Here’s a good pointer as to when a society starts falling apart: when the police don’t bother to arrest petty criminals.
[British] Police are encouraging shop workers to detain thieves themselves with a ‘citizen’s arrest’, sparking an angry backlash from critics who accuse them of asking civilians to do their job for them.
Several forces have outlined how employees can take the law into their own hands, saying shoplifters can be detained if they are ‘reasonably suspected’ of committing a crime.
There is a suspicion that a spike in offences is being fuelled by hardcore shoplifters who have little fear of being caught.
Shocking figures have revealed thefts from shops have risen by almost a third over the past decade. Businesses across England and Wales recorded more than 382,100 last year – more than 1,000 every day. Yet the majority of police forces refuse to attend incidents if the goods stolen are worth less than £200.
Victims are instead told to report the crime online or via the non-emergency number 101 for ‘intelligence’ only, meaning it is unlikely to be investigated.
Of course, even if you do catch one of these criminals and make a citizen’s arrest — why would the Brits put the expression in quotes? — there’s no guarantee that the rozzers will show up anyway:
Have-a-go heroes who chased and caught a suspected thief were forced to let him go because police they were ‘too busy’ to arrest him.
The shopkeepers were bemused to be told by a police control room operator there was no-one to send despite the village’s police station being less than a mile away.
The business owners detained the man for up to 40 minutes in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, before releasing him.
Should have zip-tied the little prick to a parking meter and left him there to rot till the cops showed up.
And of course, gawd forbid that anyone should actually lay a hand on a criminal (e.g. by beating him with a cane) because oh no: only the police can beat people up in custody. Thus my own remedy (two days in the stocks followed by a severe whipping) would probably cause these pussies to clutch their pearls and faint. And ditto any attempt to take matters into your own hands in any other way:
A shop manager has put up posters of suspected shoplifters in his window after becoming fed up with a lack of action to the petty crime by the police.
John Keppie blew up CCTV images and placed home-made posters bearing the word ‘thief’ in his Bournemouth shop window after he says three girls spat in his face and stole drinks.
The Sweet Thoughts boss in Dorset said he took action after police failed to investigate, despite being offered the footage. But he claims officers have now warned him he could be fined for the posters.
Mr Keppie said that since the three posters appeared he has received a telephone call from the police telling him he isn’t allowed to have them up. He could be in breach of the Data Protection Act (2018) and liable to a fine.
And by the way: if you have a blood pressure problem, you will not want to read the rest of this linked article.
So yeah: if you take away fear of punishment, of course the crime rate is going to rise. Only in a failing state would this not be self-evident.
If you’re trying to reduce crime, what’s needed is not less, but even more prosecution — see then-NYC-AG Rudolph Giuliani’s “broken windows” policy, and its results.
It’s sad to see a once-great nation degenerate into one big chaotic crime scene.
So what happens when shopkeepers apply Sharia law to thieves?
Well, since knives have been banned I suppose they’ll have to use a plastic spork, or an Oyster Card. Or an actual oyster.
And to think, just a hundred years ago, these sissies had an empire upon which the sun never set.
“If you’re trying to reduce crime, what’s needed is not less, but even more prosecution — see then-NYC-AG Rudolph Giuliani’s “broken windows” policy, and its results.”
And subsequent administrations, especially the current DeBlasio regime, have been undoing Giuliani’s policies in NYC. People are no longer arrested for smoking pot in public, or jumping turnstiles. Last week as I came up out of the subway there was a VERY agitated homeless guy sitting on the steps smoking something that was neither tobacco nor pot, no idea what it was but he sure was strung out on it. I’ve seen a notable increase in urban outdoorsmen in the city/on the subways, aggressive panhandling, and general assholeishness. But we can’t use plastic straws!
How long before NYC returns to the 1970s when you did NOT use the Times Square subway station at night under any circumstances?
well, officer… we took him under a citizens arrest, like you told us. We called and let you know we had him, then stuck him in the upstairs office to wait for you.
Wouldn’t you know it, the little bastard jumped out the 2nd story window! I think he tried to jump on the top of that lorrie, like the do in the movies. Well.. he missed and cracked his head open on the street.
