What is to be Done . . . About the Police

[tar1984]

Mob justice.

And lots of boning.

 

[Azrael]

If you are suggesting that we give up any attempt to interview suspects as part of an investigation, all you're going to do is massively reduce the number of successful investigations and prosecutions.

I'm not suggesting interviews be scrapped; merely that there be no obligation to interview. Is an interview going to be of much use in the case of a junkie in on a charge of theft, with dozens of priors for nicking razor-blades?

 

[Azrael]

You think harsher punishment would reduce crime? Do you have any empirical evidence to back up that assertion?

Certainly. The prison popular c. 1900 was around 14,500.

Looking at the rest of the world, the countries with lower crime rates are those with higher levels of social justice, which also tend to be those with less harsh penal systems (sticking to the rich world – the rules are a bit different in the poor world so comparisons are not useful).

A combination of social breakdown and grinding poverty might bump up crime. But if poverty alone caused crime, England's past simply couldn't exist.

Our prisons plainly don't work now. All they can do is stop criminals committing crime when they're inside. A regime that scares criminals off crime, and more importantly, deters would-be criminals, could be effective if combined with other changes.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Certainly. The prison popular c. 1900 was around 14,500.

That's not too helpful really, given that we now live in a very different kind of society. Just as comparisons between rich and poor countries are not illuminating, neither are comparisons between now and 100 years ago, when the majority of those in poverty expected to stay in poverty, and there was no consumer society to speak of to tell them any different.

The causes of crime are various. Of course, 100 years ago there was no idiotic 'war on drugs' to contend with. The reduction in the prison population brought about by the decriminalisation of the drugs trade would be very large indeed. After that, social alienation is the biggest hurdle – not the levels of absolute poverty, but the numbers of people who feel they have no stake whatsoever in any level of society.

I can only repeat: please show me a country of comparable industrialisation that has a harsh penal system and low crime – I won't accept totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia either, democracies only please. The empirical evidence from the rest of Europe, North America and elsewhere points in exactly the opposite direction from the one you are suggesting.

 

[Azrael]

I can only repeat: please show me a country of comparable industrialisation that has a harsh penal system and low crime – I won't accept totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia either, democracies only please.

Why the narrow limit? It's not nearly so simple as "harsh punishment = less crime", but neither is the reverse true. If crime was low in 1900 (and later) then "social justice" isn't a prerequisite of crime control.

You seem to be suggesting that Britain of 1900 had low crime because poor people weren't tempted: not only is the absence of a consumer society dubious, but if people expected to stay poor, they should be more, not less, frustrated, and the temptation created by common goods should have been amplified.

No liberal democracy with harsh punishment and low crime comes to mind; this proves little, as other social and cultural factors will play their part. (And how much unofficial brutality from foreign police goes on?) Whatever these factors are, Britain clearly lacks them.

I suggest we build more prisons, put prisoners to relatively-short spells of hard labour, and house them one-to-a-cell. A modest ambition. How would you get crime down?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why the narrow limit? It's not nearly so simple as "harsh punishment = less crime", but neither is the reverse true.

You seem to be suggesting that Britain of 1900 had low crime because poor people weren't tempted: not only is the absence of a consumer society dubious, but if people expected to stay poor, they should be more, not less, frustrated, and the temptation created by common goods should have been amplified.

No liberal democracy with harsh punishment and low crime comes to mind; this proves little, as other social and cultural factors will play their part. (And how much unofficial brutality from foreign police goes on?) Whatever these factors are, Britain clearly lacks them.

I suggest we build more prisons, put prisoners to relatively-short spells of hard labour, and house them one-to-a-cell. A modest ambition. How would you get crime down?

1. Decriminalise the drugs trade. Crime rates would be slashed more or less overnight if such a thing were done. The very simple principle that a criminal offence must have a victim to be such should be applied immediately.

2. Through building greater social justice. Not going to happen overnight, but the prison population has soared in the last 25 years as inequality has soared. You may not wish to think so but the two are linked – inequality has soared at the same time that the social pressure to achieve material success has increased. This combination has produced a less happy, more crime-ridden society.

As for this: "if people expected to stay poor, they should be more, not less, frustrated", no the exact opposite is true. One of the major causes of alienation is not absolute poverty per se, but the sense that you have not achieved the material success that you see glorified all around you. In a perverse way, the British class system in fact served to reduce this sense of alienation. This is why comparisons with other eras are not helpful – we're not going, and should not want, to return to the class-ridden shitheap that once was the UK.

