UK crime falling

Old Jul 20th 2008, 11:23 am
  #106  
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by Craftybanshee
My issue with Brown being PM is that we didn't vote him in I can't wait to vote him out though
You didn't vote the last one in, either, unless you live in Sedgefield.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 11:24 am
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by cricket1
For every year that I have lived on the Gold Coast, Australia, I have known one person via family or friends that's been killed, shot and survived or had a gun pointed at them.
I never experienced this at all, EVER, in the UK and as far as statistics appear to indicate, the UK has the lowest incident of crime compared to the rest of the world because the British police do not carry guns.
Long may that continue because Australia is a lot like the US and gun crime is rampant.

I was so shocked earlier this year. I live in quite an upmarket area and on my morning walk the road was blocked by police and forensics. It's funny but I immediately thought to turn around and walk home and an even funnier thing was the thought that instinctively went through my head was 'I don't want to get shot' even though I had no idea what had happened.
When i got home, a friend rang to see if I was still alive because a drive by shooting had been carried out just streets from where I live.
Drive by shootings happen regulary and the police shoot people regulary. I don't need to vist America, it's visited me!:

Also yards from where I live is Australia's elite Bollywood millionaire set in a whole island of fake Florida style multi million dollar homes. Some interesting people live in these homes related to the mafia and underworld and some peculiar group called 'finks".

Well hey.Guess who's heading back to her humble UK roots next year? I;ve never seen crime anywhere like here considering it's a much smaller population.
Britain is bound to have some crime but aren't the latter knife statistics mostly amongst recent immigrants and their own politics? It's not the Brits fighting themselves is it?
You can't seriously be blaming the police for the problem they are trying to solve?

I know a lot about policing and I have heard of only a couple of cases EVER when a police officer in any civilised country has shot someone who was doing nothing wrong. It just doesn't happen, because the police would end up in serious trouble and they know it!

In my experience it is far more likely that police will fail to use their weapon when
they should, than use it when they should not.

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Old Jul 20th 2008, 12:17 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by Tootsie Frickensprinkles
Sorry, clearly Im not explaining myself well enough. I'm not talking about young people that go out carrying knives with the intent to be agressive and cause trouble.

You said you can understand why kids in fear on the streets were carrying weapons - I took this to mean because they were in fear of being attacked. And we do see it, to some extent. Carrying a knife, in self defence, puts you at far more risk of being injured or killed with either your own weapon ir someone elses.

That is what we have to educate against - and we are - the police are already working with youth community groups and self defence experts, going into the inner city schools and teaching our kids about the dangers of knives, how to react in the face of gang attack, conflict management, peer group pressure, etc etc. It is of course a crying shame that it has come to the point where we have to do this, but evidently we do.

The group of people you are referring to are an entirely different kettle of fish. How we deal with the issues of Glasgow East, Tower Hamlets and the likes of our most deprived enclaves has got to be, and does seem to be, pretty dam high on the list. It's the big picture problem you described and its not going to go away over night, if ever, really.
Yes I see what you mean now. Education would have worked for the likes of me and hopefully many others. I was in a good family and got an education anyway and that was enough. The hardcore, entrenched kids - no chance. I would hate to be born into one of the schemes. It is as if your life is laid out for you before you can even walk. Some of the kids I met in Liverpool, I despair for. I imagine many are now in prison. As I was leaving one rough area of Liverpool for another, I found out that one of the kids I knew was a 'rent boy'. i wondered why one day I saw him in a car with 2 men when I knew he had no father on the scene.

He was 8 years old.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 12:21 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by rabsody
I have never understood the appeal of the Gold Coast. There's an awful lot of drug dealers, hit men, hookers, strippers, underworld, plastic surgeons and entrepreneurs (get rich quick in property etc) inhabiting the place. Think of a combination between LA and Las Vegas and you're about there.

I would not in a million years want to bring up teenagers down there given the amount of drug abuse and prolific sex industry going on (and yes, I do have first hand experience - not me though I hasten to add!).

It's a vaucous, shallow, empty shell of a place beneath the supposed "glitz" and "glamour", with an extremely seedy underbelly.
Agreed. I have never seen the appeal of the place.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 1:32 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by ShozInOz
Yes I see what you mean now. Education would have worked for the likes of me and hopefully many others. I was in a good family and got an education anyway and that was enough. The hardcore, entrenched kids - no chance. I would hate to be born into one of the schemes. It is as if your life is laid out for you before you can even walk. Some of the kids I met in Liverpool, I despair for. I imagine many are now in prison. As I was leaving one rough area of Liverpool for another, I found out that one of the kids I knew was a 'rent boy'. i wondered why one day I saw him in a car with 2 men when I knew he had no father on the scene.

