Our Criminal Justice System - It's Criminal! Part 2

Soft As A Sponge: While the police and the criminal justice system are busy chasing their collective tail, wasting inordinate amounts of public money persecuting those who have committed no offence to anyone other than to themselves perhaps, they are seriously uninterested or as soft as a sponge on the many real criminals who have embarked on the road to real crime. That is actions that do other people down and result in victims, such as fraud, theft, criminal damage, nuisance behaviour, violence and abuse. Such crime seriously affects ordinary decent people and many criminals perpetrate such crime because they think they can get away with it, or get off lightly, and they often can. In my experience, this is especially true with regard to low level fraud, however is also true with many other crimes such as motor vehicle theft, moped mugging, nuisance behaviour, criminal damage, violence and abuse.

UK Crime Attractive? Our criminal justice system is basically impotent, too lenient, or disinterested, as many criminals go about their business, thieving, robbing and ripping off decent people, causing problems and leaving numerous victims in their wake. It is so bad at times that the criminals appear to have more rights and get more consideration than the victims they leave in their trail, who are just expected to get on with it. Of course it's not just home grown thieves we now have to worry about, our ‘don’t worry, we’ll be nice and gentle with you’ response to criminal behaviour in the UK has made us internationally renowned and attracted thieves from all over Europe, Africa, South America, and many other places. Yes, the UK is not a bad place to take up a life of crime. After all, if you do get caught and end up inside, you’ll get a roof over your head, three meals a day, free gym, TV, Xbox, pool, table tennis, chess, etc., and it doesn’t cost you a penny. Not bad considering you’re a criminal!

Two Ways / Two Fingers: Because of what many see as the seriously questionable abolishment of hands-on and corporal punishment, many kids of today actually think they’re untouchable, which of course they virtually are. Most young children now know that they can stick their fingers up to their teachers and the police alike and, if they are so inclined, this will inevitably encourage the worst to come out in them with no real redress available to the adults that have to deal with them. Some children end up going seriously off the rails and where a smack or the stick may have instilled some respect and brought them back in line, as it did with us, instead they come off the track completely, get expelled from school and end up out on the street and up to no good! Not very helpful! There are only two ways that a human being can know to do the right thing apart from being told and doing as they’re told. They can know from being thoughtful, having developed and a moral understanding and the ability to act on it - something that takes time and education, as well as a will to cooperate and do the decent thing, or they can know from instinct, being taught by punishment and reward. Fear and fun!

Nature Knows Best! Taking a lesson from nature, and I think we can assume nature has a fair bit of savvy, we are taught not to touch hot things which cause us damage because it hurts. Consequently we don't deliberately do it. Pain teaches us respect and teaches us to avoid things we need to avoid. Pain is a preventative mechanism that works subconsciously to help protect us and keep us on our toes. When we commit criminal activity, we cause pain to others, therefore it must be discouraged. Being too soft is not a solution and with the soft in the head parade bleating on about human-rights for those that don't actually give a toss about anyone’s human-rights, we seem to have lost the knack of doing what we should be doing to get the message across and causing ourselves more problems in the process. We are failing and we are also letting down those that end up off the track, whose lives are now less than they could have been. Nature knows that sometimes a short sharp shock or smack at the right time can save us from serious long term damage and that memory is sometimes the best protection and preventative medicine - all we need to avert disaster and a wasted life!