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Samizdata quote of the day – too many laws and too many policemenThere are too many laws and too many policemen… police persons. Don’t you ever feel that? Every new regulation diminishes us. We’ve got to the point where we do more harm than good. – Inspector Bert Lynch, Z-Cars (last ever episode), 1978. The episode was written by Troy Kennedy Martin who had – appropriately enough – created the long-running series in the first place. August 2nd, 2025 |
 56 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – too many laws and too many policemenLeave a Reply |
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And now I’ve got an earworm!
Oh dear, I can see the remake – generation Z cars!
Rooting out the evil that comes from the protocols of the elders of gammon.
If anyone wants to see a clip of that line being spoken, here’s a link to the episode on YouTube. That link is meant to start at the right time, but if it doesn’t, start watching at 50:00.
There are some other lines in the episode that also resonate now. At the end they are testing a newly-installed automated security shutter for the police station, which symbolically comes down at the end of the episode, representing not only the end of the series but also, I think, the end of an era when policing was animated by Sir Robert Peel’s words, “the police are the public and the public are the police”. A few moments before that, some whizz-kid is showing the shutter off to the Chief Constable. Starting at 55:00, the dialogue goes like this:
“If you can imagine, Chief Constable, a large crowd of natives surrounding the building.”
“Natives? Where have they come from?”
“From Wolverhampton, sir.”
“What are they doing in Newtown?”
“They were on a march to London, sir, and they lost their way.”
I’m afraid Z-Cars was a bit before my time. However, although I agree that there are way too many laws, the real problem is that the laws we have, especially the ones people care about, are very poorly enforced. In the USA most big cities have a murder clearance rate below 25%, this is just shocking. Burglary? The police don’t even bother to try. Their function is to issue a report so you can go to your insurance company. Where I live near Chicago, every weekend a half dozen kids are shot to death in the street and nobody is ever caught, nobody every punished. Even traffic laws seem to be enforced entirely capriciously.
There is a push on the right for extreme punishment of criminals. FWIW, I don’t agree with that view at all. For those people we put in prison with the expectation that they will return to society we put them in a situation where they are brutalized and inculcated into systems of deep injustice and immorality, and we are surprised when they leave more dangerous than they arrive. Of course some people should never get out and in all honestly I don’t really care too much what happens to them. But for those who are released it seems in the best interests of the rest of us to give them more of the treatment that they might get in European prisons. (And, FWIW, for those held in pre-trial detention American prisons are nothing short of criminal themselves.)
Nonetheless, the brutality of the punishment is advocated as a deterrent to future crime. But why would that be if you have a 3/4 chance of getting away with murder? And especially so since many criminals are pretty stupid and can’t necessarily make that calculation? No, the best deterrent to crime is not brutal punishment but the certainty of swift and sure justice. And it is these two things that the criminal justice system in both Britain and the US is quite terrible at.
Notwithstanding the shameful clearance rate of crimes by the police, criminal trials and punishment take a RIDICULOUS amount of time. Here in the US state of Utah they are about to execute Ralph Menzies for a crime he committed in 1986, nearly 40 years ago. Famous murderer Hawley Crippen killed his wife in January 1910, and despite the fact they had to extradite him from the USA in the days when that was not a quick process, he was dangling from a rope by November that same year.
I have mixed feelings about capital punishment, nonetheless my point is that the public would be a great deal happier if the police focused their energy on catching and punishing criminals who perform the basic baseline crimes of murder, theft, rape, assault, burglary, fraud and so forth with a swiftness and certainty that would make even the most hardened of potential criminals think twice.
And police do not exist to protect citizens from criminals, but criminals from citizens.
Once you grok this, all becomes clear
A fun idea for age verification. Complete the following phrases:
One thousand and one cleans a big, big carpet …
A million housewives everyday …
Murray mints, Murray mints …
And from the OP:
Bee dee to …
These are burnt in to my brain and apparently I will carry them to the grave.
There’s a story that comes to mind these days. The Roman Senate once told emperor Tiberius that they would pass any law he placed before them. He replied, “What if I go mad?”
That’s what it seems like. Our government, subject to no limit or constitution, has gone mad. It is deliberately destroying the country socially and economically with full support of the police who, along with their families and friends, will have to live in the wreckage.
Most people here know the old line from Tacitus – but I will state it anyway.
“The more laws there are – the more corrupt the state is”.
Indeed law should not be “made” – laws should not come from a “legislature” OR judges (as with “judge made law”) – law should be found, it should be the logical application of the nonaggression principle of justice (see Bastiat “The Law”). And regulations with the force of law must NOT be made by officials – there must be no “delegated legislation” (that leads to madness).
There is even (and this will shock Common Law people) to be said in favour of a CODE – both of Criminal Law and Civil Law, as judges are no longer trained in the principles of justice (law students are increasingly taught Social Justice rather than Justice), and a “legislature” will just produce an endless mass of regulations – insane and contradictory.
A Code of Law (Civil and Criminal) if (a very big if) composed properly can let people know what the law is and what it is NOT – and it is limited “here is the code – here is the law” if (again if) written at one time – and not added to by a “legislature” or by judges and officials.
But then the question arises “who writes the Code?”
A Code of Civil or Criminal Law written by a “Social Justice” supporter would be worse than no Code of Law at all.
Do the Shake’n’Vac….
To give an example of how a legislature can be menace….
Most American States adopted statutes allowing for the allegedly mentally deficient (or supposedly morally deviant) to be sterilized – so did many other nations.
But the State of Texas did not. Was this because of some special moral virtue in Texas? No it was NOT – it was because the Texas State legislature only meets for a few days a year, and so does not have TIME to pass as many crazy “laws” as other States.
