WTF is going on

In Bury near Manchester in the UK certain residents have been complaining about graffiti in an alley way between their houses. This graffiti is untidy scrawls, including strong language, not a community project or street art. The council sent letters to the residents, a lot of them pensioners demanding that they cleaned their own public alley in 21 days or they would be liable for a £1000 fine. BBC

Compounded with a bin tax of £100 for overfilled, incorrectly filled, untidy or heavy BINS yup the bin police will fine you £100 for flagrant misuse of your bin... This compared to the on the spot fine police give for habitual shoplifters, public disorder, vandilism etc of £80....

Yes folks it's finally here "screw the rich"

(Bury council this morning 13-08-08. have done a uturn and suggested instead that local residents should, instead, work with the youths to encourage a community clean up, this was on the TV live this morning so I don't have an accessible source for this breaking news.)


What are these people on,i.e. the councils not the youths, especially since a man was killed trying to confront these misguided souls vandalising a car source )

Top police officer suggests we should not be afraid to confront these youths idiot idea

The uk is out of control the police are powerless to stop the growing crime rates and the government are only interested in crime they can tax... Motoring offenses and bin crime... The police spend more and more on stopping the evil motorist and less and less on real issues rape, domestic abuse, child abuse, career criminals, etc.

As I mentioned in another post there are 3 officers in the special care unit for the whole of the greater Belfast area to deal with all rapes, domestic violence and child abuse on average there are between 3-8 rapes every Saturday night this figure was quoted to my by one of the officers so you'll have to take my word for it as I'm sur it won't appear in official figures as most cases don't get to court.... I cant find the exact figures for the amount of traffic police or police assigned to traffic detail but it's a hell of a lot more than 3...

Let me know what you think...go off topic if you like law and order or chaos...............

Reading the BBC link, it's not as daft as it first seems.

The graffiti is on privately-owned fences, so presumably the council is not empowered to touch them (else some idiot might sue them). And secondly, the council have issued free all the equipment necessary to clean the graffiti off.

Seems to me the council is between a rock and a hard place. If they do nothing, then their responsibility to keep the neighbourhood looking graffiti-free is lacking.

The people should take responsibility and clean up their fences, else they will be living in a shitty-looking neighbourhood, and the local police's job of keeping youth crime in check is just made harder.

In general of course, youth crime seems out of control in some UK areas - but that's a wider topic. In Tenerife in my area, local youth are usually in the town squares with their families in the evenings. Not much graffiti here, and the only drunken louts are usually British!

The fences are open to public walkways if a gable end house open to the street is vandalised in this manner is it the owners responsibility to clean it... A clean fence in an alley way is a blank page for these people... How many times should pensioners have to clean their fences.....

It's a good point that in Tenerife young people are with their families and this is another warcry of the government that Parents should take more responsibility for their children on one hand, while dictating how that should be done on the other... School teachers are not allowed to shout at children incase it frightens them....

All your other points aside for a minute, crime rates are actually falling... significantly. Not just recorded crime rates either, crime that is perceived by the public, as recorded in the British Crime Survey (BCS) is also down significantly over the past ten years.

Sexual offences (seeing as you mentioned it) are down 7% in the last full year alone. All crime over the past 10 years is down 45%

The only place where this is not true, is in the minds of the UK's right wing tabloid media, who claim that the figures are being fiddled... but remember, the figures are reflected and verified in the BCS which is absolutely un-skewable for political ends.

To quote: "The value of the BCS is that it can provide a better reflection of the true level of crime than police statistics since it includes crimes that have not been reported to, or recorded by, the police. The BCS estimates that only around half of all crime it measures is captured on police recorded crimes largely because people do not bother to report crimes because they think the crime was too trivial or the police couldn't do much about it. The BCS also provides a better measure of trends over time since it has adopted a consistent methodology and is unaffected by changes in reporting or recording practices."

Similar significant falls in crime are occurring in most Western European nations... the falls seem to be reflections of an unquantifiable Europe-wide variable, so don't think I'm heaping praise on the current government's policing policy... I'm just pointing out that you are wrong to describe the UK as "out of control" because of rising crime rates.

It seems to be a foible of the British, that many of us unquestioningly accept tabloid lies that crime is spiraling out of control. It isn't... if anything it is spiraling INTO control.

As for your other point about local authorities; yes, they are becoming overbearing control freaks. They are getting this way (or already are) because of the way that central government have granted them more powers in order to carry out the Labour party's apparent policy of micro managing every aspect of life for every human being in the realm.

The local authorities seem to have forgotten that they are our servants and not our masters. Unfortunately, like falling crime, this appears to be a spreading trend... Hopefully the growing discontent with local authority policy will encourage more people to actually get off there arses and vote the town hall dictators out of office.

An assumption in your first paragraph. If I buy a house with a public access alleyway behind it, I expect to pay less (as these people presumably did) precisely because of th risk of street crime. Keeping te public face clean is just an expected expense. As for the assumption - do you know that the households concerned really are pensioners?

