wrote in message
oups.com...

snip

Tim, how many hours of your life have you spent in a Youth Court?

None, but ...

I have recently been appointed Prosecution Counsel for 3 months to the
Inner London Youth Courts

.... I see that you will know as well as I do, that committing crime is not a
right.

Of course I am not realistically suggesting birching youths (although I
personally do not have any philosophical objections to corporal
punishment), but you would regard with incredulity just how RARE it is
for a youth, whatever the crime, to be given a custodial sentence.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't go with any kind of corporal
punishment, if only because it gives the crims the idea that beating folks
up is OK.

We certainly have "due process" (and you would, I hope, be impressed by
how impartial and fair Court proceedings are, especially if I'm
prosecuting - I certainly adhere to the principle that it's better that
10 guilty men go free than one innocent man is convicted, and do not
hesitate to drop cases when appropriate), the trouble is it's just a
conveyor belt of crime, prosectution, meanlingless sentence, crime,
prosecution, meanlingless sentence etc., etc. Deterrence plays no part
whatsoever.

IANAL and all that, but AFAIK the Youth system is different, no? Because of,
presumably, the age of the youths concerned. I suspect that we both agree
that robbery is not an acceptable form of behaviour - graffiti is more of an
irritant, but robbery is to my mind abuse of personal property and out of
order.

We both would prefer that such things don't happen, but the problem is: how
do you deter, if you're going to go down that road? To get a real grip would
involve more than taking folks through the court system. By the time they
arrive in your neck of the woods, in many cases the damage is done and the
chance of getting them to desist overnight is therefore slim. But equally I
don't go with the US idea of warehousing the criminally inclined, as this
really doesn't work, seemingly on any level.

Part of street crime has to do with the aquisition of money to pay for
expensive habits involving substances that have over time been decreed to be
illegal - anyone trying to address that issue will get nowhere while the
righteous end of the press won't allow anyone to discuss it without
screaming "softie". Part of it no doubt is to aquire money to pay for the
keeping up with everyone else that has certain gizmos, labels, whatever.
That, I'm afraid, is part of the obsessions of modern society. And part of
it may well just be for sad young men and women to prove that they're big
and hard. None of these are easy, uncomplicated and/or black and white
issues.

Any of that being addressed by locking up the culprits won't stop the next
such crime. And the next. And so on.

At this point I'm always reminded of the time (by definition many years ago)
when Bob Wilson, then a pundit for ITV Sport, went to Nottingham Forest to
get his ritual lecture from Cloughie on football, life and the rest. Wilson
asked the great man "Brian, what about all the hooliganism - what can we do
about it?". Cloughie leaned forward and replied quietly "Starts at home,
young man".

He was right. There has to be a process in any person's formative years
whereby they understand that certain behaviours are acceptable, and certain
others are not. The idea that the justice system is a catch-all that will
straighten out everyone who misses out on that process is dangerously
simplistic.

That might not stop the creeps spraying trains, or turning up on your manor
tomorrow, but what did you expect - a happy ending? g

--
Tim

Fly Monarch Airlines - feed that paranoia

John Mara wrote:
wrote:




That's a curious interpretation of the duty of government! My house is
private property too, but I'd be pretty shocked if I were told that
someone who vandalised it would not be searched for or prosecuted
because it was private property and therefore my duty to find and
obtain redress privately.

I would not be at all shocked if the police took a report, gave you a
copy for your insurance company, and filed the report away.


Yes, of course that's what they'd do, but it's not the same as saying
(as I thought you were) "sorry, that's private property - none of the
state's business." Maybe I misinterpreted what you said but.....


John, you misunderstand the purpose of the criminal justice system. It
is not to obtain redress between citizens - which is why compensation
is rarely paid and only in nominal sums.

I understand the purpose of the criminal justice system. I am saying
that privatization looks good on paper because many costs are still
borne by the taxpayers. The railway companies do not provide adequate
security for their facilities and they expect the government to make up
for their lack of effort.


Surely the cost of prosecuting (and preventing crime in general) is
borne by the taxpayer whether the property concerned is publicly-owned
(as it would be if the railways were still nationalised) or privately
owned. I understand your concerns over privatisation of the railways,
and probably agree with your view of that, but what has this got to do
with the state prosecuting criminals?


Marc.

John Mara wrote:
SNIP
I understand the purpose of the criminal justice system. I am saying
that privatization looks good on paper because many costs are still
borne by the taxpayers. The railway companies do not provide adequate
security for their facilities and they expect the government to make up
for their lack of effort.

Given that rail companies have to pay directly for the services of BTP
whereas comparable non rail transport companies have the services of
home office forces for free, I would think that rail is a bad example
to use to promote this theory.

George

wrote:

Surely the cost of prosecuting (and preventing crime in general) is
borne by the taxpayer whether the property concerned is publicly-owned
(as it would be if the railways were still nationalised) or privately
owned. I understand your concerns over privatisation of the railways,
and probably agree with your view of that, but what has this got to do
with the state prosecuting criminals?

I guess I was looking at it more from the policing side than the
prosecution side. Did British Rail have railway police? Do the new
private companies have their own police?