Sadly this is partly got round now by officials passing regulations with the force of law – which is against the principles of the Texas Constitution of 1876 (but judges sometimes wink at this bad “delegated powers” practice).
In 1935 the Supreme Court of the United States declared, nine Justices to zero (all Justices agreeing) that officials did NOT have the power to pass regulations with the force of law – that all Federal laws had to be specifically passed by the Congress, that they must not be vague “Enabling Acts” allowing officials to do XYZ as “delegated powers”.
But this was, de facto, thrown out in World War II.
In 1929 former Lord Chief Justice Hewart published “The New Despotism” warning against officials having the power to make decisions with the force of law – but this warning has been, largely, ignored in Britain over the last 96 years.
Not that it would make much difference now – as the present British Parliament is the worst for centuries.
Those who look to the “Monarch in Parliament” to preserve basic liberties look in vain – Westminster (the Parliament just as much as the official and “experts”) is now the enemy of the British people.
Fraser Orr – just to cement a reputation as King of the Pedants, Crippen was not extradited from the US, although he was a US citizen – he was arrested on a Canadian-flagged vessel and landed under arrest in Quebec, Canada, then still a British dominion, so his return to the UK was merely an Imperial formality.
llater,
llamas
I quite agree.
Unfortunately, the left pushes for no punishment of criminals, at least as far as theft, murder, burglary, etc. As a result, anyone who pushes some punishment for criminals is a de facto ally of people pushing for extreme punishment of criminals.
For some limited-government advocates, this is enough to discourage them from arguing against the pushes for no punishment. I think a greater proportion of them argue for punishing criminals today than decades ago (not that I’ve ever had my finger on the pulse of the small-government movement).
Criminals should be punished in proportion to their crimes – no more and no less.
And that means, along with other things, that the corrupt practice of “plea bargaining” must be ended – both Scots Law and German Law managed to get along fine without this concept, till it was quietly slipped in only a few years ago. No “plead guilt to this crime – and we will let you off this other crime”.
And no reduced sentence for pleading guilty – the punishment should be proportionate to the crime. Again many legal systems did not have the practice of a reduced sentence for pleading guilty.
And nor should people rot “on remand” waiting for trial.
There must be a fixed number of days before the trial has to start – and a fixed number of days before the trial has to be finished (again this was the case in some jurisdictions – only a few years ago).
Justice delayed, is justice denied.
@Paul, I have mixed feelings about plea bargains. A notable poster here, @BobbyB who was a criminal defense lawyer in a past life has been an advocate of them and I very much respect his opinion on the matter even though my inclination is to agree with you. But I’ll let him speak to that if he wishes.
As to the speed of trials, here in the USA defendants do have a right to a speedy trial, it is in the constitution, and often defendants do have charges dropped on a speedy trial motion. As to defendants rotting in jail on pre trial detention I think there are some interesting issues there. There has been a big kerfuffle in the USA where some jurisdictions are passing no cash bail laws and regulations, since it seems unfair that the poor have to spend pre-trial time in jail whereas the rich can spend it on bail. Again, the redoubtable BobbyB has changed my view on this to say that this does seem like a fair criticism. One is innocent until proven guilty so by what form of justice can the state detain an innocent person before trial? The reason of course being to ensure their appearance at that trial, but surely there are other mechanisms to do that. Modern technology is replete with tracking technologies.
The other problem is that when someone is on pre-trial detention they are often kept in jails as if they were already proven guilty with all the risks and dangers associated with being locked up with the worst of society. So my opinion is that pre-trial detainees should be kept in much nicer facilities more like a secure motel than a jail cell. We must take away their rights for the criminal justice system to work, but surely we don’t need to abuse them in the process.
Of course at the root of that is how utterly terrible American jails are (and although I think British jails are better, they are still pretty terrible, it isn’t like it was for Fletcher and Godber at all.) Violence, rape, intimidation, bullying are so common they are barely worth a mention, in fact the public almost relishes in the reality of this form of non judicial punishment as “prison justice”, meted out but the worst in society on the weakest inmates.
If they weren’t so terrible then that pre-trial detention would be far less punitive, and of course if the criminal justice system were not so sclerotic the injustice would be for a shorter time.
FWIW, I have recently been listening to this interesting lady named Portia Louder who was convicted and served a five year sentence for real estate fraud. She talks a lot about her prison experience and the people who are in there and I think it paints a very different picture from what the general public might expect. Of course I think that a women’s prison is a horse of an entirely different color than a men’s prison, but I think it is worth listening to her voice if you are interested in reform of the criminal justice system.
The motto of this site is…
I have a more “nuanced” view.
When it comes to common criminals, i do think that swift & likely punishment (as opposed to delayed & uncertain punishment) is more important than cruel & unusual punishment.
(I do, however, feel that cruel & unusual crimes deserve cruel & unusual punishment.)
When it comes to the ruling class, it’s a different matter.
As an example from England, i submit that “grooming gang” members, not being part of the ruling class, should be punished according to the Law.
Police, social workers, and politicians are a different matter. They are members of the ruling class. Burning at the stake, lawful or not, is too good for them.
But then, who is going to prevent Trump or Farage from burning at the stake?
That is a discussion for another day.
Criminals should be punished in proportion to their crimes – no more and no less.
While I don’t disagree, after reading that I now have a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan stuck in my head:
“My object all sublime
“I shall achieve in time —
“To let the punishment fit the crime —
“The punishment fit the crime;
“And make each prisoner pent
“Unwillingly represent
“A source of innocent merriment!
“Of innocent merriment!”
Bring back the stocks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stocks
@Snorri Godhi
When it comes to the ruling class, it’s a different matter.
