Death toll in London hits 60

[dowie]

Yay, well done UK govt. When will they learn that if they want to cut crime then two things that seem to work are more police officers and longer prison sentences, these things both cost money...

http://metro.co.uk/2018/04/21/two-people-killed-death-toll-london-hits-60-7486315/

Two more people have been killed in London as the death toll caused by violence in the capital hit 60. A 20-year-old man was stabbed to death on Roth Walk, near Finsbury Park, at around 3am this morning.

An ambulance crew battled to save his life but he was confirmed dead at the scene. Police have arrested a second man, 21, who was found stabbed on nearby Seven Sisters Road. His condition is not life-threatening.

[...]
An ambulance crew battled to save his life but he was confirmed dead at the scene. Police have arrested a second man, 21, who was found stabbed on nearby Seven Sisters Road. His condition is not life-threatening.

 

[dowie]

yeah they seem (at least in other parts of the country) to have the resources to arrest someone for making a Nazi Pug comedy video on youtube and someone posting some gangsta rap lyrics on her Instagram profile - but I suspect that even if the easily 'triggered' PC who believes every usage of the n word by people black or white is hate speech were redeployed elsewhere then they'd still be short on numbers.

 

[dowie]

Harsher sentences can have an effect, but less so for the more serious ones/longer sentences*... and so you have to consider if the impact is worth the cost... especially as our current costly prison system has awful outcomes in terms of recidivism etc. The chances of them being caught is the thing that's worth going for, imo - basically you deter crime through a combination of the severity of the sanction mixed with the chances of actually being caught/facing that sanction. Mandatory fifty year terms would be a rubbish deterrent if the odds of being caught were tiny.

Then is police and criminal justice the way to go, or are the problems indicative of social problems/poverty/etc... where just pumping money into the police would be less effective than programmes to help sort out societal problems? (I don't know, it just seems like an obvious question...)

Yeah mandatory 50 year terms would indeed be rubbish if the chances of being caught were tiny, I think things like longer probationary periods and a big escalations in sentencing for repeat offences/offences within those probationary periods would be good to see. It isn't just the deterrent effect either, for people who clearly aren't rehabilitated then simply keeping them away from society for longer serves a useful purpose in itself - for example the hither green burglar, someone who lives in a community where being a criminal is normal/culturally a common choice and for whom all the male family members make a living that way then there is only so much that can realistically be done and after repeat offences it seems they still end up only serving a bit of their sentence then are back out again and after more elderly victims... whereas someone who is perhaps being caught for a first offence, isn't in a family of criminals is perhaps going to have a much higher chance of being able to move away from crime.

Sure there are social issues too but the cut in police numbers has IMO had a fairly obvious impact on their ability to deal with crime - there is also the psychological impact too perhaps, if criminals are aware that the police are overstretched then does there perception of risk then change? If we're talking about the deterrent effect and the chances of getting caught then presumably for some the chance of being caught perhaps is being perceived as being a bit lower.