Vandalism

[Mike]

Hello all,

Our car was attacked last night, as far as we can tell there was nothing stolen it just had the back window totalled. We are both pretty gutted as it was expensive to fix AND has totally thrown our whole schedule for today, being Hazels wedding day.

The Police are understandably rather non-plussed by me reporting it but at least it will feature on their crime statistics (unless they discount lead-less motor crime from their statistics!).

We are now all for Bond like car protection, tazers, unbreakable glass, bullet proof wheels etc. What would your car protection device be????

[johnriley1uk]

I'm afraid the only total defence is to have nothing that anyone wants, and that seems a very poor way to exist.

Destructive vandals should be dealt with IMHO by public flogging until they feel they want to mend their ways. There are no excuses.

[Andy]

Castration for the yobs.

Hope you get to the wedding on time.

[Claire]

My car got broken into a couple of years ago, parked near the MEN. I was really pissed off cos it was nearly midnight in town on a saturday (been to the cinema). The police did sweet FA but who can blame them? what's the point? i did get a thoughtful "how to cope with being a victim of crime" (or some such nonesense) leaflet though. it's a pain in the arse more than anything; i spent a wasted sunday waiting for Mr Autoglass to turn up when i have PGCE work to do!
Christine was with me and drew a tasteful cartoon to reflect the event, that finished with the message "dont let the bastards get you down". Her animated method of deterrent was to put the perpetrators' heads on spikes at the city limits, a la medieval times. this work of art is on permanent public display on our fridge if you want to see!

[TAOWBST]

I'm afraid the only total defence is to have nothing that anyone wants, and that seems a very poor way to exist.

Destructive vandals should be dealt with IMHO by public flogging until they feel they want to mend their ways. There are no excuses.

Sorry to hear that, Mike. I'm afraid that isn't total defence, John. Vandalism and theft aren't always caused by people who want what you have. Vandalism particularly can be a result of vandals who just have nothing else to do.

I agree there should be tougher consequences for vandals, but unfortunatley public flogging kinda goes against their human rights, damn liberalism. As is always the case the rights of the offender have priority over the rights of the victim. It truely is backwards, this world we live in!

[mr_e]

If it was me I'd almost rather they had tried to steal something, then at least I could pretend they might be really hard up and turing to crime to feed their children heroin or something. The fact it's done through boredom is a bit gutting. I mean, it's not that hard to find entertainment that doesn't involve destruction of property, even in Edgeley, I'm sure.

Time to bring back zero-tolerance policing?

[TAOWBST]

If it was me I'd almost rather they had tried to steal something, then at least I could pretend they might be really hard up and turing to crime to feed their children heroin or something. The fact it's done through boredom is a bit gutting. I mean, it's not that hard to find entertainment that doesn't involve destruction of property, even in Edgeley, I'm sure.

Time to bring back zero-tolerance policing?

That all depends on the person I'm afraid. Something that may be entertaining to you, may not be entertaining to them. As awkward and irritating as that may be.

Unfortunately there are some....no many people in this chav culture of ours that have become almost obsessed with causing as much damage and set themself the sole life purpose of being an annoyance to all around them, (which does not exclude each other). The only reason I say chav culture as this is usually the sort of person responsible for such actions, as happened to Mike and Lizzie, (although I sam strongly opposed to such labelling it is necessary in this case - however I must add it may be that it is not such a person who is responsible, but is most likely).

As for zero-tolerance, what do you propose we do, mr_e? Keep in mind you have to come up with a solution that would please both the victim and not cause outrage amongst the culprit's peers. It comes to an inbalance in human rights policies - the law considers the rights of the criminal over those of the victim. Yet it may be a catch-22, as reversing this totally could lead to criminal punishment becoming a direct result of the victim's thirst for revenge.

[mr_e]

Zero-tolerance tends to work, as it instills a respect for the law at any level of crime, not "oh, I can get away with this because the police don't care". That attitude then works its way through to more serious crimes. If you believe the statistics, it does work.

At the end of the day, I don't care about the culprit's peers: they're the people who probably goaded them into doing it, anyway. There is no catch-22, as the victim's desire for punishment is decided through a mediating body, in this case the court system, where there is no direct influence over the outcome ("hang him!"...the judge says no-o).

Having said that, there are some more subtle problems that also need addressing: those of inequality/consumer culture/desire for consequence-free gratification that are at least partially to blame. It's a far too complicated topic for me to wade through in these forums, though. It's all a feedback cycle that's really hard to analyse when your perception of it is shaped by your own personal prejudices and experiences.

[TAOWBST]

It's all a feedback cycle that's really hard to analyse when your perception of it is shaped by your own personal prejudices and experiences.