On the contrary, the problem with the “ruling class” is that, as a general rule, they are NEVER held responsible for their crimes. The solution with crime among the “ruling class” is that we must also ensure swift and certain justice for them. This will most likely be far more effective on them than on the general population: at the moment they commit their crimes knowing that they will never be held accountable. A few high level perp walks will shake that certainty from them.
Right now their is a horrific scandal going on in the USA where large amounts of information is being released by the government showing a massive collusion at the highest levels to prevent the 2016 election going to Trump and to destroy the presidency of Trump 45 via an entirely made up Russian collusion hoax. Many, many crimes were allegedly committed from perjury, fraud, bribery, deprivation of rights and so forth all supported by an ongoing conspiracy, by Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper and many assorted underlings. I doubt it fits the legal definition, but as to the common understanding, if what these people are alleged to have done is true, it is nothing short of treason.[*] There seems to be masses of documentation to evidence this and no doubt there will be more when these mutts are put under oath. But do I think any of them will spend a day in jail? No, I do not. Not a single day.
And the cops and social workers in Rotherham? Surely they knew they were untouchable, would never be held accountable. In fact, the climate being what it is they would be far more likely to be punished for speaking up than for keeping quiet.
I do not think these people deserve a special justice, extra punishment for simply being the “ruling class”. I would be happy to settle for them simply getting the same justice that the rest of us do, and that that justice be swift and certain.
[*] Not entirely relevant to my point, but it is worth saying that given what these people did, for the SAME people to accuse Trump of “undermining democracy” as they did remorselessly in the last election must surely be the zenith (or is that the nadir?) of chutzpah.
@Nemesis – that’s funny, that’s what my SIL in the UK says as well. Is it a common meme?
Nevertheless, whole it’s a fun concept, the stocks wouldn’t work, because things like that depend upon the shame and ridicule that they create having an effect on the victim – and tgat in turn depends upon a common worldview and a measure of social integrity in which the victim feels that shame and ridicule and the loss of status and social capital as an actual punishment. Most of the people who would end up in the stocks don’t have those values or feelings and the punishment would be meaningless beyond the mere transitory discomfort. When the culturally-approved consequence for a culturally-defined crime like rape, for example, is a swift, violent and painful death, then a Western slap on the wrist for what the offender does not even percieve as a crime is meaningless. Muslim criminals in the UK laugh in derision at ‘community service orders’ and ‘acceptable behaviour contracts’ for transgressions which, back “home” would earn them a serious beating at best, and perhaps much worse.
Time to sentence foreign criminals to the same things, official and otherwise, that they would have been sentenced to in their country of origin. For sure if no more-effective deterrent to crimes can be found, then the reactions from indigenes are only going to get much, much worse. The police are there to protect criminals from the mob as much as they are to protect citizens from criminals, and as they are failing spectacularly at the latter, it’s only a matter of time before they can no longer maintain the former.
llater,
llamas
@llamas I think the notion that we should treat and punish Muslim criminals differently than non Muslim criminals is absolutely horrible. The law should be blind, actions should be punished, not ethnicity. As I have said the problem is not that the law isn’t severe enough it that it isn’t enforced enough.
Fraser Orr – I don’t disagree, I don’t like the idea of different punishments for different people for the same crimes. But we have to face the fact that the punishments that we enlightened Westerners consider appropriate are absolutely no deterrent whatever to many of these migrants, who also see and quickly-grasp the fact that whole classes of crimes in the UK now effectively go unpunished entirely. It’s not that the law us not enforced enough, it’s that, even when it is fully-enforced, the consequences are effectively-meaningless to the great majority of offenders.
Maybe the answer is much-more-harsh punishments and a willingness to apply them regardless of petty budgetary concerns. I’m always minded of the (IIRC) New York Times columnist who professed himself baffled that ratescof incarceration were rising – but crime rates were falling? How could this be? There’s little question that a high probability of being caught and the prospect of severa and unpleasant consequences will reduce all crime, and not just crime committed by ‘migrants’. But I don’t think anyone in UK politics has the will to put them in place. Murder used to get you a hempen necktie, then life breaking stones at Princetown, then 30 years. Now murder gets you 8 years, and that’s 8 years with colour TV and high-speed wi-fi. I don’t think there’s any way back from that.
llater,
llamas
Fraser Orr – I would never question bobby b’s personal honesty, but it is a corrupt SYSTEM.
It is much like the police friends of mine who say (in all seriousness) “when [yes it is “when” – not “if”] we arrest you, it will be nothing personal – we will still be friends”, I do not doubt the honesty of what they say, but being arrested for peacefully expressing one’s opinions is still WRONG.
Plea bargaining is a corrupt system – why, for example should someone be charged with a crime that they did NOT commit, in order to get them to confess to a lesser crime (which they may also have NOT committed) to get a reduced punishment?
I repeat – only a few years ago neither Scots Law or German Law had this.
In a recent YouTube Alan Dershowitz (the defense lawyer and Harvard Professor) explained how one of the key things he explained to his students was “if you commit a crime – make sure there is someone above you in the criminal enterprise, so you can give evidence against them” that way, he explained, you can get off with little punishment – or no punishment at all.
He seemed to think this was a good thing, and so did the people in the comments.
It is not a good thing – it is an informer’s charter, most likely giving false testimony a lot of the time.
“Yes I stole (or raped or murdered), but Mr Big told me to do in – and it is Mr Big you want”.
Damn a system that is like that, damn it to Hell.
@llamas if you want to argue that punishments for some crimes are too lenient then you might be right, in some cases. A large part of the problem is that the prisons are filled to the brim with people on fairly petty drug offences, so there isn’t so much money to go round to incarcerate people who commit crimes that really deeply affect people. If the police put as much effort into arresting burglars as they do pot dealers we’d all be a lot happier.
