Comments on: Point for discussion

By: Lorna

Lorna — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:14:00 +0000

If it was your grandfather or teenage daughter who lived as you do, I don't think you'd be as happy about letting hooligans out to terrorise them.

Peter, have you been a teenage girl in the past few years? I quite like my woolly liberal views. (Except in the matter of those "how would you feel if a bloke on early release attacked your daughter?" posters, where I wanted the writers hung, boiled alive, etc. How dare they try and terrify me into voting for them with stuff that's statistically never gonna happen?) They survive shit like getting kerb-crawled, because hey, I recognise that opinions formed in fear and adrenaline are generally stupid ones. I might want to, say, slash tires and go on a castrating spree. But I recognise that that's a really stupid, unjustifiable, knee-jerk reaction to an unpleasant experience. I suggest the makers of crappy policy reach a similar conclusion.

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 08:01:00 +0000

Peter: Frankly, liberalism on crime, like communist politics and economics, is the result of a misunderstanding of human nature that the man in the street can see through instantly, but an intellectual can convince himself of with enough effort and convulsions.

What balls. Carry on banging on like that about how you're standing up to the intellectual elite on behalf of the man in the street, and you'll start sounding like Robert Kilroy-Silk.

The man in the street is equally capable of seeing through right-wing attempts to dress up vindictiveness and revenge as "justice".

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 31 May 2005 15:58:00 +0000

Since I moved out of London three years ago with the specific intention of starting a family, one might think I fall into the same category that Laban is outlining...

...only in my case I moved for the rather more practical reason that I didn't stand a hope in hell of being able to afford anything bigger than a shoebox in London, and I quite fancied a decent-sized house with a garden.

The fact that I ended up moving to a place with a much lower crime rate than Sydenham was a welcome bonus - but an entirely incidental one.

By: Chris b

Chris b — Tue, 31 May 2005 14:28:00 +0000

Especially with the Davinia I know, euew!!

I think I should point out the fact that young males aged 16-24 encounter violence on the streets has a rather high correlation with the fact that the same group also tend to be pissed on same said streets, whilst experiencing the violence.
Mugging drunk people, so easy it's not even a challlenge; similarly setting fire to tramps....

By: john b

john b — Tue, 31 May 2005 12:09:00 +0000

I resent the implication that I’d consider having children with anyone named Davina…

By: Laban

Laban — Tue, 31 May 2005 12:06:00 +0000

People like john (note gratuitous ill informed stereotyping - that's the best sort. If you're going to do a thing, do it properly - that's what I say) will continue to live in the city and sneer at Daily Mail readers.

Till they have kids. Then you get :

JOHN AND DAVINA ARE MOVING !

As of last week we've left Forest Hill, SE24, and are now in Princes Risborough !

By: Biscit

Biscit — Tue, 31 May 2005 11:18:00 +0000

I’ve visited Prague, the boot, regarding fears for safty, is on the other foot there.

By: john b

john b — Tue, 31 May 2005 10:25:00 +0000

I'm out of the most likely victim group (16-24yo males) by a couple of years.

This makes sense, in that the only times mugging or serious violence have happened to me were when I was in that age group...

By: N.I.B.

N.I.B. — Tue, 31 May 2005 10:23:00 +0000

Yep, one generation of self-centred wankers begat a new generation of self-centred wankers. Not much of a surprise when you look at it that way, is it?

Who was it on here that suggested we send ’em all to Guantanamo Bay? I’m all for that kind of thing. Flush the little bastard’s mobile phones down the bog while we’re at it – that’d really get to them.

By: Matt Daws

Matt Daws — Tue, 31 May 2005 10:21:00 +0000

I suppose the Economist has a woolly, liberal stance on crime then? Only the edition (damn their subscription only website) with the battered tin-can on the front (not the current one, but the one before) has an article pointing out that violent crime has fallen fairly dramatically in the last 10-15 years, but public perception of risk has not. It basically says the public are a bit silly, and that there is a strong correlation between rising fears about Yoof crime and a decrease in actual violent crime (like rapes, murder, muggings etc.) which suggests that the publics "fear of crime" is rather a constant, which gets transfered from A to B once the real risk of A actually starts to fall.

Peter, they also amusing point out that while women fear being mugged much more than men, it's actually men (of, I *think* here, John's rough age) who face (statistically) the greatest risk.