Riots, Crime and Society

Not entirely unpredictably, I see that the Green MP Caroline Lucas is talking some foolishness about the riots:-

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has said "unrestrained capitalism" created social divisions which were partly to blame for August's riots.

Ms Lucas told her party conference that the government's "repressive crackdown" on those responsible for the disorder would "solve nothing".
Underlying issues such as lack of jobs and wage inequalities must be tackled, activists in Sheffield heard.

What sparked this post was a thought as I started swimming: Had I locked the car*? And you know, I realised that it just didn't matter. Because I honestly can't recall the last time that someone told me that their car stereo had been stolen. Part of the reason for that is the security that's built in (removing the stereo means you need a code), and part of that is that stereos are so cheap that they aren't worth stealing/fencing. Put together, that's a big disincentive to steal car radios.

You can also look at house crimes. Burglary is way down from where it was about a decade ago, and that's mostly down to the fact that DVD players got cheaper. Not Blair fighting the causes of crime, or crime itself, but that DVD players just got dirt cheap, so no-one was going to buy one second hand.

And if you look at the crimes, no-one, despite their value, stole iPhones. That's because they can be locked-out and rendered useless very quickly.

So what I'm trying to say here is that we have already seen that incentives affect criminality. We can see that criminals actually act quite rationally. It's not worth nicking a £50 stereo to get £10 fencing it when you're risking a criminal sentence.

Now, let's assume that the security at those shops during the riots had shotguns. A few carfulls arrive at the scene and they start pointing them at the looters. What happens next? Well, they're going to stop looting, aren't they. And to go one stage further, if people thought about getting some looting going, would they risk going down to JJB to grab some sports gear if they thought people might have shotguns?

But the part of me that doesn't want everyone carrying guns prefers another approach: the Citizen's Income. If people earn an amount of money that just about sustains them, but that doesn't disincentivise working, then they'll work. For quite a few grand they'll have it without tax. And the key thing about this working is that they'll want to keep their noses clean, because a criminal record will discourage people from hiring them.

The more I look at things in the country, the more I realise that things like not having LVT and CI are causing a huge amount of damage in terms of national productivity.

Police

The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, last week warned that crime and anti-social behaviour were likely to increase if the police had to reduce officer numbers as a result of spending cuts.

Look, the only reason we bother to call you if something gets nicked is to get a crime number for insurance purposes. We know that it's going to make sod all difference to our goods being found again. The idea that crime, despite the police being completely incompetent at solving most of it, is going to go up because of a few spending cuts is just laughable.

Government to Roll Back 24 Hour Drinking

From the Daily Hate:-

A war on Booze Britain will dismantle Labour's failed 24-hour drinking laws and ban the sale of dirt-cheap alcohol.

Nice. Poor people have to pay more for booze. Bastards.

Ministers are to introduce powers to stem the drink-fuelled violence which has turned town centres into 'wild west' zones.

Town centres have not been turned into "wild west" zones or "no go" areas since 24 hour drinking. They were always full of pissheads, have been for 20 years.

They hope this will herald the return of the traditional pub, in which the public can drink without fear of assault or abuse.

Almost no trouble takes place in pubs. You have to go to the roughest pub in town to find a fight, which are rarely your young person's pub. The violence happens after the pubs kick out.

Crucially, town halls will be able to reinstate traditional closing times in areas where late-night opening, introduced by the last government in 2005, is causing havoc.

It's not causing havoc. Statistically, violence has fallen since 24 hour drinking was introduced. It's only at one period in the night that violence has gone up (around 3am), and that's a very small number of overnight alcohol-related crimes.

Labour had claimed that more relaxed opening times would lead to a continental-style 'cafe culture'. But ministers say this has been proved a nonsense. 

In future, bars that do stay open late will have to pay a levy to put extra police on the streets.

Alcohol duty more than pays for the health and policing costs, so it's completely unnecessary, and just a tax on people who want to drink later, for no other reason than because you can.

Supermarkets will be barred from selling alcohol for less than cost price. And pubs which sell drink to children repeatedly will be shut down.

I'd sort of assumed that that's why we have licenses. That people who repeatedly break the law get it taken away. But enforcing the law seems like a good idea, if it happens (I have my doubts).

Supermarkets began selling alcohol cheaper than bottled water, as stores used drink as a so-called loss leader to lure in customers.

That's bollocks. They sell the cheapest own brand lager for less than highly branded bottled waters. Compare like with like and they don't. And I doubt that Supermarkets actually sell booze at a loss (or much of a loss). You can buy the booze for sale in Sainsburys at the same price in their wine store, where you're only buying that booze, so it doesn't act as a loss-leader there.

But police warned it was falling into the hands of the young, who used it to ‘preload’, before going drunk to town centres.

Firstly, supermarkets are very hot on selling to the young. It's the last place that young people go because they know that they'll probably get asked for ID. Secondly, you can't preload on the cheap Tesco Value Lager 2% pisswater. By the time you get to town, most of it is out of your system.

Some retailers are likely to protest, but officials said they had the chance to behave responsibly and did not take it.

They won't protest. The government has just legislated the price to cost. They can get richer without fearing competition so much.