But whatever the punishment it should be the same for everyone.
And in regards to community service and these behavioral contracts (which I have never heard of, but they sound similar to conditional parole as used here in the USA) the thing is I think prison is a pretty terrible way to punish criminals. You incarcerate them with the worst people, put them in a situation where a nihilistic, selfish morality is an absolute necessity to survive, leave them sitting around bored out of their skulls (or terrified of violence) most of the time and where injustice is everywhere, leave them with almost no ability to improve themselves… and on and on, and of course they are very expensive, and so you make the crime victims pay for the food and lodging of the people who hurt them. Prison is a terrible way to punish people. Sometimes it is the least bad option, but if there are other options I think that is a really good thing. Not because I love criminals, but insofar as we WANT to rehabilitate some people then prison is not a good way to do it.
Regarding your point about Muslims not finding the punishments so bad, I don’t think that is true. I think that if you or I got put in prison for a year for some crime it would be utterly devastating to our lives and that is true of a number of professionals I know who are muslims. But for many people, black, white, christian or muslim, a year in prison is not a big deal at all. I guess if you don’t have much to loose losing it is less of a big deal. So, honestly, I don’t think it is a non muslim/muslim thing, it is more a poverty thing.
I’d encourage anyone interested in this subject to listen to Portia Louder that I linked above. I found it quite illuminating.
Of course if you want to lock people up for life for some vile crime then what we are doing is just warehousing them until they die. And in that case prison is the right way and we should do it a cheap as we can while retaining some sense of our own human dignity.
@Paul Marks
Fraser Orr – I would never question bobby b’s personal honesty, but it is a corrupt SYSTEM.
I have mixed feelings. I don’t think it is so much corrupt as pragmatic. If I am a DA and I have a case against someone for murder but my evidence for intent is weak so I plead it down to manslaughter, my guy still goes to jail for a long time. The alternative is risking him NOT going to jail and setting him loose again on the public.
And similarly, if I can take the getaway driver in an armed robbery and plead him down to accessory, in exchange for getting solid evidence to prosecute the guy who did the robbery and shot a few people, when without it I couldn’t prove who did it — then, although not ideal, it may well be better than the alternative.
So I guess it is a case of don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
There are lots of things about the plea bargain system that make my stomach pretty queasy, and I’m not sure I think the pragmatic trade off is worthwhile, and I think it probably leads to some terrible injustices. But I think at the very least that is the thinking behind it. And people I respect and who know a great deal more about it than me tell me that it is a net positive, in fact they generally say it is a very large net positive.
Apparently Professor Dershowitz did not read The Godfather carefully.
Criminal enterprises have ways to prevent that sort of things.
Speaking of which, i had an inspiration: Trump should give Obama a full pardon for anything that the latter might have done wrt the Russian collusion hoax; after which, Obama should be called to testify in the trial of his henchmen.
That way, Obama is given the uncomfortable choice of publicly throwing his henchmen under the bus, or risk ending up in jail for perjury. Either way, he’d live the rest of his life in infamy.
@snorri Obama already effectively has immunity due to a recent supreme court decision. It is not though considered good form to call former Presidents before courts or committees. Like I say, everyone is wound up about it, but nobody is going to jail, nobody is even going to be particularly red faced.
FFS Jake Tapper who was, if not the leader, at least one of the most prominent defenders of “Biden is as spry as a chicken”, who called people who disagreed with this conspiracy theorists, or cruel and hateful for making fun of his putative stutter… this same Tapper is making millions selling a book about how Biden had lost his marbles and how shocking the cover up was — the cover up that HE WAS ONE OF THE MAJOR LEADERS OF. I mean shame has no meaning among these people.
Fraser Orr – oh, so much to unpack. I agree with much of what you describe.
Punishment, and specifically, prison, has fallen victim to a cult of business efficiency, where any means to cut costs is automatically good and there is considered to be some ‘right’ number of people who should be in prison, and with the incarceration rate that prevails in Nordic countries always held up as the goal. This neglects the unfortunate truth that the number of people who belong in prison is determined by the people who belong in prison, and not by some academic algorithm.
If “too many” people convicted of drug crimes are in prison, so that ‘real’ criminals cannot be accomodated, the correct answer is not to let criminals out, but to build more prisons. Trying to limit the consequences of crime by crying the blues about how it’s too expensive to punish people misses the point, and always, always misses the costs of ‘the things not seen’ – the societal costs of leaving criminals free to commit mpre crime.
More than 30 years ago now, I was a copper. I saw lots and lots of people who needed to be in prison for a long time. Some were simply evil, a danger to themselves and others. But a large contingent of these people belonged in prison, not for any hope of reform or rehabilitation, but because the costs (financial and societal) of leaving them free far outweighed the cost of locking them up. A small group of committed criminals commit a disproportionately-large part of most crimes, especially property crimes and crimes of violence, the costs to society of their criminal lifestyle is vast, and the only way to stop them is to lock them up. Sorry, not politically correct, sociology lecturers at polytechnics across the nation faint in horror, but that’s the truth of it.
I think the large numbers of what you refer to as ‘petty’ drug criminals in jail are the result of a combination of the social decriminalisation of most drugs, and the insane insistence upon the disease model of drug abuse. More of this later.
Prison fails to deter crime because it has morphed into a civil-service function, with a hundred incentives that have nothing to do with incarceration. Prisons have effectively ceded most of the day-to-day routine of prison life to the prisoners themselves, jailers can barely keep order, and the whole system.is rife with corruption. Especially in the US, prison officer’s unions wield immense political power, their members are institutionally corrupt – how do all those phones and drugs get into prisons? – and they seem to abuse the inmates more-or-less without consequences. Prison gangs run prisons as private fiefdoms, with do-gooder ‘civil rights’ attorneys on speed-dial ready to tangle the system up in legal knots every time some mope is shorted two chicken nuggets in his evening meal, while the majority of prisonersare in a continual state of terror and abuse – about which, nobody cares.
