John B wrote:
Perhaps I was overly harsh on the original poster - however, if you're
not aiming to be racist, it's probably worth avoiding words that began
as racially abusive terms when describing someone of the ethnic group
that the term was originally used to describe.

Perhaps, but the meaning of words changes over time (e.g. 'gay') so you
have to take things in context. For a start, how would anyone have
known if they were Irish travellers?

Of course I grade crimes.

We all know that if they had been caught, they wouldn't have been given
a death sentence or pushed under the train. Do we need signs to tell
criminals that being near live tracks and trains is dangerous (rather
like theme parks that have so many warnings now for safety/indemnity
reasons, it's a wonder that ANY visitors can use any of the rides)?

But not a very bad one. I'm genuinely amused and amazed that people
here have equated graffiti to terrorism... it's a scribble on a train.
If you're terrified and intimidated by a scribble on a train, you might
as well kill yourself now, because life is going to get appreciably
harder than that...

Well, although I didn't say that I can see the link - assuming we look
at the real definition of terrorism (and not the assumption that a
terrorist is someone with a bomb). People do feel scared and
intimidated by graffiti. It's the whole purpose of gangs with
territorial areas and markings too. We feel intimidated because someone
else is claiming an area as their own - and you can and do feel
threatened. If people didn't, there would be no motivation to do it.

Should people kill themselves because they feel afraid? I am sure some
do - especially those living in areas where they suffer a lot worse
than just spray paint on walls.

If I was being repeatedly provoked or attacked, either
physically or by people trying to enter my property, I am sure that
sooner or later I'd be considering taking action of my own.

How delightful for you.

Charming response.

The adreneline is pumping and you don't have time
to think - you can only react.

Fine. So it's self defence, you're acquitted, and all is fine legally.
It's only if you try and kill him *while he's running away* that
there's a problem.

Did you read what I said? It happens in a matter of seconds. So the guy
turns and runs as you're about to attack. Can you stop? Will you stop?

I have no idea what I'd do in that situation and I bet you can't
either. What if you come home and find the burglar already inside and
your wife has been murdered? The guy is now trying to run. Do you still
let him go because he's running away? I bet you'd go after them - even
if they had a knife or gun. Instinct takes over. By your logic, you'd
be considered a cold-blooded killer if you got him before he got you.
Maybe you would lie and say it was self defence.

I know this? Well, because these things DO still happen.

Less than they did five years ago. And the main point of visible
policing is to make the public, who seem to share your irrational fear
of crime, believe that there are policemen out there.

I'm not an idiot. Sure Mrs Jones at number 63, who's 91 years old,
thinks it is great to see PCSOs walking about or driving in their
marked Vauxhall Corsa, yet with virtually no power to do anything as
the local chavs give them the finger. She is convinced the police are
out there to protect her. While the CSO is around, she probably IS
safer than normal. Whoop-de-do. Crime doesn't fall. A few penalty
tickets are issued to the trouble makers, but like a high percentage of
fines, they aren't paid.

Many people are being conned into believing we have more police.
Meanwhile the police have virtually no respect for CSOs and hate
working with them (still, they are useful for doing the mundane jobs,
like 'guarding the bees'). At least special constables are now more
highly regarded! My friend is a DCI and speaks of the memos going
around telling officers to try and treat CSOs properly, while
unofficially they're told to keep a straight face when watching the
CSOs trying to do something, so as not to undermine them. CSOs have to
ask for advice on just about everything, and the police get tired of
it.

Visible policing only looks good too. An officer on foot isn't always
that useful when the need to react to something a distance away occurs.
In many cases, you may as well just use CCTV.

According to opinion polls, this is working. It wouldn't be my use of time and money
in an ideal world, but anything that calms the hangers-and-floggers
without actual hanging and flogging is better than the alternative.

Here's a suggestion; More REAL police offers and a return to the more
intensive training we had 10-20 years ago (both for street police and
traffic police).

Opinion polls? What was the question? Do you think there should be more
uniformed officers on the street? Have you seen more officers on the
street (a lot of people can't tell the difference between a police
officer and a CSO)?

I do recommend more CSOs, for the reasons above. And presumably you
know that if someone breaches an ASBO then they stand a good chance of
going to prison?

No they don't. More than 50% of ASBOs are breached, but you have to be
caught breaking it too - and even then, you don't automatically go to
jail. Wake up and smell the coffee! Even the authorities know they're
not working, which is why they're trying to look at a way of improving
enforcement.

But sending people to prison costs *an enormous amount of money* ("an
expensive way of making bad people worse", according to some clever
Tory whose name escapes me). Either you send everyone who's ever done
anything bad to jail forever, or you delay the problem until they
escape. The former is barbaric and ruinously expensive; the latter is
merely useless.

Any criminal off the street is saving someone money. You seem to forget
that. Look at the damage done by the graffiti artists at Camden Town
station. How long could you lock the offenders up before 'running at a
loss'. What about habitual offenders that have been done 400 times and
caused millions of pounds of damage in vandalism?

