I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
My lived experience is that I've not witnessed anything like that in any stores around here, however my local Asda now requires a pound coin for its trolleys which is bloody annoying when I don't carry cash and don't use pound coins.
They don't have any staff on the checkouts most of the time, most of the self-checkout machines are card-only, but then they insist on a coin for the trolley.
Madness.
Doesn't have to be a £1 coin - there are tokens the same shape & size which are made for that purpose. They used to be quite common but I haven't seen one for ages (except my own).
Bolt cutters work fine as well for the chain and in addition you can use them to steal a bike to get home
LOL the coin's only a way to engage the mechanism, you're not paying £1 to use the trolley. Return the trolley, the coin/token is returned to you.
Which is fine if you have coins on you, but not great if you don't - and many people nowadays don't, and even if you did half their checkouts don't even accept them.
I used to have a token which I kept on my keyring so that I always had a token whenever I drove to the shops, which I bought just after the new pound coins came out and I stopped regularly carrying cash. The mechanism that held the token broke though, so the token was lost.
Now I go out of my way to try to keep a pound coin in the car just for trolleys, but sometimes I forget and leave it in my pocket after returning the trolley then realise next time I go shopping (when wearing different trousers) that I don't have a coin for the trolley FFS.
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you?" when they thoughtlessly block a pavement with their vehicle, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
There's a reason why we all have two ears and one mouth, to borrow a phrase from my gran.
What's wrong with just calling it "experience"?
Because "experience" in common use is less particular and may relate to "what I have seen", and experience (!) has shown that they are useful as distinct categories - "lived experience" has an added weight of personal understanding.
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
Lived experience means experience. Sadly it's become a sociology catchphrase. Sociology catchphrases worming their way into activist discourse and thereby into general discourse is not a great development. They become magic, ungainsayable mantras.
You could, I suppose, contrast lived experience with vicarious experience. But that's already distinguished by 'vicarious'.
I'd say "lived" experience implies something direct and constant, and of a weighty matter, so it does add something if used correctly.
Eg for me:
My lived experience of Hampstead says that RUK have no chance here. That works.
My lived experience of Waitrose is that their tomatoes are overripe. That doesn't work. Not a weighty matter.
My lived experience of Bruges is it's a lovely little town. Doesn't work. Not constant. I've only been once for a short holiday.
But of those 3 items
The first is wrong the other two are true
I think Hampstead will have one of the lowest RUK scores in the UK. Certainly, it was something like 75:25 Remain:Leave.
Lowest score != refuk losing
Sure: but unless you're positing a situation where RUK gets 620+ MPs, then Hampstead is unlikely to go Purple. I mean, anything's possible, but I think it'd be one of the last seats to flip.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
The big retailers have actually got together and started hiring firms to prosecute shoplifters directly:
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
Lived experience means experience. Sadly it's become a sociology catchphrase. Sociology catchphrases worming their way into activist discourse and thereby into general discourse is not a great development. They become magic, ungainsayable mantras.
You could, I suppose, contrast lived experience with vicarious experience. But that's already distinguished by 'vicarious'.
I'd say "lived" experience implies something direct and constant, and of a weighty matter, so it does add something if used correctly.
Eg for me:
My lived experience of Hampstead says that RUK have no chance here. That works.
My lived experience of Waitrose is that their tomatoes are overripe. That doesn't work. Not a weighty matter.
My lived experience of Bruges is it's a lovely little town. Doesn't work. Not constant. I've only been once for a short holiday.
But of those 3 items
The first is wrong the other two are true
I think Hampstead will have one of the lowest RUK scores in the UK. Certainly, it was something like 75:25 Remain:Leave.
Lowest score != refuk losing
Sure: but unless you're positing a situation where RUK gets 620+ MPs, then Hampstead is unlikely to go Purple. I mean, anything's possible, but I think it'd be one of the last seats to flip.
In west hampstead 25% of children apparently live in poverty, suggests there are lots of poor people in hampstead...maybe they haven't been voting up to now
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
The big retailers have actually got together and started hiring firms to prosecute shoplifters directly:
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
Btw...this wasn't a tongue in cheek suggestion or a jokey one in the least.
Important people think the law is optional, so do a lot of the for want of a better word "chav" end of our population. Seems the only people who do obey laws are the little people in the middle. I think you could even successfully argue in court you were just bringing the footpath in compliance with the law after it had been illegaly obstructed by the council.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
My lived experience is that I've not witnessed anything like that in any stores around here, however my local Asda now requires a pound coin for its trolleys which is bloody annoying when I don't carry cash and don't use pound coins.
They don't have any staff on the checkouts most of the time, most of the self-checkout machines are card-only, but then they insist on a coin for the trolley.
Madness.
Doesn't have to be a £1 coin - there are tokens the same shape & size which are made for that purpose. They used to be quite common but I haven't seen one for ages (except my own).
Bolt cutters work fine as well for the chain and in addition you can use them to steal a bike to get home
LOL the coin's only a way to engage the mechanism, you're not paying £1 to use the trolley. Return the trolley, the coin/token is returned to you.
Which is fine if you have coins on you, but not great if you don't - and many people nowadays don't, and even if you did half their checkouts don't even accept them.
I used to have a token which I kept on my keyring so that I always had a token whenever I drove to the shops, which I bought just after the new pound coins came out and I stopped regularly carrying cash. The mechanism that held the token broke though, so the token was lost.
Now I go out of my way to try to keep a pound coin in the car just for trolleys, but sometimes I forget and leave it in my pocket after returning the trolley then realise next time I go shopping (when wearing different trousers) that I don't have a coin for the trolley FFS.
My experience (Sainsbury's) was that when I found I didn't have a pound coin for the trolley the person on the tobacco/etc kiosk just inside had a stash of tokens that they were happy to hand out. But it is more irritating than the no-coin trolley approach nonetheless...
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
Lived experience means experience. Sadly it's become a sociology catchphrase. Sociology catchphrases worming their way into activist discourse and thereby into general discourse is not a great development. They become magic, ungainsayable mantras.
You could, I suppose, contrast lived experience with vicarious experience. But that's already distinguished by 'vicarious'.
I'd say "lived" experience implies something direct and constant, and of a weighty matter, so it does add something if used correctly.
Eg for me:
My lived experience of Hampstead says that RUK have no chance here. That works.
