Blaming the victim

3 Likes

This. We can talk all we want about tougher sentences (to deter crimes) and better rehabilitation (to prevent reoffending) but at the end of the day, if criminals don’t get caught. charged, convicted then none of the above works.

98.5% of recorded rapes never get prosecuted. Can’t imagine the percentage of motorbike thefts is particularly high.

That’s got to be the focus for me, cos if an offender doesn’t think there’s much chance of them getting caught/prosecuted/punished, then why would they not offend?

3 Likes

https://twitter.com/MarinaHyde/status/1372914926742876169?s=19

2 Likes

Is it not better to intervene before people become criminals? Why do people become criminals? In the case of drug gangs, it is a case of grooming from an early age. However the root cause often comes down the the lack of opportunity to do something else. Or they have been criminalised by the lack of proper provision. As per my previous example of the War on Drugs vs addiction treatment and mental health care.

The macro environment in which we all operate has many interdependent factors. If you’re born on a sink estate, and attend an under invested school and perform well academically your far more likely to have a lack of opportunity than if you are an academic underachiever that attended Eton / Marlborough / Harrow. Just look at our current sitting cabinet for proof of that.

Maybe it’s a bit of an idealist view, but rather than spending a load of money on nuclear warheads that we can’t actually use, why not spend that money starting to fix the decades of cuts on top of cuts on top of cuts that have taken place? Provide an education that set up children for success rather than forcing them into a format that works on a spreadsheet to measure schools. Invest in communities rather than destroying them for short term profit.

3 Likes

Case in point.

Since decriminalising drugs, Portugal has seen a 60% increase in uptake of treatment for drug addiction and a 90% decrease in drug related HIV infection.
In 2015 Portugal had an overdose rate of 3 people per million, this is compared to an EU average that same year of 17.3 per million and a UK average of 44.6 per million.

4 Likes