Quote: lofthouse @ September 10 2013, 9:14 PM BSTBit harsh!
Agreed. Don't think Dellas was on a feminist crusade just interested in the stats of rape convictions.
I read the news today oh boy! Page 1,304
Meh, glad to be a distraction.
Have some Chinese wine:
http://shanghaiist.com/2013/09/10/snake_preserved_in_wine_for_3_month.php
One complainant is unfortunate, two is careless, but seven? That's a big ole problem.
Quote: Jennie @ September 10 2013, 3:53 PM BSTBut the idea that 'crime is on the increase' is a myth. Crime figures generally remain steady. People are people - always have been, always will be.
I accept that crime is not on the increase compared with very recent years. That it arises in individuals who live somehow as islands defies logic. People are products of societies, societies change, the nature of crime changes and the character of criminals changes too. One thing I have learnt is that accepted norms are almost as fashionable as clothing on the High Street. They are nothing more than fickle and fleeting whims.
The number of gun crimes has increased substantially in just the past two decades. It is way beyond what it was in the 1950s. The number of drug fuelled crimes was minute 50-60 years ago as there were hardly any drugs. Now they are rife. Corporate crime, which largely goes unpunished, is not only higher in public awareness. It has substantially increased in the past decade with the growth of multinational corporations.
There is new crime specific to people of different ethnic backgrounds that is often extremely concerning to their own communities. IT crime did not exist prior to computers. Speeding in vehicles has become far worse in the past 3-5 years. There is a whole raft of legislation from the EU that did not exist before 1973, there are new environmental and health and safety laws and a wider range of tax and benefit laws, all of which people now have to abide by. Many inadvertently commit crime. And there is terrorism on a wider scale.
So I would like to see the figures which underpin that crime is not on the increase. The only possible real decrease is in theft for what else can there be? I don't believe people are just people. I feel that people are so fundamentally different from the way that they were in the 1960s that I could be living in an entirely different country. Some of it is better and most of it is worse. While it has very little to do with religion and race, it has almost everything to do with the post-1980s economic revolution. More accurately, destruction.
Quote: Horseradish @ September 10 2013, 11:55 PM BSTSo I would like to see the figures which underpin that crime is not on the increase.
Quote: Jennie @ September 11 2013, 12:07 AM BSThttp://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_296191.pdf
So according to that, there is less theft, less vandalism, less violence and less sexual crime than in 1995? Have I got that right? They must think we are mugs. And the 1950s/1960s was a very different place.
You are advancing two separate arguments. On one hand you are saying that crime has changed with the advent of computers and increased legislation. All of which is undeniable and render direct statistical comparison between today and the 50's/60's meaningless.
On the other you are saying that we as a society are more criminally minded now than in the 1960's. I don't accept that. I wasn't alive then. But I do not believe the world is getting more evil - it is very easy to look to the past with nostalgia. Maybe people got away more in the 60's - without DNA, without CCTV, without a police force trained to handle reports of sexual or domestic crime.
Quote: Horseradish @ September 11 2013, 12:10 AM BSTSo according to that, there is less theft, less vandalism, less violence and less sexual crime than in 1995? Have I got that right? They must think we are mugs. And the 1950s/1960s were a different place.
They aren't saying anything. They are statistics. They are lies and damn lies. But statistics are more accurate than an individual's perception, which is notoriously unreliable. What else can we use to accurately measure the increase or reduction in crime?
Quote: dellas @ September 10 2013, 6:59 PM BSTWell Michael Le vell has been found not guilty? strange story? He has known family for many years- crazy world.
Why is this strange? Why do you want him found guilty if he didn't commit the crime? Isn't that stranger? A mainly female jury found him not guilty on all counts, I'd say that's a fair and comprehensive not guilty verdict. = Innocent! He didn't do it. Why is that hard to believe? Yet again the justice system trashes a person's reputation for merely having normal human frailties, (drinking, infidelity) that many people have and makes many of the general public think he must have been guilty. Well he isn't.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ September 11 2013, 12:21 AM BSTWhy is this strange? Why do you want him found guilty if he didn't commit the crime? Isn't that stranger? A mainly female jury found him not guilty on all counts, I'd say that's a fair and comprehensive not guilty verdict. = Innocent! He didn't do it.