He was 8 years old.
That is so, so awful.

I agree with your sentiments about being entrenched into a way of life. I think a lot of it is the family you come from and the values they pass to you, as well as your environment obviously. You can be dirt poor and live in a shitty area and still turn out quite ok because you have role models and learned behaviours from your parents. We lived in a council flat for six months when I was a kid but we still held ourselves with a bit of dignity and drive to better ourselves and get out of there asap! If your parents are wasters and all you see around you is crime and drugs and a life of shit, that's all you are going to expect for your own life.

My dad was one of those entrenched types - went to Borstal as a kid, has spent his adult life in and out of prison, living in doss houses and squats and on drugs and booze. Thank god my mum left him when I was very young.

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Old Jul 20th 2008, 8:29 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by elfman
Er, right – nobody’s accusing the media of making up individual stories of violent crime – just the sensationalist and selective way these crimes are reported. Compare with: the other weekend I was leafing through the New York Times when at the bottom of page 12 was a short story about four people in Milwaukee (I think) being shot and killed in the street outside a party seemingly at random. I’m sure you’ll admit that would be reported somewhat differently in the UK press.

The big difference I have noticed is that a reported crime in the UK will nearly always be seen as part of a larger social phenomenon and be accompanied by calls for the government to do something about it. Here, if a murder or car chase is reported, it will then be straight on to another unrelated news item. There has been an upsurge in the number of gang-related deaths of young men (mostly Latino) here in the San Fernando Valley, but it doesn't seem to be a 'big deal'.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 8:32 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

I'd be wary of comparing statistics. I remember a few years ago when I was studying Criminal Law, we compared some UK vs. Aus statistics - the UK have been changing what they consider 'reportable' crimes. Hence, the no. of incidents appear to be static or reduced but in reality the no. of incidents may be much higher.

This is when heresay becomes quite useful. Here in Australia, I only know of two people who know someone who has been physically assaulted (and one of those only because it was reported on these boards). In the UK, there is not one person I know who has not either been assaulted or has had a best friend or partner assaulted. This surely must say something.

Most people we know in the UK also take measures to avoid certain areas at certain times. This is not because they're timid, Daily Fail readers but because they're aware of local issues and want to avoid the same muggings/beatings that occur in those areas regularly.

I so want to return to the UK, but I look at the safety - yes, and sense of safety, my kids enjoy here and I really wonder what the hell I'm about to drag them into! I have been blessed with three of the most beautiful, open and friendly teens and I dread any of them coming-up against any of the more feral elements of the UK. This is what keeps me awake at night.

Originally Posted by Grayling
Even Cameron admitted, during an interview on BBC the other day, that the level of deaths from Knife crime are no different to 1997.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 8:48 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by ezzie
I'd be wary of comparing statistics. I remember a few years ago when I was studying Criminal Law, we compared some UK vs. Aus statistics - the UK have been changing what they consider 'reportable' crimes. Hence, the no. of incidents appear to be static or reduced but in reality the no. of incidents may be much higher.

This is when heresay becomes quite useful. Here in Australia, I only know of two people who know someone who has been physically assaulted (and one of those only because it was reported on these boards). In the UK, there is not one person I know who has not either been assaulted or has had a best friend or partner assaulted. This surely must say something.

Most people we know in the UK also take measures to avoid certain areas at certain times. This is not because they're timid, Daily Fail readers but because they're aware of local issues and want to avoid the same muggings/beatings that occur in those areas regularly.

I so want to return to the UK, but I look at the safety - yes, and sense of safety, my kids enjoy here and I really wonder what the hell I'm about to drag them into! I have been blessed with three of the most beautiful, open and friendly teens and I dread any of them coming-up against any of the more feral elements of the UK. This is what keeps me awake at night.
...I just read the Sydney Telegraph and see they're bringing in curfews for young anti-social crime offenders in Oz. Well, credit for trying. If it works, maybe the UK will look at it. It's so about parenting, but I would imagine if you're trying to raise kids in one of the UK sinkholes, it'd be so hard not to just throw your hands up and surrender to your kids hanging out with the local gangs. I remember my stint as a Community Nurse going around some of the high rise's of Brum....utterly soul destroying so God knows what it was like to actually live there.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 9:22 pm
  #114  
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Crime must be linked to specific social breeding grounds such as inner cites and run down areas because I can honestly say that while I lived in the UK, I was never a victim of crime and save for a couple of petty theft incidences, I never knew anyone who had been affected by a serious crime such as assault. I always lived in quaint villages and market towns though so maybe that's why.

