Stabby Joe and Gassing Rapists

There are two truisms that should guide your understanding of anything related to crime and punishment- If it looks too simple, then it is; and the law of unintended consequence. As I was being soundly mauled on Twitter recently for suggesting legalising pepper spray is a double edged sword, these two truisms were firmly in my mind.

The outbreak of random stabbings has sharply highlighted how strict British law is. While the stabbers are equipped with fearsome weapons, the would be stabbees are left with nothing but balls and a rolled up newspaper with which to fend them off. This situation could prevail only under two circumstances - that such crimes were perceived as being so uncommon as to not be worrisome, coupled with faith in the State to do their best to protect us.

Current circumstances do not hold to those conditions. Across Europe, not just the UK, seemingly random knife attacks are seeming to become regular events. And faith in the police is at an all time low, mainly due to their playing partial politics. As with anything criminal justice related, the actual truth of these perceptions is irrelevant. People FEEL vulnerable.

This extends to the powers that be, who float ideas of arming all metropolitan police. And there is a rising populist call for some weapons to be legalised for self defence, such as pepper sprays. At this point, the two truisms of “unintended consequences” and “simple ideas” cannot fail to break through in my mind. A lifetime of watching populist driven policies that have not only failed but delivered perverse results leaves me suspicious of any quick solutions.

To give you some idea of police and guns, there are 6,300 routinely armed civilian police. That's 3.9% of the total 150,000 police nationally. The interesting bit of data is how many times these police actually shoot, not just deploy. There are an average 6.5 incidents with shots fired by police annually. That's it. Most years its 2 to 4 incidents. Nationally. The police do not regularly find the need to shoot.

These police are specialists. Its what they do day in and day out. Their training regime is regular and solid. This contrasts sharply with matters into the 1980’s, where firearms police were a farce, running around with revolvers with only 3 days annual training. And it showed. Ask Stephen Waldorf.

And there's the rub - to routinely arm 150,000 police means returning to those bad old days. Because it's impossible to deliver significant training to a good standard to 150,000 armed police. The level of skill would be appallingly low and bear no relation to current armed officers. So suddenly the idea of routinely arming all police seems to run into some risk; for while it may lead to incidents being met with force faster, the down side is these police will be poorly trained and will inevitably shoot when there is no such need.
Note the recent synagogue incident, where specialist police shot two civilians while shooting the attacker. And these are very skilled police. Imagine a plod with a few days training at such an event rather than specialists. Mayhem, chaos and dead bystanders.
And this downside just escapes the commentariat. It just never appears in conversation or analysis. But the reality is, arming all police could lead to more deaths than not arming them. Arming all police could result in more undeserved killings than those committed by the people they are meant to stop. It would be a net negative.

We are in the difficult position of an increasing fear of violent crime being met with potential solutions that could increase the sum of dead innocent people. And so many are pondering taking their safety into their own hands, railing against the restrictions currently on weapons of self defence. Pepper sprays seem to get particular attention.

And like all simple ideas, legalising incapacitant sprays sounds marvellous on the face of it. Being able to fend off wrong ‘uns with the press of a finger is a very attractive proposition. Except…We must never forget that the more widespread a weapon is, the easier its availability, then bad actors also have that access.

At present getting spray is awkward and illegal. Very few criminals use it, for the same reason few upstanding people do - restricted availability. If the prohibition was lifted and all can buy sprays freely, then we have just placed an incapacitant spray into the hands of bad people.

Of course, legality isn't a barrier for criminals. But availability is a factor that effects the upstanding and the criminal alike. Easing restrictions benefits everyone, including criminals. Few criminals use weapons of any sort, they are not interested in violence. Use of a knife, for example, risks actually having to stab someone, a scenario most criminals don't ever want to be in. But an incapacitant spray doesn't carry those risks. It is temporary and non lethal. A perfect tool for muggers and rapists.

Weapons for self defence are also just weapons, they can be used criminally. If we are to ease restrictions on some weapons for defence, we should do so in the full knowledge that it is a double edged sword and may cause more harm than it prevents. Difficult times require hard decisions. Make them with consideration and not in response to populist spasms.