My lived experience of Waitrose is that their tomatoes are overripe. That doesn't work. Not a weighty matter.
My lived experience of Bruges is it's a lovely little town. Doesn't work. Not constant. I've only been once for a short holiday.
But of those 3 items
The first is wrong the other two are true
I think Hampstead will have one of the lowest RUK scores in the UK. Certainly, it was something like 75:25 Remain:Leave.
Lowest score != refuk losing
Sure: but unless you're positing a situation where RUK gets 620+ MPs, then Hampstead is unlikely to go Purple. I mean, anything's possible, but I think it'd be one of the last seats to flip.
In west hampstead 25% of children apparently live in poverty, suggests there are lots of poor people in hampstead...maybe they haven't been voting up to now
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
Lived experience means experience. Sadly it's become a sociology catchphrase. Sociology catchphrases worming their way into activist discourse and thereby into general discourse is not a great development. They become magic, ungainsayable mantras.
You could, I suppose, contrast lived experience with vicarious experience. But that's already distinguished by 'vicarious'.
I'd say "lived" experience implies something direct and constant, and of a weighty matter, so it does add something if used correctly.
Eg for me:
My lived experience of Hampstead says that RUK have no chance here. That works.
My lived experience of Waitrose is that their tomatoes are overripe. That doesn't work. Not a weighty matter.
My lived experience of Bruges is it's a lovely little town. Doesn't work. Not constant. I've only been once for a short holiday.
But of those 3 items
The first is wrong the other two are true
I think Hampstead will have one of the lowest RUK scores in the UK. Certainly, it was something like 75:25 Remain:Leave.
Lowest score != refuk losing
Sure: but unless you're positing a situation where RUK gets 620+ MPs, then Hampstead is unlikely to go Purple. I mean, anything's possible, but I think it'd be one of the last seats to flip.
In west hampstead 25% of children apparently live in poverty, suggests there are lots of poor people in hampstead...maybe they haven't been voting up to now
West Hampstead isn't in Hampstead.
Well I am probably too poor to be allowed near hampstead so sorry for my assumption
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider. That is 60cm to about 75cm. They replaced a type known as an A-barrier with one known as a K-barrier.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
The big retailers have actually got together and started hiring firms to prosecute shoplifters directly:
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
Lived experience means experience. Sadly it's become a sociology catchphrase. Sociology catchphrases worming their way into activist discourse and thereby into general discourse is not a great development. They become magic, ungainsayable mantras.
You could, I suppose, contrast lived experience with vicarious experience. But that's already distinguished by 'vicarious'.
I'd say "lived" experience implies something direct and constant, and of a weighty matter, so it does add something if used correctly.
Eg for me:
My lived experience of Hampstead says that RUK have no chance here. That works.
My lived experience of Waitrose is that their tomatoes are overripe. That doesn't work. Not a weighty matter.
My lived experience of Bruges is it's a lovely little town. Doesn't work. Not constant. I've only been once for a short holiday.
But of those 3 items
The first is wrong the other two are true
I think Hampstead will have one of the lowest RUK scores in the UK. Certainly, it was something like 75:25 Remain:Leave.
Lowest score != refuk losing
Sure: but unless you're positing a situation where RUK gets 620+ MPs, then Hampstead is unlikely to go Purple. I mean, anything's possible, but I think it'd be one of the last seats to flip.
In west hampstead 25% of children apparently live in poverty, suggests there are lots of poor people in hampstead...maybe they haven't been voting up to now
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
Our governments both local and central think they rule us rather than being there to serve us. We need to disabuse them of this notion.
President Trump has told India and Pakistan to stop it.
Ah well that's stopped that problem then. And not long after he got Putin to end his war within 24 hours, by pressuring Zelensky.
Do we give him his Nobel prize now, or wait until he turns his attention to the Middle East?
Best to wait until China invades Taiwan, I think. There'll be a very firm tweet about that, and possibly some freewheeling remarks to the media on Airforce One.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
What else can you do when the police won't bother acting even if you say here is where it is, gps says so. It wasn't that bad anyway as I got mates rates
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
What else can you do when the police won't bother acting even if you say here is where it is, gps says so. It wasn't that bad anyway as I got mates rates
I entirely agree. But you need to vote Reform. they are so far from perfect, but they at least offer a hope of a way back out of this mess
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
President Trump has told India and Pakistan to stop it.
Ah well that's stopped that problem then. And not long after he got Putin to end his war within 24 hours, by pressuring Zelensky.
Do we give him his Nobel prize now, or wait until he turns his attention to the Middle East?
Best to wait until China invades Taiwan, I think. There'll be a very firm tweet about that, and possibly some freewheeling remarks to the media on Airforce One.
That's a problem that can only be solved by putting tariffs on Joe Biden.
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
As an anecdote back in the late 80's when police were better funded and making more arrests we all had contacts with members of the drug squad to by our stash from.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
They intend to cut immigration by cancelling pylons.
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
Politicians have always been bastards, you won't change that just saying. The last people you should put in control of things is people who want to be in control
So… last night Kemi had drinks for Tory MPs. A Tory source tell my colleague @PaulTwinn :
“Only 25 MPs showed up to Kemi’s drinks last night - Huddlestone having to ring around to get people there. One MP said: “The Prosecco was flat and the atmosphere was flatter still.” “
So… last night Kemi had drinks for Tory MPs. A Tory source tell my colleague @PaulTwinn :
“Only 25 MPs showed up to Kemi’s drinks last night - Huddlestone having to ring around to get people there. One MP said: “The Prosecco was flat and the atmosphere was flatter still.” “
I used to have a token which I kept on my keyring so that I always had a token whenever I drove to the shops, which I bought just after the new pound coins came out and I stopped regularly carrying cash. The mechanism that held the token broke though, so the token was lost.
I just 3D print tokens in bulk, a couple of dozen takes barely an hour to print and costs pennies. Then I always leave one in the trolley, and also hand them out to anyone who looks like they're searching for a pound coin.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All of which are tiny population wise....bigger the population harder it is to manage just saying.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
Iceland, ridiculous
Norway, tiny and rich
Switzerland, insanely rich
Denmark - the best comparison with the UK - severely rightwing policies in many areas
So… last night Kemi had drinks for Tory MPs. A Tory source tell my colleague @PaulTwinn :
“Only 25 MPs showed up to Kemi’s drinks last night - Huddlestone having to ring around to get people there. One MP said: “The Prosecco was flat and the atmosphere was flatter still.” “
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
I do agree with the latter statement the problem is we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people....however in my experience the police aren't that interested in arresting people who are going to be difficult.