As far a getting rid of graffiti goes, the New York City Transit
Authority got rid of graffiti by cleaning it up as soon as it happened.
There were graffiti cleaning crews at most terminals. I was once on a
train which had some fresh graffiti on one side. I was sitting in the
first car so I overheard the radio conversation between the train
operator and the dispatcher. We had to wait for the other terminal
track to open up so that the graffiti would be on the platform side
where the cleaners could get at it. On the other hand, NYCTA has had no
luck at dealing with window scratching. I suppose replacing the window
every time would be too expensive. I wonder if the scratch repair
products used on car windshields would work.

John Mara

In message .com, at
08:51:12 on Sun, 3 Sep 2006, furnessvale remarked:
Given that rail companies have to pay directly for the services of BTP
whereas comparable non rail transport companies have the services of
home office forces for free

Gosh, did Gordon reduce business rates to zero while I wasn't watching?
--
Roland Perry

"John Mara" wrote

I guess I was looking at it more from the policing side than the
prosecution side. Did British Rail have railway police? Do the new
private companies have their own police?

British Transport Police are a national police force, funded by the rail
industry. They predated British Rail, and trace their history back to 1826,
making them one of the oldest police forces in the world.

http://www.btp.police.uk/History%20S...ety%20Main.htm

Peter

On Sun, 03 Sep 2006 12:51:42 +0100 someone who may be asdf
wrote this:-

However, it might be worth glueing these scumbags to the front of a
train and taking them for a ride they are unlikely to forget,
perhaps between London and some place an hour or so away. They might
not be keen to repeat such an experience.

Are you joking? Some people would pay good money for that!

No problem, they can be stuck on the front too. The insurance
premiums would probably mean it was rather expensive though.

I doubt if many enthusiasts would damage the trains they are
enthusiastic about in order to get a free experience.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On 3 Sep 2006 03:52:24 -0700 someone who may be "jonmorris"
wrote this:-

It's not even easy to report a crime these days. The desk staff (often
completely civilian)

Unless things have changed recently, without my noticing it, police
officers are still civilians.

Of course some police officers do demonstrate a wish not to be
civilians. Prancing around with larger and larger guns, increasingly
masked and so on.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

"John Mara" wrote in message
...

As far a getting rid of graffiti goes, the New York City Transit Authority
got rid of graffiti by cleaning it up as soon as it happened. There were
graffiti cleaning crews at most terminals. I was once on a train which
had some fresh graffiti on one side. I was sitting in the first car so I
overheard the radio conversation between the train operator and the
dispatcher.

Hopefully not "Pelham 123, come in please" g

We had to wait for the other terminal track to open up so that the
graffiti would be on the platform side where the cleaners could get at it.

This seemed to be the approach taken by the Barcelona Metro - you had to be
sharp to see graffiti. It was dealt with as a priority. The only evidence of
vandalism you *could* see was ...

On the other hand, NYCTA has had no luck at dealing with window
scratching.

.... yep, you got it.

--
Tim

Fly Monarch Airlines - feed that paranoia

"Pyromancer" wrote in message
...

Graffiti scum should be birched, hard. That's what they do in
Singapore, and it does work, remember all the hue and cry a few years
ago when they were going to birch an American boy who thought he was
above their laws? They have very little anti-social behaviour, simply
because they punish those who try it, in a harsh, painful, way. It's
quick, cheap, and doesn't cause any significant lasting damage.

Fine. I look forward to your spending some time out there. Once you've
been
found in the wrong part of Singapore at the wrong time, been the victim of
mistaken identity, or otherwise found to have transgressed, and have had
the
crap officially and ritually beaten out of you, by all means come back and
tell us how wonderful it was. Some societies are prepared to tolerate a
regime like that in Singapore - the UK wouldn't.

I would have no problem going there if a suitable job happened to come
up - in fact I'll probably go there eventually as a tourist as my
parents spent time there in the 1960s. As for avoiding trouble, it's
easy, just don't break the law.

Yes, those nice men from Forest Gate would no doubt agree with you, as would
all manner of unfortunate Irishmen over the years. What if the Singaporeans
have an official dislike of all things Goth? Or a downer on rail enthusiasts
celebrating anything Hellfire? Who knows, in a society where chewing gum is
frowned upon.

Noticeable that the example of how wonderful harsh punishment can be is
not
Saudi Arabia, where, despite a regime which includes public execution, the
crime rate is far worse than in the UK.

We're specifically talking about anti-social behaviour, especially the
evils of graffiti.

Of course, terrorism and murder are a mere sideshow when the main event is,
er, graffiti. Does anyone realise just how potty this kind of argument
sounds? Let's ignore the elephants and kick seven shades out of a few mice.

Saudi Arabia has it's own unique problems, and is
hardly a valid like-for-like comparison with a secular western
democracy.

Like the USA, perchance? Capital punishment, and warehousing of the
criminally inclined, yet crime just carries right on.

Far
better that sending them to a cushy jail where as you say, they just
learn how to do more crimes while enjoying all the "rights" we insist on
giving them, and costing about 12k a year (or is it 20k?) per prisoner
to run.

I've never been to jail, so whether they are "cushy" I don't know.

There are many news reports on the subject

And you haven't been there either.

--
Tim

Fly Monarch Airlines - feed that paranoia