A Home Office spokesperson explains why:
"No-one should be in any doubt of the consequences of carrying a knife. If you do so, you are now more much likely to get caught. When you're caught, you're more likely to be prosecuted. And if found guilty, you're more likely to go to prison."
So there are three stages to this; being caught; being prosecuted; and being sent to jail. Assigning probabilities to each of those three stages, your typical hoodie knows that the probability of each is, let's say, 50%, i.e. if you carry a knife, the chances of being sent to jail are 12.5%, or one-in-eight. Assuming that "more likely" means "a 55% probability", the chances now rocket to ... er ... 16.6%, or about one-in-six.
The peer pressure on these murderous little shits is so enormous, I doubt whether the fact that their chances of being jailed has increased by 4%, or about one-in-twenty five, is going to make the slightest bit of difference.
Twats.
UPDATE: Knirirr makes a good point. If they lock away 166 offenders in every 1,000 instead of only 125, and seeing as jails are 'full', that means the sentence they can expect is reduced automatically by a quarter anyway, i.e. 125 x 12 months = 1,500 jail-months; 1,500 jail-months ÷ 166 convicts = 9 months each.
Thursday, 16 October 2008
"Jail not deterring knife crime"
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9 comments:
It's also possible that they're not really scared by the thought of going to jail even if they are caught.
Working on the carrying of knives is likely to make only small improvements. We need to work on the reasons why they carry knives.
To get you started: youth unemployment, hopelessness, lack of positive role models...
M, sure. The MW manifesto includes, variously; getting rid of financial inducements for single mothers; locking criminals up for much, much longer; improving education system (preferably via vouchers); reducing means testing to get rid of welfare trap; getting rid of VAT and Employer's NI to boost economy and job creation; deporting foreign criminals; scrapping National Minimum Wage and so-called equal-opportunities legislation (that harms those it is mean to help); scrapping race relations industry (which encourages sense of hopelessness and victim status rather than self-reliance); etc etc.
But it will take decades for these policies to turn the ship around, I am afraid.
But it will take decades for these policies to turn the ship around...
Yes, indeed.
The same would be true for bringing back a proper gun culture and allowing the public to defend themselves against violent ruffians. A couple of generations might well be needed to get that to work.
One of the big problems I have with the approach of punishing the carrying of knives rather that focusing on the aggressive use of knives is that as the sentences get longer, the people most like to stop carrying knives are those carrying them for defensive purposes. People that tend to use them to attack others will be less deterred as they would expect to get a more severe sentence for stabbing someome anyway.
The end result - well armed violent criminals and a vulnerable public.
I think much more could be achieved by legalising pepper spray. It would provide a safer means of self-defence, reduce the justification for carrying other weapons and make the non-aggressive safer.
What about: Tasers for everyone over 18, with a reward if it is ever used against anti-social behaviour.
Tasers get a mention in that article I linked to as well.
Summary: don't bother.
Who cares if the jails are full? Outsource to India. Cell centres, I calls 'em.
D, we had that suggestion before. Somebody pointed out that people would be loth to hand over personal details to a criminal at the other end.
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