Reality police programmes

[Ala Larj]

Have recently been watching a few police ‘reality’ programmes on tv such as motorway cops and police interceptors. All respect to some of the police but am shocked by how little the courts fine some people who are obviously pretty dodgy! Am I alone in thinking this and find it’s not surprising that the number of motoring offences from theft and dangerous driving is increasing?

[PRT68]

Yes, often thought that. If they are fined, it barely covers the cost of police time and in some cases the damage to property and police vehicles. No wonder morale is low if they go to all that trouble just for the perpetrators to get a wrist slap.

Yet if us respectable motorists exceed the speed limit by a few miles per hour, we can get points and fined way more than the people in the programmes, very often without any police being present. 

Crime does pay.....

[Spock66]

The driving bans are also a joke, some of those shown should never ever be allowed a licence but seem to get away with a 2-year ban or similar.

[RONNIE W HODGEKINSON]

1 hour ago, PRT68 said:

Yes, often thought that. If they are fined, it barely covers the cost of police time and in some cases the damage to property and police vehicles. No wonder morale is low if they go to all that trouble just for the perpetrators to get a wrist slap.

Yet if us respectable motorists exceed the speed limit by a few miles per hour, we can get points and fined way more than the people in the programmes, very often without any police being present. 

Crime does pay.....

Exactly Paul I Was Fined £100 And Got 3 Points On My licence for doing 40MPH   Just within a 30MPH limit When i went to pay it I Bumped int to a Barrister who said YOU TOO...

[Illogan]

 

There are various aspects of the British legal system that are way out of touch, unfortunately, although I recognise that there is a complicated set of causes and balances in play.

We don't appear to have a prison system that works - (other than permanent incarceration for the most serious offenders). Anything less than this, and the prisoners tend not to be reconciled and readjusted for a contributory return to society, but are returned, still disadvantaged, and determined/need/want to re-offend.

(And we've not sufficient prison space available irrespective of whether it works, and so a proscribed period of prison is rarely served.)

Meanwhile, the fiscal element of a lesser crime, such as driving without insurance, almost always attracts a fine of a lesser value than the likely cost of insurance - so there is little incentive for them to buy insurance in the first place (assuming that they could ever afford it in the first place.

Vehicle "crime", in all its forms, would appear to be a highlight of the income gap between the 'haves and the have-nots', where the still quite large element of society continue to struggle to make ends meet financially (for a multitude of reasons), and yet they aspire to own those elements of life that make a difficult life more bearable, (cars/tv's etc etc) and therefore take risks to acquire them illegally.

And, I believe that society has become much more lax in its standards since 'I were a lad', and there would appear to be a greater percentage of folks prepared to misbehave than ever before, and with ineffective sentencing/care/treatment, this is likely to deteriorate further.

As owners of desirable vehicles, we are perceived to be amongst the "haves" of society, and that will incur distrust and envy amongst some that "don't have", which simply exacerbates the issues.

Please don't think that I'm a tree-hugging, soft'n'squeezy, left-leaning luvvy - That I ain't, indeed the intolerance I have of law-breakers made it certain that I could never be a policeman, but as I've aged, I realise the complications that affect our society are compound and difficult.

 

Hmm.   Apologies for the rant.

 

[Bluemarlin]

I agree that our system doesn't work in many cases. For the most part it's only a deterrent to the average law abiding citizen. The wealthy have both a sense of entitlement, and the financial ability to avoid consequences, whilst the criminally minded are either too stupid, reckless or impulsive to be mindful of them.

In my view, harsher sentences may work adequately as a punishment, but have little affect as a deterrent, for two reasons. Firstly, when people commit a crime, they don't think they'll get caught, so it's not like they carry out a risk assessment first. Secondly, I read somewhere that the majority of people in prison have some kind of mental health condition, ranging from bipolar to a variety of personality disorders. These sort of disorders often result in people acting impulsively, without thought of consequence. Most also come from broken and or dysfunctional family backgrounds, often with a history of abuse/neglect.

As a result, prison sentences are little more than a method of cleaning up a pre-existing mess, without doing anything to prevent the mess happening in the first place.

Poverty of course plays a part, but there's an increasing number of boys being brought up without a positive male role model in their lives, which I believe leads to Dave's observation that there are more people willing to misbehave today than in past times.

Absent fathers mean a single mother has to try and raise them, after which they're taught by mostly female teachers and, if they end up in the crossshairs of social services, are largely dealt with by female social workers. Whilst I don't believe that people should be forced to stay in unhappy marriages, I don't think much (if any) thought was given to the consequences of the effect on children when their parents separate.

I don't know what the answer is. One answer might be to invest more in preventing crime and catching criminals, over locking them up after the fact, but that still doesn't address the root cause. So maybe more help should be given to children from such backgounds, with more support and encouragement for fathers to be involved in their lives, and incentives to hire more male teachers and social workers, in order to give them positive male role models.

Either way, it's a lot more complicated than handing out heavier fines, and locking people up and throwing away the key.