The current prison system does seem to help train people to commit more
crime - and that definitely needs looking at. The probation system that
allows people to keep taking drugs and commit crime to buy them while
being 'integrated back into the community' is also a joke. Panorama
only scratched the surface when they showed how bad this was.

The problem is you can't just assume that because it will be hard for a
prisoner to adapt to normal life after a sentence that you might as
well not put them there in the first place. If you do this, scrap all
laws and the legal system and let's see how that works. Just say to a
criminal, 'You've been a naughty boy. Promise you won't do it again'.
Doesn't work for parents that bring up kids and make idle threats like
'If you don't behave, you're going straight home' either. The kid soon
learns that they aren't actually punished, so they do it more.

Where the hell do you live? I'm in a not-especially-rich bit of
northeast London; I've never seen any of that kind of thing (I have
seen big gangs of RPIs harrassing upset-looking commuters, and the LUL
inspector who PF-ed me for forgetting to renew my Travelcard last year
treated me with such utter contempt and disrespect that I was vaguely
hoping one of these mythical hoodie types would come along and knife
him, but sadly they remained mythical).

Are you having a laugh? Open your eyes mate.

You're sitting at home writing that visible policing works, CSOs are
great, ASBOs are enforced, crime is down and hoodies don't exist. Where
is this part of north east London? I've lived, worked and travelled
around Enfield, Chingford, Woodford, Leyton and Ilford - and you won't
have to wait 5 minutes before you see someone or something dodgy. The
places I'm talking about are less than 20 miles away. You must have
done well to turn a blind eye to all of this.

As for your penalty fare. What was the problem? You had no ticket and
got a penalty fare. Say "Oops", pay the £20 and go off to renew the
ticket! By all means appeal and hope they'll sympathise (if you can
produce years of season tickets, you might well be let off) but stop
whingeing. You didn't have a ticket and yet you were hoping someone
would come along and knife him. My god, is this the same person that
has written all of the above?

Fine deducted at source from their benefits, usually. Is there any
evidence for this "ASBO as badge of honour" story, or is it just a Viz
joke that's been reprinted in the less-serious papers?

It's based on interviews with people that have got ASBOs. Can you not
see how this would be the case? It doesn't take a genius to work out
that this would be the case!

In 1993, I was arrested (by dawn raid) for running a bulletin board
that had a large number of copyrighted files on there (this predated
the Internet and file sharing). I was in fact the first person here to
be prosecuted, by companies including Sega and Nintendo. As I was
young, a member of a software cracking firm (called Fairlight in case
anyone cares) it was absolutely amazing to be able to tell everyone on
the warez scene that I had been caught, was the first. I suddenly
became the centre of attention and a hero.

However, unlike others, I stopped running the BBS, pleaded guilty, paid
my £3500 fine and forfeited all the computer equipment. I have never
done anything like this since. Don't tell me, or anyone else, that this
is a VIZ-joke.

ASBOs are a good idea, in theory, don't get me wrong - but without
proper enforcement they are pointless.

We're fighting them. We're winning. I'm not afraid, even if you are.

Right. Take the time I was assaulted for trying to save someone being
attacked on a train. Off-duty drivers threw me off the train at the
same station as the two offenders (who the police have been unable to
trace, and have now stopped investigating) and I was - obviously -
attacked. This was at the station I use almost EVERY day. I now have to
keep my wits about me because I have no way of knowing when they will
see me and I won't be surrounded by other people. What happens then?

Do you really think that someone in their home would report a neighbour
doing something when they clearly know where they live? One day, it's a
firebomb through the letter box, damage to property or an attack when
you go out. This is why ordinary citizens won't help the police when
something happens to someone else.

Eventually, in isolated cases, people to stand up. It takes a lot of
courage and usually only happens once things get so bad that they have
no choice. It makes you wonder why the police exist.

Now, I will try and balance things out by saying that the police and
councils will sometimes get together and work on solving the problems
(evicting people for example) but there are insufficient resources to
do so all the time.

My "assumptions" are based on the statistics, and aren't wrong.
Regarding papers, I was assuming that people who hold counterfactual
views do so because of the lying nature of the press, rather than for
other reasons.

Not everyone goes by what they read in the paper. Sure, some papers
play on the fears we all have. Some people prefer to see things with
their own eyes and make their own judgement.

I do have my own opinions about The Sun and Daily Mail, and in my work
I often look at ALL the papers to see what has been said about a single
story. I have to say that the Daily Mail *doesn't* always get things
wrong! Sure they add their opinion, but take away the comment and look
at the facts and you should be able to draw your own conclusions.

If you read real newspapers, are aware of the facts, and still hold the
views that you hold, I'm at a loss to explain that.

What the hell do papers have do with all this? Does everything you talk
about revolve around what the media reports? You are a sad man aren't
you! Go out and look with your own eyes.

Jonathan