Saturday, August 27, 2011

Did the punishment fit the crime?

I’ve been thinking for a while about the recent wave of rioting
across the UK - the mindless violence towards people, and looting
& damage to property, that looked grim and which must have been
terrifying to those who were targeted, or whose home or business
was set on fire. It looked as if WW3 had started or as if we
were watching scenes from a sci-fi movie … an uprising of the
Underworld. It looked really horrifying.

You will have seen the response of the Law and Order services,
in quickly rounding up a lot of those responsible (their faces
having been caught on CCTV), and in giving out harsh sentences
(even for nicking a bottle of water). One local council is
evicting the entire family of one of the offenders from the
council property. “Bring back the birch”, said one of my
neighbours, “they should all be given a short sharp shock”.

More harsh, I thought were the 4-year prison sentences given to
two young men for “incitement to riot” on their Facebook sites
… they didn’t take part in the riots themselves, but presumably
the police thought that they needed to be silenced.

Did the punishment fit the crime? Yes, I think it did, and it
certainly worked in restoring law and order.

....................................................................

On a more cheerful note, here are a couple of photos I took earlier
this week …

… our grandchildren playing in an adventure park.

IMG_9314r

and a rather good photo I took of my wife, while we were out having
a picnic …

IMG_9265r

All our visitors went home two days ago, so our house feels rather
empty again, with just us and two cats poddling around in it. “Poddling”
is a North Nottingham word for when you see people pottering around the
streets in a rather lazy but cheerful way … as if they had all the time
in the world … to do very little.

2 Comments:

Anonymous lom said...

Your daughter is the spit of her mother.


I agree with your comments about the punishment fitting the crime, something needs to be done to show these people that they cannot just do what they like, and if I hear one more do gooder saying it's because they have nothing/come from a broken home, well!

6:43 am  
Blogger justin said...

Thanks for your comments, Helen. Yes, mother and daughter are very similar in looks and in personality.

7:01 am  

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