Make the turn!Well said Chicago. Two good posts there. From out you can see where we are heading. It's pretty scary. But what's the solution?
This is why the change has to come from above, to enable those on the street, and in middle management bureaucratic/political positions to take the necessary steps to curtail the devolving situation.The police are broadly useless bar a few teams doing sterling work. Problem is in beat coppers and in management.
Their numbers and powers have been weakened and credibility has been lost.
Every stop and search is filmed on camera phones and challenged by mobs.
It’s bleak out there in many cities
Make the turn!
Strong statement of intent from government to build more, and better, prisons.
Make the statement that Britain cannot allow itself to go through this spiral without corrective measures to right the ship.
And, start enforcing sentencing guidelines firmly, without all the ameliorating factors the lawyers make up to make their client seem like a choir boy who had a bad day!
I do like how police call an 18 yr old offender a “man” as opposed to “teenager,” though. Here, that is reserved for over 21s, due to a stupid drinking age! (Another story)
Also, allow criminal history to be used as a bludgeon tool in sentencing, even if not allowed in evidence at trial.
ThisI think the problem is?! When he looked at how many people he would have to send to prison he had to change tact! There is not enough prison places to accommodate them! That is the bottom line, why the fuck they don't build more prisons is beyond me!
The “everyone tries to be Mr Big” point is pertinent. There are seemingly no Mr Bigs anymore, and any of the many Mr Big wannabes out there don’t have a clue how to be a Mr Big.Like rust, the decay works it’s way up, from the inside out, and if you don’t nip it, it gets progressively more ugly and expensive.
Crime, in general, is getting more and more violent in the UK. GMP happy to display the 120 guns they gave confiscated this year, but it only represents a scratch on the surface of what must be out there.
UK crime seems to have exploded within the 18-25 crowd, as everyone tries to be Mr Big, and it will only get worse when people realize the downside is so paltry.
A knife is a deadly weapon, just like a gun. Carrying one might be for self-protection, but the fact that you have it implied you are willing to use it. What if you’re punched? Straight to the knife? What if the other lad, or one of his mates, has one? Two dead? More? Or maybe just a few slashed faces? After all, who doesn’t want one of those after a night out and a bit of an argument outside the bar?!
Britain is slowly dissolving in its own toxic stew of underprivileged, undereducated, underemployed young men looking to “be” someone.
When I come over, I see the amount of “reality TV” bigging up the plastic steroid using muscle bound losers who always seem to get the trout pout, fake tits, make up plastered whores with their 3 inch nails and 6 inch heels, and I die a little inside at what is being held up as some “ideal” or “success.” In fact, it’s hard to tell one from the other, as they all meld into the same looking person, a la the Kardashians!
It pervades social media and the tabloids and it makes it seem like that is what success looks like, because it certainly appears to bring them money and the “Hollywood” lifestyle. So, in their own warped way, these kids, who often have very little, have to find a way to be more, be bigger, be badder, and be repped on the street, and can’t be seen to be backing down. Hence, bring an “equalizer” to the game.
It’s sad to see what is becoming of Blighty, but the desirable places seem to be getting more desirable and out of reach of most, while the less desirable places seem to be trying to slap a pretty veneer on themselves while they slowly decay from the inside.
Cue the “Yeah, but what about (fill in the American jibe here)”
Mothers of murdered kids in the high knife crime areas have been as high up as being in meetings with numerous Police Chiefs and Home Secretaries over multiple Cabinets and Government terms, and have actively asked for much greater Stop-and-Search in their areas from the Police.Same communities complaining about stop and search are the ones complaining the police are not stopping and searching enough with regard to knives. Feel sorry for the police. Instead of asking why the police are stop and searching so many young black men we should be asking instead why so many young black men are denied opportunity and end up as suspects/criminals. That's the real institutionalised racism in this country, not the policing (imho).