In the UK, specifically, I trace a lot of the rise in low-level crime and general savagery to the changes in alcohol consumption habits. Used-to-was, the UK was dominated by pub culture, bars and clubs were rara avii, and the pub culture was based in a strong legal framework at a micro-local level. The publican – the licensed individual who was responsible for the pub – answered annually to the licensing magistrate, local lay officials who had the power to yank his license and put him out of business. If the local police reported excessive drunkenness, underage drinking or disturbances at a pub – he was out of business. The system policed itself – the publican couldn’t afford trouble, and the customers wouldn’t allow it because it might cost them their local boozer.
50 years ago, my local boozer was down Tooley Street, East of Tower Bridge. It’s all tarted up now, but back in the day, this was a very rough neighbourhood indeed. But the pub, and the area immediately around it, was universally accepted as a safe space for all – and the Old Bill was seldom seen there (except for a jar) because there was never any trouble there.
That system is mostly-gone now. Licensing of pubs and bars is now a bureaucratic function, like dog licensing, and completely-disconnected from street reality. The days of the individual publican are numbered, it’s all going corporate. And violence and mayhem abounds around alcohol, as it always does when social pressures are removed, and the police are left to clean up the mess. Of course, this means people end up in the cells – that’s the only real sanction they have.
Sorry, very disjointed, I know, but there’s a lot to unpack there.
llater,
llamas
@llamas very interesting comments. I found your model of looking at the total cost of a person existing either incarcerated or costing society by not being incarcerated, a way I had never thought of it. Though I do wonder that is someone is so determined to impose so completely on others if a 50 cent piece of lead is a better solution.
I also did not know what you describe about pub culture. I used to live above Bert’s bar in Stockbridge in Edinburgh, and so I think I might have experienced to some degree of what you talked about (though Stockbridge is a bit yuppy, and, much to my heartbreak, Bert’s was converted into a wine bar, god help us. They used to sell these amazing pies with mashed potatoes and mushy peas. Now they sell salads, and they have a vegan section on the menu….)
However, since you are a former copper, I did want to ask you something — my primary premise here is that that real problem is that crime clearance rates are so low — if justice was sure and swift then the criminal landscape would be quite different. But I don’t really know enough about police work to know how to do that — and in particular to know how to do it in such a way that we don’t end up as a surveillance state. If are willing I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
I, too, have a question for llamas, prompted by this:
What i don’t understand is the difference between the criminals who “were simply evil, a danger to themselves and others”; and the criminals who “belonged in prison” without “any hope of reform or rehabilitation”.
It is not a rhetorical question if i ask llamas to explain the difference: I really want to understand.
Incidentally, one must also take into account an unseen benefit of prison: its deterrent effect.
For most, if not all, of us gravitating around Samizdata, the prospect of a criminal record is deterrence enough, no need for jail time; and no doubt there are criminals for whom even the prospect of jail time is not deterrent enough (otherwise very few people, if any, would end up in jail). But there must be people for whom a criminal record is not enough deterrence; while the prospect of jail time, is a factor to be considered.
WRT this:
I am reminded of the theory that the Nordic countries have* low incarceration rates because Nordic people are not prone to criminality (not controversial so far);
AND Nordic people are not prone to criminality (unlike their Viking ancestors) because the death penalty was applied more “liberally” in Northern Europe, weeding out genes that make people prone to violence (which is much more controversial).
* or had, before very-non-Nordic people were admitted in large numbers into Nordic countries.
@ Fraser & Snorri – I will address all your points at length – you know I will 😁😁😁 – but it will be this evening EDT. Right now, I’m waiting for a plane in Sacramento and I’m done typing on a phone.
llater,
llamas
While eagerly awaiting llamas’ answer, my mind wandered back to this, from Fraser:
I do not see what Tapper is doing as evidence of chutzpah, but as a result* of brain damage. I believe that Tapper actually believes his own propaganda, and that is because of his brain damage. The same applies to anybody who takes Tapper’s book seriously.
* result, not evidence: the evidence of brain damage was there long before Tapper got down to writing the book.
@snorri you sling that term “brain damage” around a lot. I’m not really sure what you mean by it, but FWIW I think the Tapper surely knows it is chutzpah, though we all believe we are right in our own eyes, so no doubt he has constructed some sort of belief system to comfort himself. And as to taking his book seriously: I have not read it, but I have heard a lot of people who have talking about it, and from what I understand the book is actually pretty good documenting just how dreadful the conspiracy was, and how handicapped Biden was. So the contents of the book (which was, FWIW, written with a co-author who has more credibility) seems good. It is the utter audacity that Jake Tapper would publish it that is so shocking, and is certainly enough that I would never, in a million years, buy it. Not even for ten cents at a thrift store.
You can rest assured that i mean it literally.
I am convinced that everybody who has been exposed to seed oils, refined sugars (except for honey, maybe), cereals (if not processed “properly”), or gluten; from conception up to full brain development; is brain damaged to some extent.
Including yours truly.
As bobby said, i have strong opinions; but i have yet to see evidence that i am wrong.
In the case of *Anglo-American* “progressivism”, i started to think of it as a suicide cult (and therefore, a mental illness) since late 2008. That is about 3 years before i started thinking about the effect of diet on brain function.
As we all do. But Jake Tapper, and most if not all of his fellow cultists, take it to pathological levels.
Think of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple.
Snorri – you present an interesting idea.
Fraser – pragmatism leads to corruption.