To this last point, I would say that Buddhism has some insight – it is unfulfilled desire that causes unhappiness.

 

[Azrael]

Through building greater social justice. Not going to happen overnight, but the prison population has soared in the last 25 years as inequality has soared.

The prison population has been rising for a lot longer than 25 years. How is this "social justice" (I assume you mean economic equality) to be achieved? Higher taxes?

The Victorians and Edwardians were perfectly capable of glorifying material success. The rise of the middle class shows that aspiration was both possible and desirable: it isn't quite the closed system you're making out.

What this boils down to is bribing people to be good. If it's true that criminals are slaves to their desires, then we're all a redundancy away from criminality, and all potential suspects. I prefer a society that assumes people are moral agents capable of taking responsibility for their actions.

Oh, and I'd legalize drugs, but I wouldn't provide free heroin on the NHS, any more than I'd buy an alcoholic a bottle of Jack Daniels. Any addict who can't pay for their own addiction should either quit or expect 72 hours of cold turkey followed by a month of hard labour on a theft conviction.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The prison population has been rising for a lot longer than 25 years. How is this "social justice" (I assume you mean economic equality) to be achieved? Higher taxes?

The Victorians and Edwardians were perfectly capable of glorifying material success. The rise of the middle class shows that aspiration was both possible and desirable: it isn't quite the closed system you're making out.

What this boils down to is bribing people to be good. If it's true that criminals are slaves to their desires, then we're all a redundancy away from criminality, and all potential suspects. I prefer a society that assumes people are moral agents capable of taking responsibility for their actions.

Oh, and I'd legalize drugs, but I wouldn't provide free heroin on the NHS, any more than I'd buy an alcoholic a bottle of Jack Daniels. Any addict who can't pay for their own addiction should either quit or expect 72 hours of cold turkey followed by a month of hard labour on a theft conviction.

The dramatic rise in prison population – roughly tripling, I believe – has taken place in the time period I suggested.

As for us all being moral agents, this is fine in as far as it goes, which is not very. We are all products of our environments – take a bunch of kids born on a poor estate and put them in the most expensive schools and wealthy homes (ie change their environment) and they will be no more likely to grow up to break the law than those born into such an environment of privilege. To deny this would be foolish – and to acknowledge it is to accept that changing the environment can reduce crime. To be honest, it is absurd to deny this. There is a recession, so burglaries are on the rise. This is not rocket science, and neither is it saying that those who are now burgling should be absolved of moral responsibility for what they do – it is simply observable, empirical fact.

As for your idea that hard labour would cure the delinquent, again, please show me the empirical evidence. The evidence from here and elsewhere is that harsh punishment leads to further alienation and further offending. It is punishments combined with compassion that give results.

 

[Azrael]

As for your idea that hard labour would cure the delinquent, again, please show me the empirical evidence.

The evidence comes from when we actually had hard labour, and you've already ruled that out.

You use of the word "cure" is telling. You cure disease; is crime a disease? I don't want to cure, or rehabilitate, anyone. Criminals aren't sick. I'd like criminals to decide to reform, but many won't. My modest ambition is to deter would-be criminals, and hopefully scare a few first- and second-time offenders off crime, with exemplary punishment.

Crime might be higher in housing estates, but is its root cause poverty, or broken homes exacerbated by poverty? (Or poverty exacerbated by broken homes, for that matter.) As white collar criminals show, all ranks and conditions of men are capable of criminality.

Where do intangibles like morality and ethics fit into your economic analysis?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Borstal – the 'short, sharp shock' – was abandoned. Why? Because it was not an effective deterrent at all. The work of criminologists and penal reformers who have looked long and hard at this has clear conclusions. If you wish to take a person who has committed a crime and stop them from committing further crimes, you need to reduce their feeling of alienation – make them feel that they can have a worthwhile place in the world.

As I said before, to take the time when the UK had hard labour and use it to suggest that such a measure now would reduce crime is to misunderstand why the levels of crime are currently where they are.

There's no contradiction between saying this and maintaining people should be held to account for their actions. To take a crass example that hopefully illustrates the point, child abusers were invariably themselves abused as children – that doesn't excuse their own actions. It is possible to both explain how a person has developed as they have and to say to them that they must not act in certain ways because of the effect that has on others.

You seem to want to deny the social context of crime – that is not any way to reduce it.

 

[Azrael]

Borstal – the 'short, sharp shock' – was abandoned. Why? Because it was not an effective deterrent at all.