Apologies for my rant too.

 

[Linas.P]

I think it has a lot to do with the points made by Dave above.

I would add a little bit more to that... so when it comes to prosecuting crimes there in my view are 3 layers - police (investigation and evidence), courts (judging the case) and laws (what are the actual penalties, sentences, burden of evidence).

In my view all 3 are completely defective in UK or simply does not serve the purpose, or lacks flexibility. I would say one of the key failings of UK system is that it does not consider and does not have mechanisms to deal with the sc** of the earth types i.e. if you are normal, working and decent person, then existing legal system will crush you to death for minor mistake (like going 10 miles above speed limit), you get the fine, you get the points, you won't be able to insure with the points and you will end-up taking your own life away with sleeping pills (hyperbole). In short it will ruin your day, your week and your life for actually being decent person making minor mistake. However, if you are already a sc** who has no job, no insurance, has been in jail multiple times and you simply don't give a shaite about the law, because you have no work, no home, no family to lose - then they can't do anything to you. People like this goes to court and say - "f... you, I was driving drunk without insurance and I will continue doing it... what you going to put me in jail for that... go ahead"... and they get 6 month suspended sentence and £1000 fine which they not going to ever pay. The point is - law is not flexible enough to take care of them and I guess society at large has failed by allowing them to become what they are (and I have theories why it happens), the police knows that there aren't any real way to enforce the rules within the law, so they actually do not care to collect evidence and properly investigate, because honestly that would be waste of time anyway as the courts won't judge the case in the way that achieves anything, the end result when the case gets to the court the evidence is not great and 50% of the times crimes not even "proven beyond reasonable doubt" or when they are the sentencing does not reflect the crime.

Two real examples here:

1. Truck driver fell asleep delivering good early in the morning, crashed into cars queuing before the slip road, wiped out like 6 cars, but fortunately there were no deaths, few people had minor injuries- sentence 5 years in prison for dangerous driving, causing damage when driving without due care and attention, causing injury when driving without due care and attention, 12 Month mandatory ban, I believe £8000 fine. Not suspended, he actually went to prison. And for what? For being tired, overworked, providing for the family and making a honest mistake of "being tired"?! His life is fc**** and when he comes out of prison after say 3 years (I am sure he can get paroled etc.) what are his perspectives, he can't drive truck anymore because sentenced criminal with previous driving ban will never get insurance... 

2. a well known car thief who had multiple suspended sentences, who been in prison multiple times was spotted driving stolen car, try to run away, after high speed chase he finally lost control of the car in the city centre, luckily there was some fencing, so he mounted the pavement and got stuck in that fence, then run on foot for some time and was finally apprehended somewhere in the forest when helicopter with thermal camera spotted him. Result - new BMW totally destroyed, 3 police cars damaged, dozen of police officers chasing him not doing other important work, helicopter crew is like £50k/hour... goes to court, gets 2.5 years sentence, suspended, but goes to jail for 1 year because of pervious unspent sentence. Like what the f! How does truck driver deserves 5 years for mistake, whereas this guy was clearly deliberate and violent and only gets... well basically nothing, because the 1 year he spent in prison was from some previous crime?! And sure he got some fine... but that is irrelevant because he is not paying anyway, or if he is then it will be from criminal proceeds. And I mean it would be silly to even ask - obviously he has no license and no insurance (on stolen car)... 

So that is just to illustrate, how criminals are getting away, because as I said - once they have nothing to lose, the law is not flexible enough to deal with them, because the key assumption in law is that it is dealing with decent people and I would argue it is already too harsh and unnecessary to achieve the goals, yet when dealing with criminals it is not harsh enough and achieves nothing. 

In summary - I think the issue is outdated and rigid laws, which lax flexibility and it does not allow for human factor to mediate the appropriate sentencing.

[Bluemarlin]

Good points Linas.

I was always LED to believe that black and white thinking was a mentally dysfunctional process, and locking people up based purely on outcome is as black and white as it gets.

To my mind, regardless of outcome, the most important factor is someone's motivation and intent. As such, I don't believe that it's right to put an otherwise law abiding person in prison for a lapse of concentration or judgment, or for making an honest mistake, even if it was careless. However, we live in a society that increasingly refuses to accept that accidents happen, and that we have to not only apportion blame, but severely punish the person that made that mistake.

Whilst I don't believe that mistakes should always go unpunished, I do believe that we should take more note of the circumstances, so that we don't turn a situation with one victim,  into one with two, purely to satisfy an unjustified need for blame or vengeance.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Bluemarlin said:

Good points Linas.

I was always led to believe that black and white thinking was a mentally dysfunctional process, and locking people up based purely on outcome is as black and white as it gets.

To my mind, regardless of outcome, the most important factor is someone's motivation and intent. As such, I don't believe that it's right to put an otherwise law abiding person in prison for a lapse of concentration or judgment, or for making an honest mistake, even if it was careless. However, we live in a society that increasingly refuses to accept that accidents happen, and that we have to not only apportion blame, but severely punish the person that made that mistake.