Anecdote alert...my stepfather who was living in cornwall had his dog stolen from his garden...knew the guy had headed off down the coastal path....drove round to the other end caught up with him got the dog back. Police arrived and told him he was lucky not to be arrested for threatening to throw the guy off the cliff if he didnt give the dog back. He probably wouldn't off just wanted his dog back. But the police had absolutely no interest in tracking down the dog thief apart from the chance to prosecute him for threatening behaviour
So… last night Kemi had drinks for Tory MPs. A Tory source tell my colleague @PaulTwinn :
“Only 25 MPs showed up to Kemi’s drinks last night - Huddlestone having to ring around to get people there. One MP said: “The Prosecco was flat and the atmosphere was flatter still.” “
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
They intend to cut immigration by cancelling pylons.
Apparently the plan is to put the necessary cables in the Wash;
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
They intend to cut immigration by cancelling pylons.
Well if you have to bury power cables the cost of electricity is going to be higher than it otherwise would be..
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
They intend to cut immigration by cancelling pylons.
Apparently the plan is to put the necessary cables in the Wash;
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
They intend to cut immigration by cancelling pylons.
Well if you have to bury power cables the cost of electricity is going to be higher than it otherwise would be..
Loathe as I am to admit it I actually for once agree with CHB on this
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
And even if you do get a guilty verdict you're likely to just get a suspended sentence from our revolving door justice system.
"Reform won't suspend councillor who shared Hitler meme during VE Day commemorations
Councillor Joel Tetlow appeared to compare the small boat crossings in the Channel to Hitler's invasion of Europe in a post he has now deleted. He told Sky News he did not mean "any disrespect" to soldiers who fought in the two world wars."
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
Lived experience means experience. Sadly it's become a sociology catchphrase. Sociology catchphrases worming their way into activist discourse and thereby into general discourse is not a great development. They become magic, ungainsayable mantras.
You could, I suppose, contrast lived experience with vicarious experience. But that's already distinguished by 'vicarious'.
I'd say "lived" experience implies something direct and constant, and of a weighty matter, so it does add something if used correctly.
Eg for me:
My lived experience of Hampstead says that RUK have no chance here. That works.
My lived experience of Waitrose is that their tomatoes are overripe. That doesn't work. Not a weighty matter.
My lived experience of Bruges is it's a lovely little town. Doesn't work. Not constant. I've only been once for a short holiday.
But of those 3 items
The first is wrong the other two are true
I think Hampstead will have one of the lowest RUK scores in the UK. Certainly, it was something like 75:25 Remain:Leave.
Lowest score != refuk losing
Sure: but unless you're positing a situation where RUK gets 620+ MPs, then Hampstead is unlikely to go Purple. I mean, anything's possible, but I think it'd be one of the last seats to flip.
In west hampstead 25% of children apparently live in poverty, suggests there are lots of poor people in hampstead...maybe they haven't been voting up to now
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
And even if you do get a guilty verdict you're likely to just get a suspended sentence from our revolving door justice system.
And that's because we haven't invested in enough prison capacity.
Politicians like to say "tougher sentences", because that's easy and it shows they're doing something.
But if there aren't prison places, then all that happens is that other people get let out earlier.
The fundamental problem is one of lack of money. Really, we should be spending 50% more on the police and the prisons, and twice as much on the judicial system.
I saw someone get arrested for shoplifting the other day. Police car appeared suddenly, blocking pavement and out popped two officers who grabbed the person, whilst leaving their companion alone. Seemed very slick.
Definitely my lived experience (not totally sure what the 'lived' bit adds there other than winding up some people) is that shoplifting seems more common as do security guards in shops... feel sorry for the retail workers.
"Lived experience" is an important phrase.
It is intended to prevent ignorant people using their own opinions to belittle the experience of others. For example men lecturing women about dangers of sex crime, or able bodied lecturing disabled people about "I could get a wheelchair through there - why can't you" when they block a pavement, or assuming that a Guide Dog can walk ahead of a blind person rather than requiring a gap for side by side.
It means far more than a mere "my opinion".
I suppose you are right, in that experience of seeing disabled people is different from experience of being a disabled person.
Yes - it's like a focus group vs an average, and the importance of particular different experiences (especially minority experiences) about which assumptions are often just casually made.
The classic example for me was that I had been walking through wheelchair blocking barriers for decades and decades with a sideways shimmy and not a thought, and did not even perceive a problem until I had to push a wheelchair through one. Then I started noticing them everywhere.
I have one in my town which has been there for 60 years, where the "wheeling" diversion for mobility aids, prams etc is 700m rather than 20m down the path to the churchyard. It's in one of those housing estates which is laid out like a lung.
Why not just buy an angle grinder not like you will ever get caught for removing them
There's a whole bundle of reasons.
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider.
Target one to start with, they put it back you take it back down repeat till they give up....move onto the next. It is the only way to fight the bastards
I don't think that's the way, except in certain cases. I prefer to change them from being bastards to not-bastards.
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
They intend to cut immigration by cancelling pylons.
Apparently the plan is to put the necessary cables in the Wash;
They could act as tripwires to stop people reaching the British coast. Win-win.
Or use them as a giant taser, like Homer Simpson fishing. I think there will be a disturbingly high proportion of the population who could be persuaded that would work.
Prosecco is up there with pineapple on pizza and radiohead live....
Come on nothing is worse than radiohead live except maybe coldplay
Coldplay did produce one genuinely excellent album. The rest of their discography is rubbish, mind.
Shall we admit we have different musical tastes then, as in I have one and you don't?
I think we'd agree that 90% of Coldplay is shit. I just happen to be quite fond of A Rush of Blood to the Head. Which is odd, because at the time I was breaking up with my (then) girlfriend, and listened to it about 300 times because I was really depressed.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
As an anecdote back in the late 80's when police were better funded and making more arrests we all had contacts with members of the drug squad to by our stash from.
I'm not sure when the last time we had any faith in the police was. Dixon of Dock Green era? Possibly? If you ignore reality?
Any time I've needed them they've been useless - to borderline obstructive. And I say this coming from a police family.
