Crime and punishment in the UK
steven x brown
January 25, 2004
Crime and punishment in the UK
Remember the recent flap when a BBC show's organizers promised to have a
participating MP introduce a new law of the viewers' own choosing, only
to backpedal, howling with outrage, when the choice fell on giving
homeowners the right to use deadly force against intruders?
Perhaps this shouldn't have been such a surprise; as we've noted before,
polls have repeated shown that British attitudes towards crime,
punishment, and self-defense are very close to what one finds in
America, despite very different national policies.
In any case, there's another survey now being reported in the Sunday
Times Review that would seem to point in the same direction:
To date, 1,432 readers have responded to the hypotheticals at The
Sunday Times website or by mail. Their responses are extraordinarily
weighted towards the Number Three answers that define what I refer to as
the Cops as opposed to Progressives: the same Three answers that the
criminal justice elites I interviewed so seldom gave.
For six out of the seven hypotheticals, the Threes had an outright
majority, sometimes amounting to more than 80% of the responses.
Nothing too ambitious can be made of these results, because they
are not produced by a representative sample. But The Sunday Times’s
readership is notably well-educated and affluent, which should give
pause to those in the elites who try to argue — with breathtaking
condescension towards ordinary people — that tough opinions about
justice are a matter of a moral panic stirred up by the tabloids.
There is one area, however, where the Brits play for keeps, as another
Times article notes:
The sharp flash from the camera caught Ernie Harbon by surprise and
he glanced down at the speedometer on his dashboard. He was only
travelling at 38mph and it was a quiet country road. He scanned the
wide, empty carriageway ahead of him but could not see a road sign
telling drivers the speed limit.
When the £60 penalty fine for exceeding the 30mph limit dropped
through his letter box some days later the 62-year-old painter and
decorator decided to challenge the decision. He would not pay up and nor
would he accept the three penalty points on his licence. It was, he
argued, unfair to penalise him when the speed limit on the road in his
home county of Derbyshire was not clear.
Little did he realise that by last weekend he would be serving time
in Leicester jail for his minor transgression, imprisoned for the
non-payment of his fine.
Two weeks this hardened malefactor received.
Harbon’s story, although extreme, is not as unusual as one might
think. Last Sunday Martin Narey, the head of the prison service,
admitted that jails are now overwhelmed by motorists locked up for minor
violations. . .
Underlining his point, it emerged last week that in 2002 15,059
people were jailed for motoring offences, compared with 10,184 for burglary.
And if you don't get locked up, there are other ways to make you pay:
Last week Sunday Times Driving carried out an international survey
that highlights how the British motorist is punished more harshly (not
to mention taxed more) than those in Germany, Holland, Spain and France.
Fines can vary from state to state in the US, so we picked Ohio as a
typical example and again found figures that made Britain’s fines regime
seem brutal. . .
Travelling at 36mph in a 30mph zone here would result in a fixed
penalty fine of £60 with three penalty points on the offender’s licence.
Of the other countries surveyed, only in France would the licence be
endorsed for travelling 6mph over the limit. In Germany, the fine is
just £10, and in Spain travelling 6mph over the limit carries no fine at
all.
This month in Britain, a new automated fixed penalty fines system
went live to ensure that everyone whose road tax disc expires is fined
£80. In France, Spain, Germany and the US there is no comparable fine.
In Holland the charge for the equivalent offence is just £66.
A parking fine in London will set a motorist back £80, or £60
elsewhere, compared with £31 in Holland, £8 in France, a maximum of £24
in Germany and £20 in Ohio.
The article also links to a few horror stories, where motorists were
fined for eating or drinking while driving, having an empty windshield
washer fluid tank (on a parked car, no less!), and leaving the engine
running while stepping out to kiss the wife goodbye.
--
steven x brown
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The Rifleman
> A parking fine in London will set a motorist back £80, or £60
> elsewhere, compared with £31 in Holland, £8 in France, a maximum of £24
> in Germany and £20 in Ohio.
>
> The article also links to a few horror stories, where motorists were
> fined for eating or drinking while driving, having an empty windshield
> washer fluid tank (on a parked car, no less!), and leaving the engine
> running while stepping out to kiss the wife goodbye.
>
> --
> steven x brown
ambulance after being knocked off his scooter, A cop Van, Ambulance, Smashed
up scooter, witnesses etc , but the Traffic vulture still ticketed his
wrecked motorcycle, still at least we can see howe Nu Labour policys towards
fighting crime are progressing, encouraging ticketing of road traffic
accidents.
steven x brown
Soft targets as always.
The Rifleman
> > What of the poor git who got a ticket whilst he was being lifted into
an
> > ambulance after being knocked off his scooter, A cop Van, Ambulance,
Smashed
> > up scooter, witnesses etc , but the Traffic vulture still ticketed his
> > wrecked motorcycle, still at least we can see howe Nu Labour policys
towards
> > fighting crime are progressing, encouraging ticketing of road traffic
> > accidents.
>
> Soft targets as always.
>
Ironic anyway, I've just been told hes a labour councillor from a
neighbouring borough, so chances are being a labourite the bike may be
knicked or at the very least untaxed and untested.