boyfriend. I consider myself lucky but it always seems so pointless to take a taxi such a small distance- the older I get the more cautious I am though.

I don't believe all these people who bleat on about Aberdeen being a "no-go zone" after 10 o'clock- it's no different to any other place in the UK. One of my friends is very easily intimidated and she will quite happily go for a night out in Aberdeen.

I read (in the P&J) that at the recent forum/meeting someone suggested locking the city down past 12am. It was only briefly mentioned and obviously wasn't given any serious consideration but it made me quite mad, especially since the reason we are entertaining Donald Trump is to show that Aberdeen is "open for business".

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If that works then why only continue it over the festive period? (resources I would imagine). I'm all for more CCTV to prevent/assist in solving assaults. If you're not doing anything illegal then there's no need to worry!

As well as the physical damage that the victims recover from I imagine there is longer lasting psychological damage. Would think it would be quite traumatic being booted unconscious.

I want a larger police presence, tougher sentencing and more CCTV. I must be getting old.

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I want a larger police presence, tougher sentencing and more CCTV. .

What?, any more intrusive and it'll be Stasi-Land, and, as we live in actually less violent times*, all this does is lends succour to is the fear industry, it exists, and its out to scare YOU!! Then, as there is an industry to support, perhaps with some directorships for ex-MPs in mind, new offences must be created. Did Magna Carta die in vain, etc etc.

I don't want any of that crap that they don't seem to need in more civilised European countries, and I don't believe that we in the UK are more raj than, say ,the Norwegians or Danes with their crazy Viking heritage, but we are more easily gulled by some scare stories, by nasty right wing meeja types.

Safe weekend y'all.

*as I 'proved' earlier.

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What?, any more intrusive and it'll be Stasi-Land, and, as we live in actually less violent times*, all this does is lends succour to is the fear industry, it exists, and its out to scare YOU!! Then, as there is an industry to support, perhaps with some directorships for ex-MPs in mind, new offences must be created. Did Magna Carta die in vain, etc etc.

I don't want any of that crap that they don't seem to need in more civilised European countries, and I don't believe that we in the UK are more raj than, say ,the Norwegians or Danes with their crazy Viking heritage, but we are more easily gulled by some scare stories, by nasty right wing meeja types.

Safe weekend y'all.

*as I 'proved' earlier.

I disagree, apart from your observation that there are more civilised European countries. I think you're being lefty for lefty's sake and not entirely serious. People are being violently attacked, often at random, it exists! Prevent it!

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Where is the proof that things like tougher sentencing, more cctv etc. help lower violent crime? Does the death sentence (a rather tough punishment in my view) in the US lower crime there? Does the fact that we have more CCTV than the rest of Europe put together help lower crime here?

I think the main problem, as has been noted, is our pathalogical fear of crime. For examle, whilst we do have one of the highest rates of violoent crime in Europe, so does Norway, which is consitently found to have one of the happiest populations in the world. Fear of crime and actual crime are not always linked.

Tougher sentencing, more cctv etc. seems like a sensible, common sense answer to the lowering of crime, but I am yet to be convinced by an argument that it actually works.

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In my opinion it is about trying to prevent violent crime, but also - and to a greater extent - that people who commit this kind of crime desrve their comeuppence. It's everywhere in the media: brutal gang violence being punished by relatively meagre fines as well as non-punishments like "being told to behave" as was highlighted in a prior post. These people need to be caught and taught a proper ruddy lesson about their actions as in many cases this crime is completely barbaric and unacceptable in contemporary society. If people are taught a good old lesson, and this is is done regularly and consistently, the frequency of violent crime will deteriorate to some degree. That is why I too believe CCTV and police presence should be increased as there are few more resources that can be utilised; unless the police begin commending violent vigilantism...?

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I think you're being lefty for lefty's sake

Unfortunately spatial metaphors are incapable of capturing the nuances of the civil liberties debate*, which is why I used a (nominally) left wing example ie. the Stasi, not the Gestapo or some such. There are plenty of Left Wing authoritarians** just dying to run the world, and in many ways they are to be feared as much, if not more than their opposite-handed brethren, because they would enslave us out of love, and as Isiah Berlin pointed out. anything can be justified in pursuit of utopia, and so greater atrocities are committed en route to the New Jerusalem.

So while I agree with much of the socio-economic paradigms of socialism, they MUST ALWAYS be balanced with reasonable*** freedom of individual action, and thought.****

* Pretentious, Moi? But its a great line, adapted from Illuminatus! Best Book Ever.

**CUNTS, the lot of them

*** Which we do not have, we are still imbalanced in favour of authority.

*** *Not equatable with the dogmatic half and ex-truths pedalled by the SWP/CPGB/Leftist faction of choice.

Jebus, didn't mean to indulge in such a seriousthon, er balls.

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