Once two plod literally pulled me out of a shop to fine me because I'd dropped a cigarette on the ground - after looking around for a bin. Which the two plod had - coincidentally - been standing in front of, blocking any sight of.
I have never seen policemen drain of colour as quickly as they did when I mentioned my family connections and going to a meeting with their bosses bosses bosses boss later that day.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
And even if you do get a guilty verdict you're likely to just get a suspended sentence from our revolving door justice system.
And that's because we haven't invested in enough prison capacity.
Politicians like to say "tougher sentences", because that's easy and it shows they're doing something.
But if there aren't prison places, then all that happens is that other people get let out earlier.
The fundamental problem is one of lack of money. Really, we should be spending 50% more on the police and the prisons, and twice as much on the judicial system.
It's certainly true that delivering justice is a more fundamental obligation of the state than delivering public services or delivering benefits.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
And even if you do get a guilty verdict you're likely to just get a suspended sentence from our revolving door justice system.
And that's because we haven't invested in enough prison capacity.
Politicians like to say "tougher sentences", because that's easy and it shows they're doing something.
But if there aren't prison places, then all that happens is that other people get let out earlier.
The fundamental problem is one of lack of money. Really, we should be spending 50% more on the police and the prisons, and twice as much on the judicial system.
If we spent twice as much on the judicial system, we probably wouldn't need to spend any more on the Police.
Its the same people who commit crimes regularly and they're generally known to the Police, but if they never see Justice its moot. If they actually face Justice then that cuts out a lot of crime.
Speaking of Hampstead, my wife and I went on a nostalgia tour on bank holiday Monday after dropping the kids off to my parents. It really is such a beautiful part of London, we even eyed up some of the estate agency windows but then realised how stupid we were being.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
And even if you do get a guilty verdict you're likely to just get a suspended sentence from our revolving door justice system.
And that's because we haven't invested in enough prison capacity.
Politicians like to say "tougher sentences", because that's easy and it shows they're doing something.
But if there aren't prison places, then all that happens is that other people get let out earlier.
The fundamental problem is one of lack of money. Really, we should be spending 50% more on the police and the prisons, and twice as much on the judicial system.
If we spent twice as much on the judicial system, we probably wouldn't need to spend any more on the Police.
Its the same people who commit crimes regularly and they're generally known to the Police, but if they never see Justice its moot. If they actually face Justice then that cuts out a lot of crime.
I am *slightly* less optimistic than you are, but in complete agreement that the biggest issue is the judicial system.
Prosecco is up there with pineapple on pizza and radiohead live....
Come on nothing is worse than radiohead live except maybe coldplay
Coldplay did produce one genuinely excellent album. The rest of their discography is rubbish, mind.
Shall we admit we have different musical tastes then, as in I have one and you don't?
I think we'd agree that 90% of Coldplay is shit. I just happen to be quite fond of A Rush of Blood to the Head. Which is odd, because at the time I was breaking up with my (then) girlfriend, and listened to it about 300 times because I was really depressed.
For future reference when depressed Leonard Cohen is the goto guy for driving you to even deeper depression just saying
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
And even if you do get a guilty verdict you're likely to just get a suspended sentence from our revolving door justice system.
And that's because we haven't invested in enough prison capacity.
Politicians like to say "tougher sentences", because that's easy and it shows they're doing something.
But if there aren't prison places, then all that happens is that other people get let out earlier.
The fundamental problem is one of lack of money. Really, we should be spending 50% more on the police and the prisons, and twice as much on the judicial system.
It's certainly true that delivering justice is a more fundamental obligation of the state than delivering public services or delivering benefits.
Indeed: the very first obligation of the state is a legal system.
Prosecco is up there with pineapple on pizza and radiohead live....
Come on nothing is worse than radiohead live except maybe coldplay
Coldplay did produce one genuinely excellent album. The rest of their discography is rubbish, mind.
Shall we admit we have different musical tastes then, as in I have one and you don't?
I think we'd agree that 90% of Coldplay is shit. I just happen to be quite fond of A Rush of Blood to the Head. Which is odd, because at the time I was breaking up with my (then) girlfriend, and listened to it about 300 times because I was really depressed.
For future reference when depressed Leonard Cohen is the goto guy for driving you to even deeper depression just saying
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All those countries have incarceration rates of around 50 out of every 100,000 people. By contrast,
USA: 664 per 100k UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
If we successfully prosecute more people then presumably the incarceration rate will go up?
The way I look at is like this:
Criminals think about - chance of getting caught - likelihood of getting punished - distance in the future before said punishment happens and - severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
Speed and certainty are way more significant than serverity of punishment.
Making really nasty threats is what you do when you can't or won't have a system to deliver speed or certainty. It has a bit of an effect in the very short term, and it's way cheaper to do.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All of which are tiny population wise....bigger the population harder it is to manage just saying.
I don't see why that should be the case - otherwise we could thrive by just chopping the UK into scores of little bits?
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
As an anecdote back in the late 80's when police were better funded and making more arrests we all had contacts with members of the drug squad to by our stash from.
I'm not sure when the last time we had any faith in the police was. Dixon of Dock Green era? Possibly? If you ignore reality?
Any time I've needed them they've been useless - to borderline obstructive. And I say this coming from a police family.
Once two plod literally pulled me out of a shop to fine me because I'd dropped a cigarette on the ground - after looking around for a bin. Which the two plod had - coincidentally - been standing in front of, blocking any sight of.
I have never seen policemen drain of colour as quickly as they did when I mentioned my family connections and going to a meeting with their bosses bosses bosses boss later that day.
As I have excoriated the police will tell another anecdote....friend of mine or rather ex wife of a friend called me 4am in the morning her new boyfriend had gone proper fruitloop. Went round couldn't calm him down either despite having known him for years. He was a danger to himself. Had her call the police the two that attended were professional, compassionate, empathetic got him safely to hospital along with myself. Kept his girlfriend informed as did I. Couldn't have asked for better. Went into the station next day and asked to talk to a senior officer about the incident left two bottles of whisky for them as they really went above and beyond
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
IMO Labour should be less worried about Farage and 'Trumpian' influences in our politics than the growing number of articulate young women on social media who are turning to the right.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All of which are tiny population wise....bigger the population harder it is to manage just saying.
I don't see why that should be the case - otherwise we could thrive by just chopping the UK into scores of little bits?
