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Violent Crime


Shaki

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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.

That aside, I'm still for a larger police presence, more CCTV and harsher sentencing to tackle violent crime.

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Nah, not getting old, just sensible. I'm only 19 and I would like to see all of those things. They can only lead to improvements.

It's true. There needs to be more police just wandering about, especially in key areas like George St and whatnot. There just doesn't seem to be many. Police just patrolling around would certainly improve things. Like at school. You wouldn't start a fight anywhere near a teacher on duty. You go to the top of the field for that, although the teachers still managed to catch wind of it, and sprint there before any real damage is done. If anyone ever caught the rumour that there was no teacher on duty that day, the big 'uns would be all over it, and would be kicking the first years football onto the roof, and filling their rucksacks with gravel.

Hell breaks loose when no one is in charge. Employ a bobby to walk up and down rough areas a few times a day. It'll be fine.

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But where is the evidence that these measures reduce violent crime?

There's a post a while back about an added police presence in the city centre which resulted in a reduction of offences (although Burrell possibly duped the stats). CCTV would catch more offences and potentially provide the police with more advanced warning of trouble kicking off. Harsher sentences would see violent offenders kicking each others heads in inside prison instead of pummelling your regular, law abiding citizens. If I had to choose one of the three I'd go for more police.

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There's a post a while back about an added police presence in the city centre which resulted in a reduction of offences (although Burrell possibly duped the stats). CCTV would catch more offences and potentially provide the police with more advanced warning of trouble kicking off. Harsher sentences would see violent offenders kicking each others heads in inside prison instead of pummelling your regular, law abiding citizens. If I had to choose one of the three I'd go for more police.

But we already have much more CCTV than the rest of Europe, along with one of the highest rates of violent crime. I don't think CCTV really does jack shit to be honest.

Also, tougher sentences don't seem to work as a deterant - just look at America.

A larger police presence might do the trick - but surely we should be looking at why people are kicking each others heads in in the first place, and trying to stop it more at the source?

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Guest Gladstone
Bigger polis might help, they seem to be getting smaller and younger by the day!

:up:

I made this comment the other day. The Olive Branch got broken into a week or two ago, and the police were in to look at our CCTV cameras (we're next door to the Olive Branch) to see if there was anything worth seeing.

One of them was a girl about 5'4" - really pretty and slight built. Now, she'll have had pretty good self-defence training and be able to take you down with a baton / CS spray / etc I'm sure. But, if some proper big hard fucker wants to take her out, he'll easily manage. Plus - you can imagine some pissed up bastard on Belmont Street on a Saturday night who needs to settle down a bit or whatever - if he's approached by a big 6 footer and told he needs to take a walk and chill the fuck out or whatever, that the chances are, he might just listen when confronted by a big menacing looking copper, but if some wee pretty lassie in a copper's uniform does the same, he'll more than likey just laugh and ask for her phone number. There's much more chance of trouble being diffused before anything really happens with the big hardy bloke copper.

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One of them was a girl about 5'4" - really pretty and slight built. Now, she'll have had pretty good self-defence training and be able to take you down with a baton / CS spray / etc I'm sure. But, if some proper big hard fucker wants to take her out, he'll easily manage. Plus - you can imagine some pissed up bastard on Belmont Street on a Saturday night who needs to settle down a bit or whatever - if he's approached by a big 6 footer and told he needs to take a walk and chill the fuck out or whatever, that the chances are, he might just listen when confronted by a big menacing looking copper, but if some wee pretty lassie in a copper's uniform does the same, he'll more than likey just laugh and ask for her phone number. There's much more chance of trouble being diffused before anything really happens with the big hardy bloke copper.

Maybe she's like Hooks from Police Academy and can rip everyone a new arsehole if push comes to shove?!

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Guest Gladstone
Maybe she's like Hooks from Police Academy and can rip everyone a new arsehole if push comes to shove?!

Maybe so, and I'm sure she's handy enough, but the point still remains that if a couple of big coppers with shovel hands and size 18 feet approaching a group of little shitebags will make them behave themselves with far less chance of them kicking off. That's a far better deterrant than the possibility that some small policewoman is able to kick the shit out of you if she needs to.

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Maybe so, and I'm sure she's handy enough, but the point still remains that if a couple of big coppers with shovel hands and size 18 feet approaching a group of little shitebags will make them behave themselves with far less chance of them kicking off. That's a far better deterrant than the possibility that some small policewoman is able to kick the shit out of you if she needs to.

Yeah, knuckledraggers would think twice about setting up cheek to a copper twice their size but would surely be more confident if it was someone smaller. I guess the flipside is they look daft when they get their heads busted by a midget.

I'd like to see an increased police presence. Even if it does kick off, having some coppers close at hand would difuse the situation before it escalated. There is always going to be violent crime as it just takes a wrong comment (or even looking at someone in the wrong way it seems) for a flashpoint so having authority close at hand could break up any trouble. Realistcally, it would be difficult to find the resource to have this in the surrounding areas to the town centre where there are also fights and muggings so perhaps introducing community wardens in some neighbourhoods may also assist.

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