Evil seldom starts off big – it starts off with little compromises, which lead to worse things, which lead to still worse things. And so on.
“The ends justify the means” seldom works in practice – as we can see from the mess American, and British, cities are in.
Pragmatic justice is not justice – and it does not work.
The law and policemen.
The law is the effort to apply the principles of natural law, natural justice (the nonaggression principle), to individual cases – that is the Common Law, and any Statute or regulation that goes against the principles of natural law, natural justice, is void – this Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke and Chief Justice Sir John Holt were clear on.
Thomas Hobbes wrote “a dialogue between a philosopher and a student of the common laws of England” to ATTACK this traditional view (Hume and, especially, Bentham carried on the attack later).
Sir William Blackstone subverted the traditional view rather than attacking it openly – he claimed to be a firm supporter of natural law, natural justice, to hold the Common Law in the highest regard……
But then Blackstone shoves dagger in the guts – an Act of Parliament can overrule it all.
So Blackstone has just replaced the Divine Right of Kings with the Divine Right of Parliament – it is still the Imperial Roman principle that the will of the ruler is the law (TYRANNY), rather than as Bracton (perhaps the greatest of the English authorities on law in the Middle Ages) put it – the king is UNDER the law (Parliament did not exist at the time – so there was no nonsense about Parliament “making” the law).
All the above has got nothing to do with the whims of judges – judges are also UNDER the principles, not above them.
As for “policemen” – they are fairly recent, I believe they were made compulsory in English and Welsh counties in 1856.
The county of Rutland, a few miles from me, responded to this by setting up a police force of two people.
A Chief Constable and one officer.
However, big city policeman have done good in the past.
Perhaps the best chief of police in England was Sir Charles Rafter who was head of the Birmingham (then the second largest city in England) police from 1899 to 1935. Having been a policeman in Ireland before that – starting to serve in the 1880s.
He was still serving at the age of 75 – but did not die in a street fight against a criminal (as I think he would have liked), he died on vacation.
The leftist show “Peaky Blinders” viciously smeared him – although it gave the Protestant Irish head of the Birmingham Police a different name.
That modern British people, mostly, have no idea who Sir Charles Rafter was, and get their “history” from leftist agitprop shows such as “Peaky Blinders” is unfortunate.
Still not home. Tomorrow. Sorry.
llater,
llamas
@Paul Marks
Fraser – pragmatism leads to corruption.
Does it? I mean all of life is to some degree a matter of pragmatism.
I think it is wrong that the government uses force to take money to run the NHS. But if you are sick do you use their services?
Of course, you don’t have any money left after the government took it all. You should not be patronizing an institution funded by theft, but you do, because pragmatism demands it.
But sticking with the law for a moment: Blackstone, I think it was, who said “let ten guilty men go free lest one innocent man be punished.” I imagine you agree with that, but what about 100 guilty men? Or 10,000 guilty men? Or how about ALL guilty men? The only way to guarantee that no innocent person is punished is to punish no-one. And if you punish no one we will all be much worse off.
If you let ten guilty men go free to save the one innocent man, and those ten go on to murder ten other innocent men, have you made a good choice?
I don’t know how many guilty men we should let go free to save one innocent man, it certainly isn’t zero, and it might be higher than ten. But pragmatism demands that it isn’t “all”, and for sure, encourages us to work hard to make our criminal justice system better at distinguishing the one from the other.
Life is not an ivory tower. The forces of the malefactors beat on the walls all day long, and sometimes principles must give way to pragmatism, unless we seek a martyr’s end.
Fraser Orr
Yes it does.
The temptations of power are bad enough even for a person who has a strict code – we all have evil within us (I certainly do) and that evil is always looking for a moment of weakness, a compromise, in order to take over.
And NO it is NOT a matter of hanging one innocent man so that one can also hang ten guilty men – under a system where one punishes an innocent man, those ten murderers will go free.
Indeed under such a system – those ten men (or men like them) will end up in charge.
Bribes never start big – it is “this round is on me officer” or “it is O.K. – that is on the house”. A policeman who starts making those little moral compromises ends up closing his eyes to murder – as does such a judge.
As for Blackstone – he posed as a defender of the Common Law, but really stabbed it in the guts.
Blackstone presented himself as a supporter of natural law – natural justice (the foundation of the Common Law – those who deny that, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior, are enemies of the Common Law) – but then Blackstone thrust in the dagger.
All the principles he claimed to be believe in are, according to him, overruled by any Act of Parliament.
In short, as the American Founding Fathers understood, Blackstone was intellectually corrupt – to his very core.
A whole day p**sed away in airports and airplanes. I blame Trump.
Fraser Orr – to your question about clearance rates. I absolutely agree, as long as clearance rates are solidly connected to meaningful punishment.
What has caused the more-or-less complete collapse of some areas of law enforcement in the UK has been the technocrat urge to treat criminal justice as just another business activity, to be operated and managed, as though it was making frozen peas or winter underwear. Goals and targets and plans and incentives. This overlooks the point I’ve made here before – crime is defined by the criminals and not by some business-school algorithm. Criminal justice makes no business sense at all – but then, it’s not a business, it deals with more-or-less entirely-unquantfiable measures like security and confidence and peace-of-mind. How do you assess a littke old lady’s feelings about venturing out after dark in a terms-of-service statement?
This mindset is what leads to the surveillance state you (rightly) fear – when efficiency is your primary goal, you seek for the lowest-cost, most-effective ways of doing business. Just videotape everyone, everywhere, all the time – then you’ll always have the evidence. Bank records, Internet history, library loans, telephone calls – just Hoover it all up. The concerns of citizens about privacy, security and anonymity are unquantifiable and thus (in this business model) negligible. If you’ve done nothing wrong, what do you have to fear, anyway?