Sadly, it is all too common in the UK for parents to disconnect from their teenage children. IMHO this starts much earlier with children sent to bed early whilst parents "relax" sans kids in front of the goggle box or down the pub.

Once UK teenagers get (chucked) out of the house, what is there for them to do in most UK towns?

Another attitude which seems to be taking hold more firmly in the UK, is the unjustifiable demonisation of British kids.

Kids, on the whole, are not the antisocial criminal hoodies that they are made out to be in the popular press, or, increasingly, in the minds of the middle-aged clucking classes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7443104.stm

There's lies, damn lies and and then there's statistics. ( Disraeli ). lying with statistics is a well worn tool. The time of year can affect results, the weather, the information supplied from what was gathered. The same information can be used to support two or more opposing points of view.

Correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm sure you will, but isn't the BCS controlled/overseen by the home office and accountable to parliament. Hardly a organisation exempt from civil service interference.

I hope you note I have refrained from using quotes from the popular press....

The term "out of control" was meant as an accompaniment to the overall statements made in the post. i.e. bin tax v on the spot fines, fining people for graffiti and the people killed because of out of control youths.

As for " middle-aged clucking classes" I strongly resemble that remark.....

to torrenter Keeping te public face clean is just an expected expense. As for the assumption - do you know that the households concerned really are pensioners?

The itv news this morning claimed that a lot/some (can't remember) of the residents were pensioners and were interviewing 1 for effect.

I can't believe that you think the perpetual vandalism is the sole responsibility of the victim. Does this apply to all crime just put up with it. If someone lives in an area of low rent should they expect to be robbed. If someone has a fancy mobile phone should they expect to have someone take it off them.

Nope, the BCS is basically victim research carried out on behalf of the Home Office by independent polling and research company BMRB Ltd. It is neither controlled by, or overseen by the Home Office in the sense that you are implying.

It is a well respected ongoing study and assessed by both sides of the argument as being accurate and representative.

You can't discount such overwhelming evidence that is accepted by both sides simply because you don't like what it says... well, you can, but it won't leave you with much credibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Crime_Survey (as a starting point)

From your source

Hardly a TRUE reflection

That report (which is highly dubious and has been disputed) was by Civitas... A right wing christian think tank that has called for (amongst other things) massive prison building programs, drugging criminals, privatising the NHS and quite a few other sinister proposals.

In other words... Bunk.

This post has been edited by yourmercifulgod: Aug 13 2008, 02:27 PM

They sound like my kinda fun guys.... but it was you who used it as a source....

Anyway I have to agree that we need more prisons the courts are too lenient for too many offenses because of overcrowding of prisons.. Prisoners have been drugged for years I know I lifer personally who was given all sorts of downers and codine to keep him under control it was a recognised way of subduing volatile political prisoners in N Ireland... The prisoners asked for these drugs for various ailments including addiction to the drugs they were requesting....

The NHS virtually is privatised you need to pay to jump the ques...

As for proposing to their sister I'd need to see her first.... lol

Well in one of my few posts in here I have to say YMG that kids may not be the anti social criminal hoodies where you are but here in Glasgow the majority of the little bastards are wild in the extreme. And gone are the days where you could shout at them and they would leave, nowadays you so much as look at them and they attack you en masse and you would be fortunate if none of them had a knife. I walk out of the safety of my controlled exit building into the uncertainty of walking my dog, which simply put is ridiculous but true. Walk left and down the street and run into the teens selling drugs in the lane at the corner. Turn right and walk the gauntlet of young thugs on the corner at pub. The only thing that keeps me safe is having a dog which looks as if he "might" bite and I dont discourage that assumption. The reality is he would lick them to death. I have trained him to bark on command though which is useful.

I used to enjoy going out with him in the early hours of the morning but it's just not safe anymore. Where's the Police I hear you ask?. Well if you see any send them up here will you?. I was in the grain store a few weeks back when 2 beat cops came in and the shopkeeper said something along the lines of "Hi guy's, nothing to do? so you decided to visit us today?, Have not seen you guy's in months". You should have heard the tongue lashing she got. But it's true, the police are non existent up here while people are selling drugs with impunity and assaults happening all the time. Don't please think I am exagerating because I'm not. The problem was that when they developed this area they neglected to accomodate facilities for the huge influx of families with kids and these kids now roam the streets. Only last week one shop was invaded by 3 teens with AXES ffs. We need a crackdown in policing fast But I dont see it happening before someone gets killed.

I don't doubt there are problem areas, and I don't doubt that there are delinquent children... I also don't doubt that these are real problems that effect the quality of life for decent people in the areas where they arise.

However, that is a long way from saying that we are (nationally speaking) riding a spiraling crime wave or suffering increased child delinquency.

This post has been edited by yourmercifulgod: Aug 13 2008, 06:31 PM