Word to the wise

On or around Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:25:54 +0100, "Richard Brookman" enlightened us thusly:

yeah, I liked Oban. and the west coast of Scotland is indeed the home of the killer midge.

but just think of the cost of training all those lawyers to throw the prescribed books the right lengths as laid down in sentencing regulations.:)

On or around Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:25:49 +0100, Mother enlightened us thusly:

yeah. 's one of the myriad problems in this sorry world... all part of [don't] care in [about] the community, innit. part and parcel of shutting down all the mental homes and kicking the inmates out into the "real world" with questionable levels of support and in some cases no doubt none at all. And they wonder why some of them go off the rails.

not that that, AFAIK, applies in this case - although he has been locked up in a secure unit in the past, I believe.

Perhaps we need the equivalent of Heinlein's "Coventry", where asocial people were sent. Trouble is, the alternative is a paternalistic state adjusting your mind so that you behave within the accepted norm, and I doubt that's particularly good either. The story I particularly remember has someone thumping a bloke who clearly deserved it, and being sent to coventry as a result.

But I reckon we do indeed need as a society somewhere (basically, a prison, but it needn't be in the form of cell blocks etc.) that people who refuse or can't fit in with reasonable rules of society can be kept from harming others.

Get this:

Steal a 40 grand trawler (the livelihood of at least one person), sail about with no idea where you are going or any idea of what you are doing, instigate an air-sea rescue costing thousands and potentially risking the lives of the rescuers - and the police will release you with a caution!

Note how it's only when the trawler owner fears serious damage and therefore expense that they decide to re-arrest them and take it a bit more seriously.

Steal, risk lives - slapped wrist. Get involved in liability issue - hanging's too good for you.

Don't make sense to me.

DaveP

I went to school there, Oban High School, scary ugly place, with a permanently drunk headmaster and lots of spotty fat girls. The buildings were due for demolition IIRC, good riddance, it looked, felt and smelled like a prison. The amount of bigotry around was immense, catholics, protestants, english, scottish, football teams, school "clans", you name it, they fought over it. Even now it's a problem;

Good story though - punishment was based on 'harm done' not stupid legislation about 'possible harm' IIRC

Someone mentioned Australia earlier. Perhaps one of the more remote Scottish isles? or Reading :)

We're thinking about exporting our crims back to Mother England. This will increase the IQ of both countries :)

Karen

No, Basingstoke, sending people to Reading is inhumane!

Good, we need more bar staff.

hoot :)

but you can't hide.

You stole that on from the late Robert Muldoon, one time Prime Minister of NZ. :-)

But the likelyhood of a direct (wire) connection is vanishingly small, unless he's up in his bedroom and you're in the lounge!

Of course it's not a direct connection, old Whinnie in the exchange has to plug him into the right connection first!

Well give me a long enough piece of string and a couple of old bean cans, and we could be chatting away if it wasn't for the houses inbetween :)

Hey careful what you say, I live in Coventry, and there are plenty of decent Land Rover owning folk around here.

Guilty as charged. Please don't deport me to England, M'Lud!

'Tis true, though :)

Tis indeed. Right now being deported to England mightn't be too bad -

Nor me you can't even launch a dinghy with a decent outboard in North Wales without certificates insurance and god knows what and these tossers steal someones livelyhood and get a telling off?? mind you with that chief comical nowt surprises me Derek

Not that cold - did a pre-dawn 45km bike ride this morning, was nice & toasty after the first hill :)

I ran 6km to work - so I arrived warm, then discovered there was no hot water in the showers