Perversely, this approach leads to the exact corrosion of criminal justice that we see. Crimes that are easy to find and charge using these technical approaches, are the ones that get found and charged. Hence the explosion in cases of supposed online ‘harms’, and such fiascos as the Horizon cases, all based solely on computer records, or a Lucy Letby, sentenced for the most horrible crimes based upon statistical models of probability. Meanwhile, pimps and thieves run free. Crimes that are hard to detect and solve using these methods – burglary, auto theft, muggings, most street crimes, shoplifting – are effectively decriminalized. Peel’s principle about measuring success by the absence of crime is turned on it’s head.
Reversing this process means doing away with all of that, hiring more policemen (yes, police MEN, I said it), building a lot more prison cells, feeling lots of collars, and locking people away. No more ‘community outreach’, no more ‘Black Police Officer’s Associations’, no more Gay Pride liveries, no more ‘graduate entry schemes’ but only fearless and absolute impartial service to The Law. Criminal justice is different than baking biscuits or painting houses, and it needs to be managed for what it is, not what business school.profs and sociology lecturers would like it to be.
Snorri – don’t worry, you’re next 😁😁😁
llater,
llamas
llamas:
I’m going to rudely add my 1.56 cents to your analysis.
Crim justice really went to hell when we decided that someone breaking laws is a victim, wronged by society and reasonably reacting to that.
Lawbreaking is now merely a symptom of how we have mistreated someone. It’s our fault, you see, and so we owe the lawbreaker treatment and our good wishes.
In my experience, this is actually true – but for a vanishingly small portion of crims. The rest are mostly dumb drunk/drugged jerks who take what they want.
@llamas I’m sure it was a typo on your part but it made me laugh that, when describing the indiscriminate gathering of information you said “Hoover it all up” rather than “hoover it all up.” That guy Hoover did epitomize that. I find it utterly shocking that even today the building the FBI is headquartered in is called the Hoover building, named after one of the most scary, civil rights abusing, blackmailing, “you’ll take away my power from my cold dead hands” bastards the country has ever known.
Anyway, everything you said I agree with, but I still don’t quite understand — here is Chicago how are the police going to get the murder clearance rate up to where it should be — well above 90% — without putting cameras everywhere and tracking and watching everyone all the time? I’m not a cop so I really don’t have a clue how they can do that without that sort of evidence.
And the punishment is the loss of freedom, it is not “prison justice” where vulnerable people who went off the tracks, are subject to systematic violence, frequently rape, a total lack of any system of justice and fairness. If we believe that, for example, child molesters are deserving of getting the crap beaten out of them then we should be honest enough and institute a scheme or corporal punishment, or bring back the gallows. The idea that we would subcontract that work out to the very worst of the worst is just horrific to me.
If we intend to release people we had better not brutalize them to the point they come out worse than they started. All the treatment programs in prison are not for the benefit of the prisoners but for the rest of us when the parole system sets them on us again.
What is a deterrent is being locked up, and being pretty sure that if you do the crime you’ll do the time. I also think that there is a category of prisoners who should never get out again (including people who are persistent offenders.) Those people should be separate and just parked in a people warehouse until they die. I think decency requires we treat them with some dignity, but not much.
BTW, something I have never understood is that if we are going to do capital punishment, why all the fancy shit like electric chairs or gas chambers or lethal injection or the new thing nitrogen asphyxiation. Albert Pierrepoint had it down. A well measured drop and you can take a man from his cell to his death in less than twenty seconds. Humane, quick, painless, not very messy and cheap. I really don’t understand the downside (well unless you are the one going down I guess.)
@ Snorri – you asked about the different categories of prisoners. You must bear in mind that my direct knowledge is now at least 30 years out of date, and things may be different now. I’d like more input from bobby b., whose data may be more current.
A small subset of prisoners are not just bad, but evil and irremediable. Whether due to mental defect or conscious preference, they choose to prey on others without limit or hindrance, stealing, maiming, raping and killing. They will never stop or change their ways, violent crime and preying on others is the only life they know or want. Think of the Kray brothers, or the more florid Mafiosi, or I understand the UK houses a character called Bronson who fits this mould. In days past, many of these types would inevitably have met the hangman, or ended their days breaking rocks in Princetown, when ‘life’ meant ‘life’.
The next set are those who choose crime as a business, stealing and robbing as a career choice, whether blue- or white-collar. More often than not, these guys (it’s 99% guys) are not violent, except incidentally, although even back.in the day there was a steady growth in the number of armed robbers who were prepared to kill and maim. There is, of course, quite a bit of overlap in these groups. Many of the second group will age-out of their criminal ways, and this natural effect could be easily harnessed by the simple expedient of longer sentences – 19 year old stupid comes out as 39 year old and the racy life of the hoodlum will lose a lot of its charm. And of course, every day they spend inside is another day they are not stealing and robbing and fighting – the uncounted cost to society of weakened law enforcement and ever-reduced consequences. Most-every one of this group commits a continual stream of crimes, day in and day out.
The third group is well-described by bobby b. as dumb drunk/drugged jerks with poor impulse control, terrible upbringing and few if any meaningful consequences for their past bad acts. These are the daily shoplifters, sneak thieves and perpetrators of low-level street crime. These are the ones most-likely to respond to a meaningful prison sentence.
That’s been my observation. These are crude generalizations, naturally, and a lot of people don’t fit neatly into such categories – which is exavtly why such simplistic categories, so beloved of the MBA, are a poor basis on which to design a criminal justice system. Your mileage certainly varies.
llater,
llamas
@ Fraser Orr – I wondered whether anyone would pick up on my Hoover wordplay. What can I say – I’m feeling especially puckish today. But of course someone did.