I think there is a little bit of truth in it: smaller units tend to be more efficient generally. If you look at former Eastern European communist countries, there's almost a complete inverse correlation between size and how well they've done: so Estonia and Slovenia have done the best, while Russia (at the other extreme) has done the worst.
And I think in smaller units, the leaders are physically closer to the people, and therefore generally more receptive to their needs.
(This small and nimble wins is why I voted for Brexit.)
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All of which are tiny population wise....bigger the population harder it is to manage just saying.
I don't see why that should be the case - otherwise we could thrive by just chopping the UK into scores of little bits?
Because if you do something bad that you might actually have police bothering about its easier to hide for one.
Also because when you are a smaller community its actually harder to commit crimes because people knowing about what you get up to is easier and they all know in small communities...I grew up in a town of 6000 we all knew who were the bad ones....so did the police....grow in in a city like london with 8 million which is bigger than pretty much all those countries populations then no you don't know the person you are socialising with is one of the bad ones
Prosecco is up there with pineapple on pizza and radiohead live....
Come on nothing is worse than radiohead live except maybe coldplay
Coldplay did produce one genuinely excellent album. The rest of their discography is rubbish, mind.
Shall we admit we have different musical tastes then, as in I have one and you don't?
I think we'd agree that 90% of Coldplay is shit. I just happen to be quite fond of A Rush of Blood to the Head. Which is odd, because at the time I was breaking up with my (then) girlfriend, and listened to it about 300 times because I was really depressed.
For future reference when depressed Leonard Cohen is the goto guy for driving you to even deeper depression just saying
Imagine a Leonard Cohen gig, with The Verve and The Smiths as support acts.
Prosecco is up there with pineapple on pizza and radiohead live....
Come on nothing is worse than radiohead live except maybe coldplay
Coldplay did produce one genuinely excellent album. The rest of their discography is rubbish, mind.
Shall we admit we have different musical tastes then, as in I have one and you don't?
I think we'd agree that 90% of Coldplay is shit. I just happen to be quite fond of A Rush of Blood to the Head. Which is odd, because at the time I was breaking up with my (then) girlfriend, and listened to it about 300 times because I was really depressed.
For future reference when depressed Leonard Cohen is the goto guy for driving you to even deeper depression just saying
Imagine a Leonard Cohen gig, with The Verve and The Smiths as support acts.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All of which are tiny population wise....bigger the population harder it is to manage just saying.
I don't see why that should be the case - otherwise we could thrive by just chopping the UK into scores of little bits?
I think there is a little bit of truth in it: smaller units tend to be more efficient generally. If you look at former Eastern European communist countries, there's almost a complete inverse correlation between size and how well they've done: so Estonia and Slovenia have done the best, while Russia (at the other extreme) has done the worst.
And I think in smaller units, the leaders are physically closer to the people, and therefore generally more receptive to their needs.
(This small and nimble wins is why I voted for Brexit.)
To be honest this strikes as the kind of analysis done by people who don't understand that economics is a 'social' science. It's probably easier to set up a modern state in a small country. However the differences between Russia and Slovenia are much more profound than geographical size.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All of which are tiny population wise....bigger the population harder it is to manage just saying.
I don't see why that should be the case - otherwise we could thrive by just chopping the UK into scores of little bits?
I think there is a little bit of truth in it: smaller units tend to be more efficient generally. If you look at former Eastern European communist countries, there's almost a complete inverse correlation between size and how well they've done: so Estonia and Slovenia have done the best, while Russia (at the other extreme) has done the worst.
And I think in smaller units, the leaders are physically closer to the people, and therefore generally more receptive to their needs.
(This small and nimble wins is why I voted for Brexit.)
To be honest this strikes as the kind of analysis done by people who don't understand that economics is a 'social' science. It's probably easier to set up a modern state in a small country. However the differences between Russia and Slovenia are much more profound than geographical size.
Oh, I'm not saying that's all the answer: but I do think smaller countries tend to perform generally better than larger ones.
It would be interesting to see some polling on "the government understands the problems of people like me" vs country size: I suspect there would be a decent amount of correlation.
Until recently (and the rise of aggressively territorial countries like Russia and ... errr ... the US), I also think that a lot of the benefits that came from size aren't there any more. Technology has meant that governing can be cheap.
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
I remember drink shops in particular having glass walls and metal bars 20 years ago. But I am not disputing there has been an increase. When people stop enforcing the law people take advantage. It is (wrongly) regarded as a victimless crime.
And its ridiculous it is like this. When I was a fiscal in Dundee 25 years ago we would get the Sheriff to go off the bench and we (prosecution and defence) would look at the videos. If the accused could be ID'd they pled. It they couldn't the case was dropped. The percentage where the CCTV was so poor that ID was not possible was high.
These days CCTV can give you an identification at least a couple of hundred yards away. It is incredibly clear. Catching these people, if we could be bothered, should be easy.
Obviously, some of the PB oldies have rose tinted glasses on, and remember the 80s as a time when you could leave your front door open, go on holiday for a fortnight, and the local kids would go in and vacuum your house for you and leave your kitchen immaculate.
Despite their obvious senility, it is clear that shoplifting has gotten significantly more prevalent since funding for the police and courts was slashed, because the likelihood of negative consequences for those who do is close to zero.
I would ask: whence came this absurd idea that shoplifting shall not be prosecuted?!
It seems to have emerged in the UK and the USA at roughly the same time
Probably when it was seen as more expense than it was worth.
At societal level, that's obviously silly- in many areas, we get as much crime as we are willing to collectively walk past- but a dessicated spreadsheet shagger would prioritise other crimes which allow more solved cases for less hassle and expense.
If you manage by KPI- and the UK has done little else since the Blair years, and it's a global trend- expect KPI to bite you on the bum.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just look how good the stats are on physical violence, theft (primarily because burglaries have dropped off), and so on.
If you were to take a cold look at it, it's fraud and sexual assault that you would spend all the cash on. Both can be devastating to people in a way that shoplifting simply is not - the ROI there is unbeatable.
(but I do understand the broken window theory. I also think there is an intrinsic value in just walking around in a broadly crime free society).
Agreed- the principle is pretty sensible. Put the money where it will do most good first, and work down from there. It's a similar sort of idea to QALYs in medicine. The catch is that you have to get the "benefit" calculation spot-on, and there seems to be a reality check missing here.