Right well for a start I don't out and out predjudices like that. It is often said the only way to learn is to experience - so in other words, I only have my own personal experiences to base opinions on.

At the end of the day, I don't care about the culprit's peers: they're the people who probably goaded them into doing it, anyway. There is no catch-22, as the victim's desire for punishment is decided through a mediating body, in this case the court system, where there is no direct influence over the outcome ("hang him!"...the judge says no-o).

You personally may not, and personally I couldn't care less what them or their peers think. BUT my point was that the law does not work like that - you cannot apply zero-tolerance like that. I mean what next- do we enforce capital punishment for petty crimes? What is to stop this mediating body becoming influenced by the victim. The catch-22 I refer to is what is there to stop this inbalance being reversed. Instead of, as is often the case, taking the culprit's rights heavily into consideration, what if the victim's right were the priority, (hence thereby risking acting on revenge).

Zero-tolerance tends to work, as it instills a respect for the law at any level of crime, not "oh, I can get away with this because the police don't care". That attitude then works its way through to more serious crimes. If you believe the statistics, it does work.

Statistics can be used to prove anything, to supprot any argument - so no, in this case statistics may not be reliable in that respect.

[mr_e]

1.
a) I was using "your" in the collective sense, if you id view that as personal. What I was saying was that we're trying to analyse a system we are part of and actually shaped by, which is very difficult to do objectively. No-one needs to experience crime to know it's bad, it's understanding why it happens that's the problem. This is a minor point, though, so let's move on.

2.
a) Zero-tolerance isn't about executing people for minor crimes, it's about encouraging good behaviour, instead of letting minor offences slide (and potentially spiral to worse offences) because it's inconvenient to deal with it.
b) A judge has minimum and maximum sentencing options available to him. The victim doesn't influence these, except through lobbying their MP for a change in the law, and certainly not by whining to the judge.
c) However, I do agree that we also need to avoid skewing the law too far the other way. That's where the sloth of the law-making process helps things not get too far out of hand.

3.
a) Zero tolerance (pdf, very good explanation of it). Several police forces appear to have had some success with it too, most notably the one headed by Ray Mallon.
b) Yeah, statistics are evil.

[Mike]

Time to bring back zero-tolerance policing?

We were talking about this at the weekend and this came up and I think that it should be zero tolerance. If the police removed the word petty from the description and investigated and fined the perpertrators fully then maybe more serious crime would be discouraged!

I agree that we need to stop thinking that people comitting crimes are due any compensation for their actions. They have broken their victim's rights by comitting the crime and the victim is more important than the perpetrator. I do not think that means we should beat prisoners within an inch of their life but I do mean; no more compensation for hurting themselves as they break in, no more compensation for falling through roofs that they should not have been on, or being bitten by the family dog mid robbery etc.

Ironically enough, talking of revenge, if I had the person in custody I would want them discouraged from vandalising property again and would want a full refund of the cost of the repair. However, I do not hold them any futher ill will, I would not be bagering the police for a harsher punishments etc. In fact, I feel rather sorry for them!

[Lizzie]

I'm with Mike on this - although I admit I am biased - there seems to be a major problem with car crime in Manchester. Sadly, our car has been attacked 4 or 5 times in about 4 years, and among people I know it is more common to have been the victim of car crime than not.

I can't help but feel this is at least partly due to the fact that the police don't even investigate car crime, and as such criminals can attack and steel from cars with little or no consequences !! I don't blame the police as I am sure it is lack of resources that are the ultimate cause of the problem, and as such the blame has to lay well and truely with the governing bodies.

Until car crime is investigated, there is no way that the situation in Manchester can improve. And I would advise anyone going in to the Manchester area to be very careful where they park their cars.

Having lived in a number of places other than Manchester- I have never experienced such a high level of car crime. It really is saddening as Manchester is a great city but this one problem brings down people's opinion both of the city and it's residents !!!! [/quote][quote][/quote]

[Kirstypie]

I would go for something of my own construction, tailored for the owner - perhaps some kind of Ginger Car Protection Device. Trained orangutans in the boot always make for a surprised thief.

[Lizzie]

Or we could spray them with 'beard shampoo' and thus the thief in fact loses all his hair !!!

[mr_e]

If you make criminals pay the cost of the repair, it'll take a while to get the money out of them. Maximum repayments are (very) roughly ?15 a week for someone on benefits: they don't have much to lose, really. Making them clear up the mess or do community service is at least more useful.

The blame doesn't lie with the governing bodies, it lies with the little shites who commit the crimes. And Manchester always was known as the car-crime mecca, anyways. Rob's had the fuel nicked from his mini about three times now.