What? No I did not throw him out the window! What a wild and baseless accusation! I tried to stop him from jumping!
And now for a lesson on how English Common Law worked back when Briton was Great.
There were no Bobbies. Those were first employed by Robert Peel (Bobby’s Boys) in 1829. Before that, all arrests were citizen’s arrests. When you saw someone stealing, you were to raise the Hue and Cry (which is where the term comes from) shouting “Stop! Thief! Stop that thief!” At that point, when the hue and cry was raised, it was the obligation and duty of every able bodied male citizen to arrest — stop — that thief. Failing to raise the hue and cry in fact made you and your neighbors liable for the damages caused by the thief to the victim and to future victims.
The hue and cry followed the thief from town to town, too. Raising the hue and cry protected your town from being liable for the thief if he tried to hide among you.
The biggest complaint against the Bobbies, BTW, is that they would have some sort of special privileges, which the Free Englishmen were not keen to hand over. Robert Peel assured them that these police were only doing what every able bodied citizen was obligated to do, only that they were paid to do it full time.
Remember this every time someone tells you that the Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy.
I thought people in Britain risked arrest and assault charges if they tried defending themselves; I seem to recall reading about it more than once. The first time one of these critters die, they’ll Tony Martin the poor bastard that took the authorities at their word when they said, ‘go ahead and make a “citizen’s arrest”‘.
Here in the great state of Texas, my wife was in an auto wreck several years back in Houston. Both cars were still drivable, but she had severe whiplash (several vertebrae were fractured – unknown to her at the time). The responding officer pedaled up on his bike, instructed both parties to lay out their licenses and insurance paperwork on the hood of the car, and then take cell phone pics of each others info. He then acted like he was done and started to pedal off. My wife asked if he was going to file an accident report, to which he responded that the form was online. She could download it, fill it out, then email it to the station and he’d file. In short, he did nothing.
I’ve seen other cases where they don’t even show up to minor fender benders. Never mind the numerous hit-n-runs committed by the “undocumented visitors” we have here in Texas. You won’t see them arrested after an incident in which they have no license, no insurance, and no English.
Slippery slope indeed, it’s starting here.
I’m not sure about this one. I often think we ask the police to do too much.
Why should any accident be reported to the police if there was no crime involved?
The first thing any insurance company asked for (especially if your trying to file a claim on the other party’s insurance) is a copy of the police report.
Plus the number of times the other party flat out lies about the event later, plus the number of times that false information is given, means that the po-po should be involved. I’ve had minor fender benders where calls to their insurance company yields the standard “that’s not our policy number, that’s not our client” and calls to the other party directly reach a disconnected phone line.
Having a neutral third party document at least some basic facts about the crash – when and where, type of vehicles, etc. – aid greatly in the fall-out from the wreck.
An old friend of mine, now dead, was an alcoholic who had met some unsavory types at AA meetings over the years. One of them was a petty thief who had been caught and convicted many times. Both my friend and the thief had been able to stop drinking and stay out of trouble, but the thief was quite clear: Imprisonment had not deterred him much.
What had deterred him was the lash, which we had up here in Canada until the 1950s. The old thief had been lashed once and despite drinking, did not steal again until the lash was banned.
We have evolved the unpleasant sensation of “pain” for a reason, to teach us to stay away from trouble, and we really should take advantage of it again.
California effectively decriminalized petty theft with “Prop 47” in 2014. So now petty theft is endemic, with essentially no consequences for perpetrators. See After Proposition 47: Crime and No Consequences in California.
So the country that puts old pensioners in prison for stabbing armed home invaders is now asking for people to attempt to stop crime?
Yeah, that makes sense, I’m sure the Queen’s got your back on that.
Someone mentioned a sharia shop up there; reminds me of something that happened years ago, a shopping center owned/controlled by Nation of Islam caught some shoplifters of similar pigmentation to themselves, and took them into a back room and worked them over – HARD. Of course the Nation guys got in trouble, which had me actually rooting for them for the first and only time ever.
Next time? Don’t let them out where they can squeal. Jus’ sayin.