The other problem is what happens if the money runs out before you get to the bottom of your list of crimes you would like to stop? Which is almost certainly the case at the moment. We want less shoplifting, less grafitti... does that want extend to paying more, or having less of something else, to achieve it? The reality is... probably not.
On a more serious note to my earlier postings about bolt cutters. What you get is what we have now which is private law. Get burglared you don't go to the police you go have a word with some people if you want your stuff back and some money changes hand....been there done that
Is it private law or just the birth of a new proto-State that may grow to replace the old one?
Don't think they plan to form a government, just people who dont mind making some untaxed money to get your stuff back
Ah! A nascent security apparatus!
Not really as they are generally criminal themselves....in my case I really wanted the laptop back because it had lots of irreplacable photo's of my son. I know for a fact however as a group they had murdered, committed assaults, run guns and drugs etc
This is why we need a really tough brutal hard right government. Why should you have to buy off criminal gangs to get your stuff back. You pay your taxes and obey the law, you deserve so much better and I am done with the liberals
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
Or we could just fund the police and courts properly. Lots of left wing countries seem to have managed that.
Increasingly not true. Increasingly, as I travel the world, the countries that are doing well have significantly authoritarian governments that inflict serious punishments on minor offenders. Their cities are clean, crime is low, graffiti does not exist, young women can go solo jogging at 10pm with no fear
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland all wave hello.
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
All of which are tiny population wise....bigger the population harder it is to manage just saying.
I don't see why that should be the case - otherwise we could thrive by just chopping the UK into scores of little bits?
I think there is a little bit of truth in it: smaller units tend to be more efficient generally. If you look at former Eastern European communist countries, there's almost a complete inverse correlation between size and how well they've done: so Estonia and Slovenia have done the best, while Russia (at the other extreme) has done the worst.
And I think in smaller units, the leaders are physically closer to the people, and therefore generally more receptive to their needs.
(This small and nimble wins is why I voted for Brexit.)
To be honest this strikes as the kind of analysis done by people who don't understand that economics is a 'social' science. It's probably easier to set up a modern state in a small country. However the differences between Russia and Slovenia are much more profound than geographical size.
I don't think its about geographical size its about population it is probably and this is speculation that a population of 100000 needs a lot less police officers per 100k than a population of 1 mill which needs less than a population of 10mill and that needs less that a population of 100 mill
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It might be China sees an opportunity because of the tariff situation. Could Europe afford to put sanctions on China ? I’ll have to watch it on Iplayer .
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It might be China sees an opportunity because of the tariff situation. Could Europe afford to put sanctions on China ? I’ll have to watch it on Iplayer .
I dont think personally china will attack taiwan currently. The situation with the clown in chief is so febrile internationally that they will want to see how it shakes out first. The chinese are patient
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It might be China sees an opportunity because of the tariff situation. Could Europe afford to put sanctions on China ? I’ll have to watch it on Iplayer .
Europe on the other hand is far less bothered by Taiwan than it is by Ukraine, given the former is on the other side of the world not its own continent
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It might be China sees an opportunity because of the tariff situation. Could Europe afford to put sanctions on China ? I’ll have to watch it on Iplayer .
I dont think personally china will attack taiwan currently. The situation with the clown in chief is so febrile internationally that they will want to see how it shakes out first. The chinese are patient
For example if you were china, you can send an invasion fleet to taiwan....how confident are you that tango man might not actually say back off or the nukes are in the air if he is in the wrong mood?
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It's quite hard to attack Taiwan, due to the large amount of sea that the invasion force would need to cross. At the very least, we'd get lots of warning because China would need to martial its forces in ports on its Eastern seaboard.
Reform doing better with middle aged than pensioners.
Kemi has at least made progress with 18-44s, the Conservatives up to 10% with 18-24s from 8% with Yougov and 5% with Mori under Rishi last year and up 1% with 25-34s and also up 1% with 35-44s based on Mori's 2024 figures. Tories down with all age groups over 45 since the GE otherwise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Results
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
My lived experience is that I've not witnessed anything like that in any stores around here, however my local Asda now requires a pound coin for its trolleys which is bloody annoying when I don't carry cash and don't use pound coins.
They don't have any staff on the checkouts most of the time, most of the self-checkout machines are card-only, but then they insist on a coin for the trolley.
Madness.
Doesn't have to be a £1 coin - there are tokens the same shape & size which are made for that purpose. They used to be quite common but I haven't seen one for ages (except my own).
Bolt cutters work fine as well for the chain and in addition you can use them to steal a bike to get home
LOL the coin's only a way to engage the mechanism, you're not paying £1 to use the trolley. Return the trolley, the coin/token is returned to you.
Which is fine if you have coins on you, but not great if you don't - and many people nowadays don't, and even if you did half their checkouts don't even accept them.
I used to have a token which I kept on my keyring so that I always had a token whenever I drove to the shops, which I bought just after the new pound coins came out and I stopped regularly carrying cash. The mechanism that held the token broke though, so the token was lost.
Now I go out of my way to try to keep a pound coin in the car just for trolleys, but sometimes I forget and leave it in my pocket after returning the trolley then realise next time I go shopping (when wearing different trousers) that I don't have a coin for the trolley FFS.
I can offer excellent info on this
Buy a can of corned beef- open the tiny slot on the key with a pointy thing so you can hang it on your car keys - I have aCBkey on every set of keys. (You soon get sick of corned beef but stealing the keys is wrong.)
At Aldi for example - when you want a trolley - press the corned beef can key handle end into the pound slot. The chain will spring open and your key will be easily removed from the pound slot.
Now you can find out if you are the kind of lout that abandons trolleys.
I'm expecting some likes for this post. its the best advice posted on here for some time.
Too many young men with time on their hands? (That's what I would look at first, were I studying the changes.)
I would first look at too many guns as my prime point.....its a lot harder to murder someone with an axe usually takes a few strokes unless you know where to hit which gives you cooling down time whereas a single shot to the head doesnt
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It might be China sees an opportunity because of the tariff situation. Could Europe afford to put sanctions on China ? I’ll have to watch it on Iplayer .
I dont think personally china will attack taiwan currently. The situation with the clown in chief is so febrile internationally that they will want to see how it shakes out first. The chinese are patient
For example if you were china, you can send an invasion fleet to taiwan....how confident are you that tango man might not actually say back off or the nukes are in the air if he is in the wrong mood?
Completely confident.
The man is a coward. He'll never fight anyone who can fight back.