Rank-and-file police say the combination of late opening and ‘pre-loading’ has stretched their resources to breaking point, warning that some town centres have been turned into the ‘wild west’.

Stretching their resources to breaking point? The 3 or 4 coppers I see out in the Town Centre every Saturday night? How many police do you actually have?

‘The Government believes that the power to make licensing decisions needs to be rebalanced in favour of local communities, so that they can decide on the night-time economy they want.’

Which would go about as well as Pickles' housing plan - in other words, no-one would want any clubs near their houses.

Labour had made it hard for councils to refuse late-night licences. In particular, town halls could not refuse a pub a licence on the grounds that a street or town centre was saturated with bars and clubs.

This Government wants the situation reversed, in favour of councils fixing opening times. A bar could be turned down if homes were surrounded by pubs.

That's called competition. And what the hell else are you going to put in town centre shop premises now that the internet and large supermarkets have wiped out so many shops?

In some areas, locals could reinstate traditional closing times.

Which will simply bring back the old problem of hard drinking until 11pm, followed by lots of cold, pissed people waiting for taxis, and violence to follow.

The late-night levy would hit bars which stay open after midnight. Cash will be paid into a pot held by councils, which can plough the money into extra policing or improving life for nearby residents.

Or pissed away on their pet projects...

It is hoped the threat of ‘meaningful’ penalties which could run into thousands, will persuade rowdy pubs to change their ways.

We're going to penalise pubs for their drinkers? Which pub do you penalise when someone goes to 3 or 4 pubs in a night? The first, or the last? Pubs will just pay into the council's pet project fund and pass the cost onto drinkers.

Late opening accounts for about a quarter of the police’s £400million overtime bill.

Which is more than covered by the billions in alcohol duty.

Taxes will also be imposed on strong lagers blamed for problem drinking. Last night, Mr Brokenshire said: 'We will overhaul the Licensing Act to give local authorities and the police much stronger powers to remove licences from, or refuse to grant licences to, any premises that are causing problems.

And when you tax strong lager, drinkers will just switch to strong cider, spirits, whatever....

'We will toughen the sanctions for those premises found to be persistently selling alcohol to children and will allow local councils to charge more for late-night licences, which in turn will raise money for extra policing. We will also ban the below-cost sale of alcohol.’

Belatedly, Gordon Brown did acknowledge 24-hour drinking had failed. He ordered a review of the policy. But all it recommended was a three-hour reduction in opening times in problem areas.

That's not actually true. He called a review to address public concern, and to see if it was working.

It's a pity the government is going to reverse one of Labour's few good policies, while leaving the disastrous smoking ban legislation in place.

Ah Polly

From today's Graun:

Labour appears to have done well. When Jacqui Smith boasted there was less risk of becoming a victim of crime at any time since records began, she was not far out. On Labour's watch, crime fell by about 40%; property crime was halved. Last year violent crime fell 6%, marking a 20-year low in homicide.

Thing is that it had almost nothing to do with Labour. If you want to credit anyone with the falling rate of property crime, it's the Chinese. When DVD players and freeview boxes are £20 retail, how much are you going to get down the pub for a stolen one?

Scouting and Knives

From The Telegraph:-

New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in "specific" situations.

Civilisation in the UK is officially over.

Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the safe use of blades, wrote that the growing problem of knife crime meant action had to be taken.

"Sadly, there is now confusion about when a Scout is allowed to carry a knife," he wrote. "The series of high-profile fatal stabbings [has] highlighted a growing knife culture in the UK.

"I think it is safest to assume that knives of any sort should not be carried by anybody to a Scout meeting or camp, unless there is likely to be a specific need for one. In that case, they should be kept by the Scout leaders and handed out as required."

Oh for fucks sake.

When I was at school at about the age of 8 or 9, about half the boys at school had penknives. I seem to remember that taking one out in a lesson might get it confiscated and that was the end of it. Number of kids who got stabbed that I knew? None. Number of kids who got stabbed in my town growing up? None.

To paint another part of the picture of the fucking dangerous shit that they allowed us in the 1980s, I was a member of a school rifle club at 15. And these weren't little air rifles but .22s. A couple of mates were in the ATC and shot .303s after school.

I never was a scout, but wasn't getting out there and making knots and learning manly stuff like how to make fire part of the point? And yes, this stuff has an element of risk to it.

Gun and knife crime have absolutely nothing to do with the vast majority of kids who used to keep knives or shoot guns. They are about ill-disciplined children and the gang culture that comes from the stupid war on drugs. Getting rid of the guns and the knives isn't going to solve much of this, but dealing with personal responsibility and the war on drugs will.

CCTV

OK, set aside the question of privacy, should we have so many of these? From The Telegraph:-

Fewer than one crime is solved by every 1,000 closed circuit television cameras, the Metropolitan Police, Britain's biggest police force, has admitted.

So, to solve one crime, we have to fit, install and support 1,000 CCTV cameras? How much does that cost?

A large proportion of the cash has been In London, where an estimated £200 million so far has been spent on the cameras. This suggests that each crime has cost £20,000 to detect.

I can't help thinking that maybe hiring a few more coppers on the street might be more effective.