As to the murder rate in Chicago – you’re making the mistake of assuming that the leadership of the city gives a rat’s ass about these killings, except that the publicity makes the city look bad. The city goverment of Chicago is more-or-less entirely subsetvient to a cabal of street gangs, at least as far as law-enforcement is concerned, and this is how these groups prefer to run their affairs. Everyome knows who the perpetrators are in these cases, but the combination of a tribal gang culture and wilful official indifference means that nothing will change. Sorry. Chicago law enforcement now operates on a Third-World level, not sure how you ever get it back.
llater,
llamas
Llamas: Thank you for your exhaustive reply.
I remember chatting about this with a Criminology professor, during a walk from Cambridge to Ely; but i have forgotten what he told me. It was over 30 years ago.
As for bobby’s remark:
I submit that there is a deeper problem: most people are not enlightened enough (or, if you prefer, cynical enough) to see punishment as purely about deterrence: nothing to do with what criminals “deserve”, or with moral responsibility (as commonly understood).
Paul Marks seems to reject this consequentialist view of punishment — which is strange, since it was implicit in my religious (Catholic) education. The idea was that Divine Justice is not the same as human justice. God is the only agent who can afddminister Divine Justice, and if we humans aim at punishing people on the basis of Divine Justice, then we are usurping God’s role. We must content ourselves with administering justice in a way that makes it possible (though not obligatory) to live a virtuous life.
Snorri
“Paul Marks seems to reject this consequentialist view of punishment”.
If you mean “punish the innocent – in order to deter other people” then YES I do reject that
You punish the guilty for what they have done – NOT because of some effect the punishment may, or may not, have on other people.
It was normal in hangings for theft, for pickpockets to be operating in the crowd watching the hanging – so that puts that theory of “justice” to bed.
The question to ask before killing someone for what they have done is “does what they choose to do (exercised their free will in deciding to do) merit this level of punishment” NOT “what effect will this punishment have other people”.
“My Catholic education”.
Well Snorri – a central principle of the Roman Catholic faith (and some other religions and secular world views) is free will, do you believe in free will?
If (if) the answer is “no” then do not play the Catholic card – because you are not a Catholic.
Take the following thought experiment….
There are two people, two persons (two free will beings) left in the universe – both have eternal youth, they will not die by old age.
There are only two people (two persons) left – because one of them murdered everyone else, he did it for amusement (as in the old Johnny Cash song “I shot a man in Reno – just to watch him die”).
What should the other person do?
There is no possibility that killing the mass murderer will “deter” anyone – there is no one left to deter.
But clearly the other person should hunt down the person who killed everyone else – and execute them.
Another thought experiment – a double one.
You have the chance to kill a mass murderer – but everyone will think it was natural causes, you will never be able to convince anyone that you were the instrument of death – what do you do?
There is no “deterrence” here – as no one will ever believe you did it, everyone will assume it was natural causes (so no one will be “deterred”) – but, clearly, you should still hunt down the guilty.
Flipping the matter on its head…..
If you execute an innocent man, many people will be “deterred” and will not commit crimes.
Should you execute the innocent man? NO you should NOT.
As for history….
By the start of the 19th century about 200 crimes, some of them fairly minor, carried the death penalty on this island.
Was this just?
Of course it was NOT – as many of these crimes did NOT merit death.
The punishments did not “deter” people (crime was common in London and so on in the early 1800s) – but even if they had deterred people such a system would still have been UNJUST, as the punishments were not in proportion to the crime.
By the way…..
The correct translation of the 6th commandment is (as every school boy used to know) “thou shall do no murder” – NOT “thou shall not kill”.
Modern theologians do not seem to know this.
It is astonishing the things, the really basic things, that modern theologians do not seem to know.
As Gladstone rightly said – of one thing I am certain, the moral improvement of the people will not come from the state.
Neither its education (indoctrination) or its punishments.
Moral improvement comes from within – from a person making the choice to be a better person even though it may lead to suffering and death (as it too often does).
Paul: When i criticize a specific position of yours, you might consider clarifying that specific position, instead of launching a broad counter-attack.
However, in this specific case, your reply gives me an opportunity to explain myself better.
That is fatuous: it is just impossible to deter potential criminals by punishing the innocent.
Oh, OK, it might work out in a few cases, for a short time; but it can NEVER work out in the longer term. People are bound, eventually, to find out that you punished the innocent.
No: I am not a Catholic and not a Christian.
I utterly reject the Christian theory of moral responsibility.
And it is you, Paul Marks, who made me reject said theory, by making me reflect on it.
I remain an agnostic, but i do not believe in a Christian God, because i hold the Christian theory of moral responsibility to be logically inconsistent.
As for “”free”” “”will””, i do not even know what Paul Marks means by the term.
Paul said (following Cudworth) that there is no such a thing as a ‘will’ as a distinct mental faculty. How can the will be free, if it does not even exist?
I believe in freedom of choice (liberum arbitrium) and i believe that not only humans, but also most, if not all, vertebrates — and possibly some invertebrates — have it.
Further, i believe that my understanding of freedom of choice (but not of moral responsibility) is shared by most of the greatest Christian thinkers before Kant: Leibniz, Descartes, probably Thomas, and even Augustine.
(Not sure about Locke & Berkeley; but certainly not Occam.)
But, apparently, none of the above had pets, because they thought that only humans (and not necessarily all of us) enjoy freedom of choice.
— And finally, i believe that no true conservative can possibly believe that human beings can administer Objective Justice.
If you do not believe that all humans are seriously flawed (selfish, ignorant, and irrational), then you are no conservative.
PS:
Yes, there is: by killing a mass murderer, you are “deterring” him (or, less likely, her) from more murdering.