Saturday, August 26, 2006
Does crime pay? II
No posting yesterday, due to some technical difficulties, which was unfortunate as many stories of interest appeared in the "newspapers". So I'll try and catch up today.
The first from The Times here (page 14 of the print edition) follows on nicely from my Thursday post of Does crime pay? Apparently the Sentencing Advisory (read abolition) Council are suggesting that shoplifters should either be spared jail totally, (the toughest sentence being available is described as a "high-level community order" (That sounds like it'll work. Yeah right!)) unless the offences are aggravating or alternatively the "seriously persistent" (which is undefined but I would think they mean well over 200 offences) would be jailed, but they don't specify what length of sentence they would receive, presumably once identified as seriously persistent they would qualify for a short jail sentence. Bear in mind that according to the article, shoplifters on average have committed 42 previous offences.
Also according to a survey in the article: "In 36 per cent of cases no reason could be found and it was likely that shoplifting was a way of life." This suggests to me that the criminals are finding that shoplifting does indeed pay.
Anyway the Franco sentencing council has come up with some guidelines overnight on sentencing of shoplifters.
The starting point has to be restitution, property of value has been taken, and costs have been incurred all this must be paid for by the criminal it's their wrongful act and their responsibility. "They have no money or job" is the reply - easy we'll have some work programs for them, properly priced according to added value the labour provides and they will have to spend time doing that until the debt is paid.
That's the restitution, what about the punishment? Fines could be used backed up by the work program as no one could say they couldn't afford to pay, remember they're shoplifters so will very rarely be disabled. So they'd just get longer in the work program, part to pay back and part punishment.
What about more persistant ones? Well if they're non-violent then the birch would be inappropriate, but I see no reason why the stocks couldn't be brought back into use. It's a non violent offence the offender would have to deal with the shame of the conviction in public; the public would see justice being done.
What about the severely persistent ones? Well jail obviously, society must protect itself and if these people can't be trusted not to abuse their freedom then it will be taken away in ever increasing terms, with no time off for "good behaviour".
The first from The Times here (page 14 of the print edition) follows on nicely from my Thursday post of Does crime pay? Apparently the Sentencing Advisory (read abolition) Council are suggesting that shoplifters should either be spared jail totally, (the toughest sentence being available is described as a "high-level community order" (That sounds like it'll work. Yeah right!)) unless the offences are aggravating or alternatively the "seriously persistent" (which is undefined but I would think they mean well over 200 offences) would be jailed, but they don't specify what length of sentence they would receive, presumably once identified as seriously persistent they would qualify for a short jail sentence. Bear in mind that according to the article, shoplifters on average have committed 42 previous offences.
Also according to a survey in the article: "In 36 per cent of cases no reason could be found and it was likely that shoplifting was a way of life." This suggests to me that the criminals are finding that shoplifting does indeed pay.
Anyway the Franco sentencing council has come up with some guidelines overnight on sentencing of shoplifters.
The starting point has to be restitution, property of value has been taken, and costs have been incurred all this must be paid for by the criminal it's their wrongful act and their responsibility. "They have no money or job" is the reply - easy we'll have some work programs for them, properly priced according to added value the labour provides and they will have to spend time doing that until the debt is paid.
That's the restitution, what about the punishment? Fines could be used backed up by the work program as no one could say they couldn't afford to pay, remember they're shoplifters so will very rarely be disabled. So they'd just get longer in the work program, part to pay back and part punishment.
What about more persistant ones? Well if they're non-violent then the birch would be inappropriate, but I see no reason why the stocks couldn't be brought back into use. It's a non violent offence the offender would have to deal with the shame of the conviction in public; the public would see justice being done.
What about the severely persistent ones? Well jail obviously, society must protect itself and if these people can't be trusted not to abuse their freedom then it will be taken away in ever increasing terms, with no time off for "good behaviour".
Tags: crime, punishment, shoplifting
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