Effective crime-reduction tends not to be based on lines from Gilbert and Sullivan. I didn't reccomend borstal, but hard labour for adult prisoners. (Juveniles should not be subject to the adult system.) This isn't a "short, sharp shock", that will likely brutalize more than it reforms, but a period of disciplined punishment where the offender can dwell on their crime.

I'm not sure what "the social context for crime" means. Of course background and upbringing can influence decisions; I mentioned broken homes in my last post. But crime remains a choice, and those factors should not be over-stated. It might not be your intention to deny criminal responsibility, but it's an unintended consequence of your argument.

What is this "alienation"? -- the Marxist kind?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Crime might be higher in housing estates, but is its root cause poverty, or broken homes exacerbated by poverty? (Or poverty exacerbated by broken homes, for that matter.) As white collar criminals show, all ranks and conditions of men are capable of criminality.

The cause of crime is people committing the crime. A burglary is caused by a burglar. A mugging is caused by a mugger. Who goes out and does these things? Why them and not others? Are there trends to be found in their circumstances? If so, will reducing the number of people in those circumstances reduce the number of people committing those acts? Why (and this is the only valid question you seem prepared to tackle) do some people from these circumstances commit these acts and not others? These are the kinds of questions that need to be asked if you are serious about studying criminology – all of them, not just those that suit your preconceptions.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm not sure what "the social context for crime" means. Of course background and upbringing can influence decisions; I mentioned broken homes in my last post. But crime remains a choice, and those factors should not be over-stated. It might not be your intention to deny criminal responsibility, but it's an unintended consequence of your argument.

No it isn't. You misunderstand my argument if you think it is.

You think that harsh punishment will brutalise the young but somehow it will not brutalise adults. Again, do you have evidence for this assertion?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What is this "alienation"? -- the Marxist kind?

In some ways, yes. Alienation that sees those marginalised socially and economically often quite rationally reaching the conclusion that a criminal life is for them. Why respect the laws of a society that is shitting on you from a great height?

 

[Azrael]

These are the kinds of questions that need to be asked if you are serious about studying criminology – all of them, not just those that suit your preconceptions.

Actually my preconceptions were very liberal. You might still find posts of mine floating about on Urban where I produce all sorts of recieved ideas. I've changed my mind.

Your approach appears to shift the onus of change from criminals to society. "Alienation" especially -- it takes it as an axiom that we have some fundamental human nature that capitalism distorts.

Presumably you want criminals given extensive help to "rehabilitate" themselves. This will probably work in some cases. But it removes incentive to avoid crime, and the stigma that should go with it. Fall in with the wrong crowd, and you'll be helped back on your feet at taxpayers' expense. Why resist temptation if there aren't serious consequences?

I'm not adverse to basic education and help finding work for convicts who display a desire to reform themselves. But the onus should be on them. I'm not suggesting adults can't be brutalized: hard labour is arduous but not brutal. Neither do I have any interest in studying "criminology": it makes a lot of social science assumptions that I just don't agree with.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Your approach appears to shift the onus of change from criminals to society. "Alienation" especially -- it takes it as an axiom that we have some fundamental human nature that capitalism distorts.

It absolutely does not. We are born with a certain nature whose development is dependent in all kinds of ways on the environment. Again, you seriously misunderstand my position if you think this.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm not adverse to basic education and help finding work for convicts who display a desire to reform themselves. But the onus should be on them. I'm not suggesting adults can't be brutalized: hard labour is arduous but not brutal. Neither do I have any interest in studying "criminology": it makes a lot of social science assumptions that I just don't agree with.

Like what? Which of my list of questions do you consider to be invalid?

If you were to study criminology, you could reject any assumptions that others studying it make if you didn't agree with them.

 

[Azrael]

Like what? Which of my list of questions do you consider to be invalid?

None. You mentioned the discipline of criminology: a social science currently bound up with all kinds of fashionable ideas. If we're taking criminology simply to mean the study of crime, however, I've looked at the history of crime quite a bit, which is what made me abandon the liberal preconceptions.

As for alienation, if our nature is adaptive and shaped by our environment, how are we alienated -- what fundamental part of us is excluded? -- and how can this be addressed in a way that both cuts crime and deters criminals?

 

[detective-boy]

I'm not suggesting interviews be scrapped; merely that there be no obligation to interview.

There is no obligation now (other than an arguable requirement to provide a suspect an opportunity to provide any explanation they have). It's just that in reality there is always something to interview about for evidential purposes (particularly in the vast majority of cases where some mens rea is required - apart from interview there is no easy way of convincing a jury what was going on in someone's head ...