I saw it through my children's attutudes towards their own safety and crime though. As they got into their late teens, they were very aware of the potential for crime when going for a night out into town. My daughter had been stood in a queue waiting for a taxi one Friday night and witnessed a knife attack on a young guy. She had also been threatened by Kosovan youths in college because she refused to date any of them. They pinned her against a wall, called her white trash and told her it was 'their country now'.
They picked on the wrong person with her because she punched one of them right between the eyes and then stood screaming her head off until someone came.
All bullies are cowards so they didn't hang around. When she told me they had knives, boy, did I walk into that college and raise the roof.

My son and his friends never encountered any trouble but mostly I think it was because they stayed out of places where they might find it.

Sadly I think those kids that lack warmth and nurturing at home are always going to look elsewhere for approval either because they are vulnerable and naive or angry and attention seeking, they are going to end up being drawn towards peer pressure groups such as gangs.

Whatever, we need a zero tolerance policy rather than trying to identify reasons for it.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 9:26 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

And no passing the buck either. If parents aren't responsible for their kids in the first place, they are not going to ever be responsible so it's absolutely zilch use any government blaming them or trying to make useless parents suddenly do the right thing.
It needs a full on approach from all the authorities and basically it should be that if someone carries a knife around, then they get sent off somewhere to learn how to use it properly.
Like 6 months compulsory training in how to fillet fish on a trawler :curse:
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 10:13 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by rabsody
That is so, so awful.

I agree with your sentiments about being entrenched into a way of life. I think a lot of it is the family you come from and the values they pass to you, as well as your environment obviously. You can be dirt poor and live in a shitty area and still turn out quite ok because you have role models and learned behaviours from your parents. We lived in a council flat for six months when I was a kid but we still held ourselves with a bit of dignity and drive to better ourselves and get out of there asap! If your parents are wasters and all you see around you is crime and drugs and a life of shit, that's all you are going to expect for your own life.

My dad was one of those entrenched types - went to Borstal as a kid, has spent his adult life in and out of prison, living in doss houses and squats and on drugs and booze. Thank god my mum left him when I was very young.
You family did well to recover from the loss of a functioning father in that way. I can't imagine it.

And on the other hand a properly reformed ex-criminal can be the nicest people you could meet, especially those that have had a 'spiritual awakening'. I have known a few including an ex-prolific burglar and ex-robber (now a church warden), both former prison guests who have tried to make amends to society. I think these people could have a lot to teach the younger ones entering a life of crime, if only they could be organised and used contructively. There is a similar scheme in Chicago with a senior ex-gang member mediating to stop tit-for-tat kilings.
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Old Jul 20th 2008, 10:48 pm
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Default Re: UK crime falling

[QUOTE=derbyflan;6582929]Being stamped upon and kicked unconscious to the point that you now need an emergency craniotomy is serious enough. As I said, that's just in a small market town 40 miles outside London that I happen to live in.

As another poster said earlier; most UK towns and cities have the feeling of 'palpable violence' at night time and the same can be said for many during the working day. Unless you live here - which errrrrrrr - I think you no longer do - then you won't notice it nor palpate it.

sorry for going off thread but...

Derbyflan, we are looking at moving to a market town in Norfolk on our return, would you mind telling me which market town are you referring to?
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Old Jul 21st 2008, 2:01 am
  #118  
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by ezzie
This is when heresay becomes quite useful. Here in Australia, I only know of two people who know someone who has been physically assaulted (and one of those only because it was reported on these boards). In the UK, there is not one person I know who has not either been assaulted or has had a best friend or partner assaulted. This surely must say something.
Then it must also say something that I have many friends and family in England still and only one has ever had a brush with violence, and that was about 15 years ago. I grant you that young to old they tend to choose to live in quieter areas, not get involved in violent situations or such, but as I say, toss it into the heresay pot.

Oh, another one. About 25 years ago an aunt and uncle who had a shop got beaten up by a thief after the cash register.

