Discussion Groups / English Usage / December 2003

In alt.english.usage on Sun, 28 Dec 2003 10:21:36 -0000 "Martin
Willett" <mwillett_yuletide_only@ntlworld.com> posted:

If you think so.  How about Armstrongia, or Brazilia?

Interesting. Our air, climate etc. probably makes the substances
different anyhow.  Are there regolith worms?

s/ meirman    If you are emailing me please  
say if you are posting the same response.

Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
            Indianapolis,   7 years
            Chicago,        6 years
            Brooklyn NY    12 years
            Baltimore      20 years

I'm sure it should be capitalised, along with 'the devil', but I
resist because it seems as though I'd be giving some respect where
none is due.

I have *observed* those people and their behaviour over a period of three
years, Ayaz, for they live in a house, the side of which is opposite my
front garden across a very narrow road, but I only *met* them the other
Saturday. Over those years, particularly when I could not walk even to the
front of my own drive, I have had to call the police on 5 or 6 occasions to
have cars that were blocking my drive shifted so I could drive out. On
every occasion these cars proved to belong to this family or its visitors,
and they were parked opposite my drive despite the rest of the road being
empty, for every house has room in its drive for two cars here; some, like
mine, three. I will not go into more detail, other than to say that on a
couple of the earlier occasions, when the police went from door to door to
check where the owners might be, they struck lucky immediately, for this
house is number 1 in the close. On a couple of subsequent occasions at
weekends, Jeanne went over to politely enquire if the latest car blocking
us was one of their visitors, and got a frosty response, after which we had
to call the police and tell them the story. I've seen the son kicking a
football into the sides of cars parked down the street on many occasions as
I've been driving out. His parents are less strict than you can possibly
easily imagine, having been brought up, no doubt, to respect other
civilised people's rights and property, as I was.

In this case they are probably right. Many independent reports over recent
years have put the average number of people actively occupied in crime at
any one time between 200,000 and 500,000 in mainland Britain. That's about
1% of the population at a maximum. When I rant about such things, I tend to
pick headline cases to quote, to make my point, but as John Dean and Matti
(and others) have pointed out, the chance of any one particular property
being chosen at any one particular time for a hit is very small. If you or
your property keeps getting hit, then you have to ask what makes it or you
so attractive to criminals.

The prison experience of Tony Martin (the reclusive chap who lived in a
remote farmhouse, and who shot and killed one of the three robbers who had
deliberately targeted him) showed those who care to know that the majority
of people in prison become attached to it. In general, most are young,
poorly educated and barely literate, on drugs possibly before they first
came to prison and certainly having no difficulty in remaining on them
while inside. They refuse education, preferring to spend their time in the
gym, listening to pop music, and lounging around. When many are released,
they often commit a crime within a short time because they feel lost
outside and want to get back with their mates. This sort of behaviour has
been noticed and documented on many occasions, not just by "bleeding heart"
groups. A recently-retired chief inspector of prisons wrote many damning
reports of the conditions inside prisons, and the sort of people who keep
coming back, but most of them were filed and forgotten.

The short, sharp shock treatment has been tried, but the age at which it is
effective has reduced so much that most civilised people cannot believe how
young the kids to which it has to be applied have to be. "But they're so
young" was a cry before and during the trial of the two ten-years-olds who
murdered James Bulger, a toddler, by beating him to death a decade or so
ago. In Britain, one would have to catch a sensitive child at around the
age of 10, performing his first crime, to make such a shock effective. In
certain inner city parts of America and Britain, police, social workers and
probation officers, athletes and the like, and parents, give a great deal
of their time, voluntarily, to help prevent kids as young as 10 (Britain)
or 6 (America) from being recruited by gangs. Once hooked by gangs, kids
are almost immune to the shock treatment, and on both sides of the pond
such kids in mid-teens boast of their crimes and punishments to other,
younger and more gullible kids, and are considered to be heroic and cool.

The stock answer seems to be "Education, education, education", but it does
not seem to have worked for many of the kids who are most vulnerable.