Yob Rule
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007Just a quick one… I read this today regarding drunken yobs.
One person had 271 criminal convictions and had breached his ASBO 25 times.
This particular line dismayed me more that anything I have read for a while… why the hell is this guy on the streets? As far as I’m concerned we should have the 3 strikes rule… 3 convictions and you’re inside for good. Ok, 3 may be a bit harsh for minor offences, and I’m open to moving that goalpost… but 271 convictions. That’s just frigging ridiculous.
You wonder where all our police officers are… well for each of those convictions factor in generally a couple of officers giving up 4-6 hours each and it soon adds up. And that’s just for the paperwork, never mind the inevitable court cases.
I never tire of the work that I do on the streets, there is nothing I love more than detecting a crime and locking up the person responsible. I don’t even mind the paper mountain that follows me around. I’m starting to lose heart though that no matter what I seem to do, the next steps in the judicial food chain seem to be letting us down more often. Be it CPS refusing to run with cases or whichever presiding Judge it was that read this guys 270 previous convictions and 25 ASBO breaches and decided to keep him on the streets.
The longer my police career goes (and to date it is still quite short), the more I feel the need to move to a place where criminals actually face reprisals for their actions. I think I have already mentioned the local young burglar that got given a meaningless supervision order. We play cat and mouse with him almost nightly whilst he tries to burgle more houses and we try and stop him. He laughs in the face of the system, and couldn’t give a damn about the police following his every move, because he knows that even if he slips up on the odd occasion and we catch him, he’ll never get kept in custody.
To return to my opening gambit about 3 strikes… maybe the fair solution is 3 strikes result in the maximum penalty for the offence. That way, your 3rd burglary conviction sees you inside for 10 years. Your 3rd shoplifting for 7 years, and so on… I know people with 30-40 shoplifting convictions that still get locked up weekly for the same offence, and someone with 56 burglary convictions that is out, and still housebreaking. It makes me sick at times.