I don't know anyone in Canada whose been assaulted, either.

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Old Jul 21st 2008, 2:32 am
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Default Re: UK crime falling

I honestly believe crime is an opportunists occupation mostly. If you provide an opportunity, they will take it. Hence people who live in certain areas, are security conscious, and don't put themselves in a position where a crime can happen, they are more likely to avoid it.


I think the best way to reduce crime is to think about how we can look after our own personal safety. Insurance usually takes care of material things but us, our own personal self, well I tend to think we all have to the smart thing and make sure we do all we can to limit any crime towards ourselves.
That's my own personal attitude.

I shudder when I see half dressed women walking late at night on their own or even with a friend. I mean come on, how sensible would it be to not look quite so obvious?
I know we shouldn't have to hide ourselves but crime is out there so maybe not drawing any attention is a good defence mechanism.

I have never known so much theft as here on the Coast. One of my customers was sat in her lounge watching TV when someone ransacked her home. The kids had the TV turned up loud so no one heard anyone open the back door. Houses here are quite large so it's easy not to hear anyone making an entrance. That was 2 weeks ago.

Then last week, my best friend was sat watching TV and the dogs suddenly went off hurtling down a very long corridor towards the kitchen. Her husband had gone to bed early but woke up to the dogs barking. They both soon realised that someone had seen their mobile phones and car keys lying on the kitchen bench and they'd expertly propped open the patio door, to make a quick escape, then cut a hole through the security mesh, turned the key (shouldn't leave keys in doors) and voila, they grabbed everything and ran. Police were called but they'd long gone.

If they hadn't left phones and keys in view or the key in the lock, the theft probably wouldn't have happened.

I keep my phones, keys, cash and handbag all upstairs in a locked room. Plus I keep the blinds where our plasma screen and hi fi equipment are on show almost closed so if anyone looks in the window, they can't see them.
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Old Jul 21st 2008, 6:36 am
  #120  
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Default Re: UK crime falling

Originally Posted by cricket1
I honestly believe crime is an opportunists occupation mostly. If you provide an opportunity, they will take it. Hence people who live in certain areas, are security conscious, and don't put themselves in a position where a crime can happen, they are more likely to avoid it.


I think the best way to reduce crime is to think about how we can look after our own personal safety. Insurance usually takes care of material things but us, our own personal self, well I tend to think we all have to the smart thing and make sure we do all we can to limit any crime towards ourselves.
That's my own personal attitude.

I shudder when I see half dressed women walking late at night on their own or even with a friend. I mean come on, how sensible would it be to not look quite so obvious?
I know we shouldn't have to hide ourselves but crime is out there so maybe not drawing any attention is a good defence mechanism.

I have never known so much theft as here on the Coast. One of my customers was sat in her lounge watching TV when someone ransacked her home. The kids had the TV turned up loud so no one heard anyone open the back door. Houses here are quite large so it's easy not to hear anyone making an entrance. That was 2 weeks ago.

Then last week, my best friend was sat watching TV and the dogs suddenly went off hurtling down a very long corridor towards the kitchen. Her husband had gone to bed early but woke up to the dogs barking. They both soon realised that someone had seen their mobile phones and car keys lying on the kitchen bench and they'd expertly propped open the patio door, to make a quick escape, then cut a hole through the security mesh, turned the key (shouldn't leave keys in doors) and voila, they grabbed everything and ran. Police were called but they'd long gone.

If they hadn't left phones and keys in view or the key in the lock, the theft probably wouldn't have happened.

I keep my phones, keys, cash and handbag all upstairs in a locked room. Plus I keep the blinds where our plasma screen and hi fi equipment are on show almost closed so if anyone looks in the window, they can't see them.
I know a few people who have been in and been burgled here in Aus.

My ex husband had a party and they were all at the front of the house playing bowls. The burgulars must have sussed them out from the front and then went in via the back, got away with all the bags, phones, wallets from everyone at the party. This was about midday!

Last week another friend's daughter was at home and saw a big removals-like truck pull into their driveway, obviously they saw her reversed out and went across the road into a neighbour's driveway. She didn't think anythign of it. They cleared the house out.

Both of these cases have been in higher socioeconomic suburbs within 10kms of the city.

A copper mate of mine says they come in from the rougher suburbs of Brisbane further out, in vans and usually repeatedly hit a wealthier neighbourhood where they spot opportunities. Because the houses are often open here opportunities come pretty frequently.
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