Next to China, Britain is the most heavily videoed society in the world, far more so than any other Western country, but also the one with by far the highest rate of violent crime in Western Europe. In Britain, then, Big Brother is watching you, but only as a kind of voyeur.
I'm a prison abolitionist. Why are we wasting our money on a couple hundred years old experiment that's clearly failed. Punishment, not "rehabilitation."
Close but not quite. Unfortunately where the system breaks down the worst is when it comes to homicides. There are very few if any innocent burglars or robbers in prison but the pressure to get a conviction in a homicide has led to a lot of fuckery against innocent people. Same goes for stranger rapes, which along with some types of homicide (no violent brawl or monetary motive) are so rare that the cops and prosecutors are unequipped to handle them.
Yet, even in the case of arresting the wrong person for murder, the wrongly accused are not randomly sampled from the population. They are much more likely to be people who are themselves already felons or involved in shady behavior. Someone who, for example, beat his girlfriend, gets released and then falsely accused of murder, should already have been executed long before. Likewise nany people exonerated by DNA may have still been accessory to the crime in some capacity, though maybe would have been charged differently if the full truth were known. You can have abstract arguments about whether that's unjust, but the cases where an upstanding member of society with no criminal background gets falsely imprisoned is much more rare than cases where scumbags who probably belong in prison anyway get locked up for crimes that they didn't commit.
I don’t disagree. The problem lies with a faulty justice system that convicts the wrong people over and over. When DNA evidence first was introduced, in one State the governor ran through every case he could, where DNA evidence existed, for people on death row. A significant portion of people were exonerated. Not one or two, but about a third I recall! The Governor immediately commuted every sentence.
A case in Canada, a famous case, David Milgaard had been convicted of a murder. Which he insisted he had not done. His Mother fought for him for 25 years. DNA evidence proved he hadn’t done it. After 25 years he was let out.
I watched a show on it. They interviewed the detective that arrested him. The cop said ‘I don’t care what some lab says. That was a good bust. I knew the minute I saw that guy, he did it.’ Appalling.
To make matters worse the victim was raped and knifed to death. A man lived in the basement suite of her home. About two years later that man was caught and convicted of killing a young woman, raping and then knifing her. It turned out he had done a few of these. Pretty obvious he had killed the woman Milgaard had been convicted of killing. He died in prison after a few years so it could never be proven as there was no DNA on record kept.
Unfortunately someone gets to decide not only who is guilty but also who goes to trial, we all know that the rich and connected would benefit from this power.
Virtually all criminals have a decade-long record of behavior in public schools, with extensive documentation of their individual character and behavior. By 15 years old it would be trivial to identify all likely future violent offenders, if we wanted to. The idea that we need cameras to control crime given our existing resources is a joke.
The problem is that Elon loves Indians more than anything else in the world. He said himself that if you oppose H1B you can “fuck yourself in the face.” He goes hard on Muslims to maintain superficial credibility with the right, but he is a globalist swindler pig man.
Next to China, Britain is the most heavily videoed society in the world, far more so than any other Western country, but also the one with by far the highest rate of violent crime in Western Europe. In Britain, then, Big Brother is watching you, but only as a kind of voyeur.
Theodore Dalrymple
Thinking About Crime, the Broken Window Theory - James Q. Wilson
The synopsis: Lock Them Up.
I'm a prison abolitionist. Why are we wasting our money on a couple hundred years old experiment that's clearly failed. Punishment, not "rehabilitation."
I agreed. Rehabilitation has largely failed. England got it right with hanging. Very little recidivism with that. My Uncle Jim was a kinder soul.
Excellent piece. Thank you for writing.
My pleasure! Glad you thought so!
Close but not quite. Unfortunately where the system breaks down the worst is when it comes to homicides. There are very few if any innocent burglars or robbers in prison but the pressure to get a conviction in a homicide has led to a lot of fuckery against innocent people. Same goes for stranger rapes, which along with some types of homicide (no violent brawl or monetary motive) are so rare that the cops and prosecutors are unequipped to handle them.
Yet, even in the case of arresting the wrong person for murder, the wrongly accused are not randomly sampled from the population. They are much more likely to be people who are themselves already felons or involved in shady behavior. Someone who, for example, beat his girlfriend, gets released and then falsely accused of murder, should already have been executed long before. Likewise nany people exonerated by DNA may have still been accessory to the crime in some capacity, though maybe would have been charged differently if the full truth were known. You can have abstract arguments about whether that's unjust, but the cases where an upstanding member of society with no criminal background gets falsely imprisoned is much more rare than cases where scumbags who probably belong in prison anyway get locked up for crimes that they didn't commit.
Bukele was lucky in a sense as the tattoos were pretty clear evidence. That isn’t usual.
I don’t disagree. The problem lies with a faulty justice system that convicts the wrong people over and over. When DNA evidence first was introduced, in one State the governor ran through every case he could, where DNA evidence existed, for people on death row. A significant portion of people were exonerated. Not one or two, but about a third I recall! The Governor immediately commuted every sentence.
A case in Canada, a famous case, David Milgaard had been convicted of a murder. Which he insisted he had not done. His Mother fought for him for 25 years. DNA evidence proved he hadn’t done it. After 25 years he was let out.
I watched a show on it. They interviewed the detective that arrested him. The cop said ‘I don’t care what some lab says. That was a good bust. I knew the minute I saw that guy, he did it.’ Appalling.
To make matters worse the victim was raped and knifed to death. A man lived in the basement suite of her home. About two years later that man was caught and convicted of killing a young woman, raping and then knifing her. It turned out he had done a few of these. Pretty obvious he had killed the woman Milgaard had been convicted of killing. He died in prison after a few years so it could never be proven as there was no DNA on record kept.
Unfortunately someone gets to decide not only who is guilty but also who goes to trial, we all know that the rich and connected would benefit from this power.
I think you might be mistaken: All the crime is happening in the White House, lol.
Virtually all criminals have a decade-long record of behavior in public schools, with extensive documentation of their individual character and behavior. By 15 years old it would be trivial to identify all likely future violent offenders, if we wanted to. The idea that we need cameras to control crime given our existing resources is a joke.
The problem is that Elon loves Indians more than anything else in the world. He said himself that if you oppose H1B you can “fuck yourself in the face.” He goes hard on Muslims to maintain superficial credibility with the right, but he is a globalist swindler pig man.