Whilst I don't believe that mistakes should always go unpunished, I do believe that we should take more note of the circumstances, so that we don't turn a situation with one victim,  into one with two, purely to satisfy an unjustified need for blame or vengeance.

Cannot agree more - intent is key.

That is why it is very surprising to me as non-British that in UK you put drivers in prisons. In most of the world accidents happen and accidents are considered accidents, drivers almost NEVER go to prison even where death is involved. Sure I think punishments were tightening in many places and now it is not unusual for drunk drivers to go to prison, especially where accident result in death. But I still believe intent is key, normally drivers when they are driving they are no out there to hurt anyone, even if they are tired, or if the looked at the phone or even if they had one too many drinks, intent is simply not there to begin with and by the way just to be very clear - I am not saying they should not be punished. All I am saying is that they should be punished with clear distinction between accident and planned, premediated murder. In UK this line seems to be blurred, this is one of the reasons why I often say UK society just hates drivers more than any other society I know - somehow in UK driving the car is in itself considered an intent to hurt people (which again is not the case in other countries).

Now totally different case is when thief is running from police - here intent is clear, it is not an accident and it should not be viewed as such. Yet somehow perspectives are completely mixed-up... the argument goes almost like "he wasn't violent and didn't intend to hurt anyone, he was 'just' steeling the car and if not for police chasing him, he wouldn't have run"... so it ends-up like just a "victimless" crime and just material damage, all insured, nothing to worry about. Therefore only materiality is taken into account and not intent. And I have seen crimes often playing out this way in courts. Which is just bizarre to watch. 

As well, as I mentioned I have a theory why in UK the situation is getting worse. You made some very valid points about generally deteriorating socioeconomic situation, family bonds, lack of role models... I probably haven't considered them all, but indeed they must be playing significant part. 

My theory was more along the line of lacking discipline in childhood (like parents not being allowed to punish their kids), lack of responsibility early on - under 14 kids are pretty much untouchable in the law and finally lack of enforcement for small crimes (I would call it "small crime small punishment" approach). Basically when I was growing-up there was always lingering risk of getting whipped with the belt, not that I was whipped many time (I can probably think about 2 times), not that I necessary been punished fairly, but the knowledge that this is an option really helped with mental development. Secondly, I lived in society where no crime was too small to investigate and punish and no crime went unpunished. For example if 10-years old would have stolen a pack of sweets from the shop they would not get away with it, the security would catch them, detain them, call police, police would take them to the station, lock them-up, call the parents and parents would have massive embarrassment, pay the fine and this would be on one hand "big deal", on other hand it would not go to any record and apart of being embarrassing and scary (and probably would result in some whipping with belt) would not have any lasting consequences for life. And that is the key - we don't want to ruin young people lives with criminal records, we just want to tech the the lesson... and this whole thing is completely missing in UK, teens under 14 can freely steal from shot, they are untouchable by security, they are mostly untouchable by police, they are untouchable by parents and they simply never learn. Small crimes grows to large crimes... one day they steal chocolate, the next day pack of cigarettes, the year later they already mugging people, two years latter they are burglars or car thieves or drug dealers. If the their crimes crimes would have been stopped when they were small and punishment would have been inconsequential, they would have had an opportunity to learn from their mistakes, now they don't have a chance to learn before it is way too late, before the crimes becomes so serious that it results in criminal record and prison sentences. And yes - this is "slippery slope theory", but it is scary to admit how often it leads to very sad outcomes and works exactly as I described.

And here by the way I think it is very important what you mentioned - family, role models etc. Kids from complete families, with role models and caring parents have an opportunity to avoid this, perhaps shop security didn't do anything, police didn't do anything, but in tight family truth eventually comes out and there are consequences, parents takes things in their hands, they probably can't beat kids in UK, but they can still embarrass them in major way, like taking them to the shop where they stolen something and forcing them to apologise, to pay for things they stolen, then to limit their budget, freedoms, gaming times, meeting friends, outright deny them meeting friends who are likely leading them to bad decisions. Role models as well helps them survive peer pressure - because when your father is educated and honest person and drives new car and your mates father is criminal and has nothing, then it is not hard to reach conclusion that crime is probably not a good life choice (sad reality in UK is that this is usually opposite - honest working father is probably using public transport and criminal drug dealer is the one driving new merc). Anyhow - they point is that family bonds and role models and parenting can help kids to make right choices, even where society and police fails. However, kids from poor families, incomplete families or with mental issues have no chance - they get on this slippery slope, start small, end-up big and when the consequences are lifechanging. And by the way putting someone in prison has no effect of re-educating them, if anything prisons acts almost like "criminal universities", people go into prison after relatively small crimes, in prison they meet gangs, they learn criminal craft and they come out even more dangerous and even more willing to do crime. 

And all that is before we even start discussing how criminals are absolutely taking advantage of the legal system working just below the threshold of prosecution or serious sentence...