So… last night Kemi had drinks for Tory MPs. A Tory source tell my colleague @PaulTwinn :
“Only 25 MPs showed up to Kemi’s drinks last night - Huddlestone having to ring around to get people there. One MP said: “The Prosecco was flat and the atmosphere was flatter still.” “
All doors temporarily locked. Had to unlock them for me so I could get in
“Disruption by shoplifters, Sir”
But remember we are all imagining it, as @Eabhal assures us
Jeezo, this has really upset you.
FWIW, my local Scotmid regularly gets cleaned out by a group of 16-year olds. I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that the sudden obsession with it is a bit odd.
The big spike happened in 2020 and I don't recall any conniptions about it then. It's similar to small boats to a lesser extent, with the giant leap happening in 2022.
I respect your lived experience, of course.
Lived experience is code for own facts.
This is actual EXPERIENCE.
We've both seen it over the last 48 hours. It's rife.
You're a Moron. That's my lived experience of you.
My lived experience from 8 years ago = constant shoplifting and getting spoken to by the police for energetically removing headtorches from a thief.
We never reported it.
That's my concern about these statistics. Has something happened that makes it more likely that these offences are reported or is this a genuine increase? My anecdotal impression is very much the latter but there may be other reasons.
Well, my lived experience is that the local Lidl now has a bouncer on the door, as does Sainsbury's.
The local corner shop has put up a glass wall for the checkout.
Something has changed.
My lived experience is that I've not witnessed anything like that in any stores around here, however my local Asda now requires a pound coin for its trolleys which is bloody annoying when I don't carry cash and don't use pound coins.
They don't have any staff on the checkouts most of the time, most of the self-checkout machines are card-only, but then they insist on a coin for the trolley.
Madness.
Doesn't have to be a £1 coin - there are tokens the same shape & size which are made for that purpose. They used to be quite common but I haven't seen one for ages (except my own).
Bolt cutters work fine as well for the chain and in addition you can use them to steal a bike to get home
LOL the coin's only a way to engage the mechanism, you're not paying £1 to use the trolley. Return the trolley, the coin/token is returned to you.
Which is fine if you have coins on you, but not great if you don't - and many people nowadays don't, and even if you did half their checkouts don't even accept them.
I used to have a token which I kept on my keyring so that I always had a token whenever I drove to the shops, which I bought just after the new pound coins came out and I stopped regularly carrying cash. The mechanism that held the token broke though, so the token was lost.
Now I go out of my way to try to keep a pound coin in the car just for trolleys, but sometimes I forget and leave it in my pocket after returning the trolley then realise next time I go shopping (when wearing different trousers) that I don't have a coin for the trolley FFS.
I can offer excellent info on this
Buy a can of corned beef- open the tiny slot on the key with a pointy thing so you can hang it on your car keys - I have aCBkey on every set of keys. (You soon get sick of corned beef but stealing the keys is wrong.)
At Aldi for example - when you want a trolley - press the corned beef can key handle end into the pound slot. The chain will spring open and your key will be easily removed from the pound slot.
Now you can find out if you are the kind of lout that abandons trolleys.
I'm expecting some likes for this post. its the best advice posted on here for some time.
erm you buy tinned corned beef? While I don't consider myself rich even I don't do that. Next you will be buying luncheon meat.
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It's quite hard to attack Taiwan, due to the large amount of sea that the invasion force would need to cross. At the very least, we'd get lots of warning because China would need to martial its forces in ports on its Eastern seaboard.
My understanding is the sea is so rough for 9 months of the year and the coast line is brutal, there is a very small window of around 3 months every year that it is even possible to mount an invasion to the small areas of the coastline.
Completely off topic, but this has been puzzling me for a while: Why did Boris Johnson choose to be "Boris" in politics than, for example, "Alexander"?
(In the US, Boris is often used for "Russian" jokes.
Example: Ivan: "How are you doing today, Boris?" Boris: "Average." Ivan: "What do you mean,average?" Boris: "Worse than yesterday, better than tomorrow. So, average." )
John Simpson on BBC2: the attack on Taiwan will probably come sooner rather than later.
It might be China sees an opportunity because of the tariff situation. Could Europe afford to put sanctions on China ? I’ll have to watch it on Iplayer .
I dont think personally china will attack taiwan currently. The situation with the clown in chief is so febrile internationally that they will want to see how it shakes out first. The chinese are patient
For example if you were china, you can send an invasion fleet to taiwan....how confident are you that tango man might not actually say back off or the nukes are in the air if he is in the wrong mood?
Completely confident.
The man is a coward. He'll never fight anyone who can fight back.
He also seems convinced no can fight america and living far in the past when america actually was a seriously overpowering power
Comments
I used to have a token which I kept on my keyring so that I always had a token whenever I drove to the shops, which I bought just after the new pound coins came out and I stopped regularly carrying cash. The mechanism that held the token broke though, so the token was lost.
Now I go out of my way to try to keep a pound coin in the car just for trolleys, but sometimes I forget and leave it in my pocket after returning the trolley then realise next time I go shopping (when wearing different trousers) that I don't have a coin for the trolley FFS.
An alternative could perhaps be "MY experience".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/24/private-investigators-prosecute-shoplifters-london/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Important people think the law is optional, so do a lot of the for want of a better word "chav" end of our population. Seems the only people who do obey laws are the little people in the middle. I think you could even successfully argue in court you were just bringing the footpath in compliance with the law after it had been illegaly obstructed by the council.
Do we give him his Nobel prize now, or wait until he turns his attention to the Middle East?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyvqv247gd7o
One is that there is a peculiar irrational emotional attachment to these things for some, and quite possibly Council money will be spent on putting one back. Another is that the real solutions is that the assumptions in the system need to be rewritten. A third is that there are perhaps 250 such in my town and environs, and the only way I will get rid of all of them is by changing those assumptions.
It is often the case that a Council has just forgotten what they have, or think they are OK. I have yet to see a single Highways Authority who have a database or a map.
I have known people who have made an executive decision to remove one, but it won't work in a housing estate - and personally I would be unlikely to do so unless I have a lawful defence strong enough to face down any authorities who want to please complaining locals.
I had one removed, and the Council spent about 3k installing a replacement that was about 15cm wider. That is 60cm to about 75cm. They replaced a type known as an A-barrier with one known as a K-barrier.
Don't get me onto Kent Carriage Gaps
(Read The Goal.)