No.
"Not guilty" does not mean "innocent."
It means that the jury could not be sure of guilt.
Personally, I think he probably did do it.
Maybe the jury did too. Maybe they thought he very probably did it.
But that is still a not guilty verdict.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ September 11 2013, 12:21 AM BSTA mainly female jury found him not guilty on all counts,
Generalising hugely, but woman are much harsher towards other women. If I am defending a nasty sex case, I want as many women on my jury as possible.
Quote: Natalie Of Wicks @ September 10 2013, 3:33 PM BSTLe Vell not guilty.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-24032449
The justice system has run its course, now lets move on to cheerier things.
Again, eh? What could be cheerier news than that? A person being found innocent of a dreadful crime!
Quote: Jennie @ September 11 2013, 12:14 AM BSTYou are advancing two separate arguments. On one hand you are saying that crime has changed with the advent of computers and increased legislation. All of which is undeniable and render direct statistical comparison between today and the 50's/60's meaningless.
On the other you are saying that we as a society are more criminally minded now than in the 1960's. I don't accept that. I wasn't alive then. But I do not believe the world is getting more evil - it is very easy to look to the past with nostalgia.
They aren't saying anything. They are statistics. They are lies and damn lies. But statistics are more accurate than an individual's perception, which is notoriously unreliable. What else can we use to accurately measure the increase or reduction in crime?
Thank you for having the grace to reply. I appreciate it.
You agree that crime has changed with social and legislative changes. I agree that statistical comparison makes greater rational sense in a short time frame, comparing like with like.
The longer time frame is significant to those who remember earlier periods or are aware of history. I am not sure that the word "evil" is relevant as that is such a subjective concept.
Rather, more people are casually inclined to criminal action, from the extremely serious to simply getting away with it, and notably at the highest social levels. Anyone who is employed is required to be unjust and untrustworthy in a system that accentuates both selfism and litigation.
The situation is made worse by the abandonment of long-term frameworks for earning and living so that most people are constantly on a knife edge re jobs and relationships.
That is not one individual's nostalgic perception. It is known by almost everyone who has witnessed the changes. I reckon that you would get 90% plus agreement on that point in any straw poll of the over 50s.
There are no winners in this situation.
You seem very certain of his innocence, Alfred.
And they call law the liberal art! Blimey! To me he's innocent, I'm going to afford him a bit more grace than others here are, I'm personally construing this verdict as innocence, if others want to cling to darker beliefs, up to them.
Quote: Horseradish @ September 11 2013, 12:28 AM BSTRather, more people are casually inclined to criminal action, from the extremely serious to simply getting away with it, and notably at the highest social levels. Anyone who is employed is required to be untrustworthy.
Ignoring that last sentence for a moment. How do you know? Really? How do you know that people in the 1960's weren't as "casually inclined to criminal action?"
Methods of crime detection have advanced astronomically. What if people were doing it in the 60's...but getting away with it? How can we possibly know?
Just some of the advances in the last 40 years -
Sharing information between police forces/countries
The Police National Computer (database of every individual who has ever so much as applied for a driving licence - everything there is to know about you is on there.)
DNA x10000000000. The most important development in criminal detection ever. In my view.
Footprint/fingerprint evidence.
Cell Site (the ability to track movement by tracing the cell mast used by mobile phones)
Bugging and RIPA
CCTV. Which is everywhere.
Blood splatter forensics.
Advances in criminological profiling.
In the end, I think our argument would reach an impasse. You would say that you believe criminal inclinations to have increased, and I cannot disprove your belief. But in my view there is no hard evidence to support such a conclusion.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ September 11 2013, 12:34 AM BSTAnd they call law the liberal art! Blimey! To me he's innocent, I'm going to afford him a bit more grace than others here are, I'm personally construing this verdict as innocence, if others want to cling to darker beliefs, up to them.
I only defend because I believe passionately in the rights of the individual against the state. Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent suffer.
Liberalism is not about belief in innocence. It is about belief in the rule of law. Of a fair and just society. Of checks on the power of the state.
Believe he is innocent if you wish. But please do not think that a not guilty verdict is PROOF of his innocence. It is no such thing.