Thursday, August 24, 2006
Does crime pay?
The Times reports page 29 24/8/2006 (not apparently online) on a 50 year old benefit cheat, discovered after she appeared on television and magazines discussing her multiple orgasms.
According to the article she was overpaid £6097.00p in benefits. She admitted four counts of benefit fraud. There were various investigations by fraud investigators.
Her punishment? £50.00p costs (which can in no way be anything like the cost to the taxpayers of the investigation) and a two year community rehabilitation order (CRO).
I didn't know what a CRO was I mean what exactly is it? I decided to enlighten myself and searched on the internet. Most references said it was a youth sentence so quite why it's being used on a 50 year old woman are a mystery to me. Liverpool council's probation page describes it thus: "... includes getting offenders to confront their offending behaviour, motivating them to change and accept responsibility for their actions, and encouraging discipline and an awareness of the impact of their actions on others. "
There is no mention of having to pay the money back.
The web page continues: "From April 2005 the above sentences will disappear, to be replaced by a single generic community sentence.". So I'm not even sure that it's even a valid sentence.
That aside, we've got £6097.00p + the expenses of the investigation against £50.00p and "... confront their offending behaviour, motivating them to change and accept responsibility for their actions, and encouraging discipline and an awareness of the impact of their actions on others. "
Does crime pay? Well it feels like I'm paying for it.
According to the article she was overpaid £6097.00p in benefits. She admitted four counts of benefit fraud. There were various investigations by fraud investigators.
Her punishment? £50.00p costs (which can in no way be anything like the cost to the taxpayers of the investigation) and a two year community rehabilitation order (CRO).
I didn't know what a CRO was I mean what exactly is it? I decided to enlighten myself and searched on the internet. Most references said it was a youth sentence so quite why it's being used on a 50 year old woman are a mystery to me. Liverpool council's probation page describes it thus: "... includes getting offenders to confront their offending behaviour, motivating them to change and accept responsibility for their actions, and encouraging discipline and an awareness of the impact of their actions on others. "
There is no mention of having to pay the money back.
The web page continues: "From April 2005 the above sentences will disappear, to be replaced by a single generic community sentence.". So I'm not even sure that it's even a valid sentence.
That aside, we've got £6097.00p + the expenses of the investigation against £50.00p and "... confront their offending behaviour, motivating them to change and accept responsibility for their actions, and encouraging discipline and an awareness of the impact of their actions on others. "
Does crime pay? Well it feels like I'm paying for it.
Tags: crime, punishment, benefit fraud
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