This is not Britain. We are losing Britain. We need a severe rightwing government to restore order and medically blind litterlouts and sort this shit out
There are something like 250k+ of these nationwide in England (based on a full survey of the National Cycling and Walking Network), and I don't think that will do it. And there are (fairly clunky) laws and guidance in place that will win the argument over time; progress is happening.
I'm interested to see what RefUK controlled County Councils will try and do.
I want that for my daughters, I want that for the UK
So… last night Kemi had drinks for Tory MPs. A Tory source tell my colleague
@PaulTwinn
:
“Only 25 MPs showed up to Kemi’s drinks last night - Huddlestone having to ring around to get people there. One MP said: “The Prosecco was flat and the atmosphere was flatter still.” “
👀
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1920233309302337598
All have - to you - extremely low levels of incarceration, all of which pursue policies which you would regard as wanky and liberal. And yet, all have extremely low levels of petter and serious crime.
USA: 664 per 100k
UK: 130 per 100k
The problem is not the lack of severity of the punishment, it is the fact that we aren't successfully arresting and prosecuting people.
Norway, tiny and rich
Switzerland, insanely rich
Denmark - the best comparison with the UK - severely rightwing policies in many areas
Finland, no one goes there
Anecdote alert...my stepfather who was living in cornwall had his dog stolen from his garden...knew the guy had headed off down the coastal path....drove round to the other end caught up with him got the dog back. Police arrived and told him he was lucky not to be arrested for threatening to throw the guy off the cliff if he didnt give the dog back. He probably wouldn't off just wanted his dog back. But the police had absolutely no interest in tracking down the dog thief apart from the chance to prosecute him for threatening behaviour
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/huge-blow-to-ed-miliband-as-reform-councillors-declare-war-on-net-zero-plans/
They could act as tripwires to stop people reaching the British coast. Win-win.
Criminals think about
- chance of getting caught
- likelihood of getting punished
- distance in the future before said punishment happens
and
- severity of punishment
If it 1% * 1% * 3 years then it doesn't matter whether you are removing a hand or not, the deterrence isn't there.
It is much more important to staff up, and speed up the justice system than it is to fuck around with the severity.
If we were catching most shoplifters, and we were punishing most shoplifters, then we could say "Oh, the punishment isn't severe enough". But I don't believe that's the problem: I believe the problem is that shoplifters aren't being caught, aren't being prosecuted, and when trials do happen, they're three years in the future, meaning the likelihood of a guilty verdict is massively diminished.
Councillor Joel Tetlow appeared to compare the small boat crossings in the Channel to Hitler's invasion of Europe in a post he has now deleted. He told Sky News he did not mean "any disrespect" to soldiers who fought in the two world wars."
https://news.sky.com/story/reform-wont-suspend-councillor-who-shared-hitler-meme-during-ve-day-commemorations-13363164
Politicians like to say "tougher sentences", because that's easy and it shows they're doing something.
But if there aren't prison places, then all that happens is that other people get let out earlier.
The fundamental problem is one of lack of money. Really, we should be spending 50% more on the police and the prisons, and twice as much on the judicial system.
Any time I've needed them they've been useless - to borderline obstructive. And I say this coming from a police family.
Once two plod literally pulled me out of a shop to fine me because I'd dropped a cigarette on the ground - after looking around for a bin. Which the two plod had - coincidentally - been standing in front of, blocking any sight of.
I have never seen policemen drain of colour as quickly as they did when I mentioned my family connections and going to a meeting with their bosses bosses bosses boss later that day.
Its the same people who commit crimes regularly and they're generally known to the Police, but if they never see Justice its moot. If they actually face Justice then that cuts out a lot of crime.
Making really nasty threats is what you do when you can't or won't have a system to deliver speed or certainty. It has a bit of an effect in the very short term, and it's way cheaper to do.
And I think in smaller units, the leaders are physically closer to the people, and therefore generally more receptive to their needs.
(This small and nimble wins is why I voted for Brexit.)
Also because when you are a smaller community its actually harder to commit crimes because people knowing about what you get up to is easier and they all know in small communities...I grew up in a town of 6000 we all knew who were the bad ones....so did the police....grow in in a city like london with 8 million which is bigger than pretty much all those countries populations then no you don't know the person you are socialising with is one of the bad ones
It would be interesting to see some polling on "the government understands the problems of people like me" vs country size: I suspect there would be a decent amount of correlation.
Until recently (and the rise of aggressively territorial countries like Russia and ... errr ... the US), I also think that a lot of the benefits that came from size aren't there any more. Technology has meant that governing can be cheap.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14457181/trump-china-taiwan-invasion-catast.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/02/pete-hegseth-indicates-us-backing-taiwan
Europe on the other hand is far less bothered by Taiwan than it is by Ukraine, given the former is on the other side of the world not its own continent
"Violent crime shot up during the coronavirus pandemic and its immediate aftermath. In 2020, killings jumped nearly 30 percent, the largest one-year increase since the federal government began compiling national figures in the 1960s."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/06/homicides-decline-crime-stats-gun-cases/
Too many young men with time on their hands? (That's what I would look at first, were I studying the changes.)
Kemi has at least made progress with 18-44s, the Conservatives up to 10% with 18-24s from 8% with Yougov and 5% with Mori under Rishi last year and up 1% with 25-34s and also up 1% with 35-44s based on Mori's 2024 figures. Tories down with all age groups over 45 since the GE otherwise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Results
I can offer excellent info on this
Buy a can of corned beef- open the tiny slot on the key with a pointy thing so you can hang it on your car keys - I have aCBkey on every set of keys. (You soon get sick of corned beef but stealing the keys is wrong.)
At Aldi for example - when you want a trolley - press the corned beef can key handle end into the pound slot. The chain will spring open and your key will be easily removed from the pound slot.
Now you can find out if you are the kind of lout that abandons trolleys.
I'm expecting some likes for this post.
its the best advice posted on here for some time.
The man is a coward. He'll never fight anyone who can fight back.
'
Why did Boris Johnson choose to be "Boris" in politics than, for example, "Alexander"?
(In the US, Boris is often used for "Russian" jokes.
Example: Ivan: "How are you doing today, Boris?"
Boris: "Average."
Ivan: "What do you mean,average?"
Boris: "Worse than yesterday, better than tomorrow. So, average." )
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8g8jlx33xo