Prison Morality

The murder of an utterly degenerate sex criminal evokes a visceral atavistic reaction. Good job. Reinforcing the universal belief that sex cases are invariably harshly dealt with by other prisoners, that criminals are somehow best placed to judge the crimes of others, the conscience of society.

And so we can find ourselves tipping our hats to the two murderers who did for sex criminal Ian Watkins at Wakefield nick the other day. Murderers being elevated as moral arbiters isn’t a common event, but due to the mythos of prison, we find ourselves in this embarrassing position of having sent two men to prison for murder, now wanting to buy them a pint for, er, killing again.

It is true that, as in all cultures, prisoners have a hierarchy. Or rather, hierarchies. As it is impossible for a single source of complete power to ever reside amongst prisoners, there are many hierarchies. There are those at the top of the wealth pile, others top of the physically tough pyramid, and so on. One's position across these hierarchies doesn't rest on one factor, your crime. Rather it rests on several features, some fixed, some fluid, your peccadillos being only one.

Pop culture has you believing that sex cases are invariably rock bottom of every possible hierarchy, including cockroaches. There is a visceral reaction against sex crimes that simply doesn't exist for any other breach of normality, even amongst those who themselves committed the most serious of crimes, murder. Murder doesn't repel us in the same way, which its why murder is a staple of popular entertainment. Sex crimes against children, not so much.

The measure of which crimes are worse than others is an exercise in painful mental contortions and staggering hypocrisy. How can you possibly calculate, even define, what is “worse”? Worse for who? Society, or the individual? It would take me little effort to argue that reckless bankers cause far more harm than paedophiles. But no one duffs up shady bankers.

The measure is, in reality, centred on that visceral reaction to certain crimes, that truly brainless reaction. And so we find murderers at the top of prison society, as a class, with sex cases firmly held to be at the bottom. Murder as the most SERIOUS crime, but not the WORST crime.

However, prison myths are just that. The black and white judgement on the crimes of others is regularly tempered by self interest. If a sex case is a 7 foot black belt, he’s often good to go. If he has a good supply of drugs, his crimes are obfuscated by addiction. If he is surrounded by friends who defend him, again , he walks with impunity.

Prison morality is a figment of the imagination, a projection by a society who actually wants us to commit violence on other criminals, a society that exercises its loathing through prison justice. It's a morality that absolves the cannibal while condemning the rapist. It's a morality built on narcissism and hypocrisy. Because if you suggest to the killers of Watkins that the families of THEIR victims would like to be allowed to kill them, I'm guessing they’ll unwaveringly cling to the rule of law…

Wanting to hurt those who have hurt us is all very human. But controlling our base urges is what separates us from animals. To this extent, the role of the criminal justice system is to protect us from ourselves, from our worst urges. It should not exist as a channel through which we call upon bogeymen to do our bidding.

Rivers of Blood

The two universal pillars of civilization are the sanctity of human life, and that the first duty of the State is to protect its citizens. The disturbing speed at which these pillars have been eroded, in
mere months, is truly disturbing.
Watching the debate on assisted suicide has become intensely personal. Not that I have anyone in my life looking to die, but because I am, was, a murderer. Forty five years ago I stood in my
school uniform as a Judge lectured me on my wickedness, before heaving me off to jail for 32
years.
It may be counter intuitive, but having killed someone leads to a lifelong journey of an
increasingly deep appreciation for human life. The longer I live, the deeper I understand what I
deprived my victim off. Coupled with a firm determination never to cause serious harm again.
And of course waking up in a concrete box every day for decades only hammers home the
message - killing is wrong.
This used to be axiomatic. From ethical, practical and religious reasons Western societies have
been shaped in every way from personal relationships to interstate wars. It is embedded deep in
our psyche- Do not kill. And this was a lodestone I followed as I clawed my way back into
society.
Only to find that the society I have rejoined is now not anchored to the sanctity of life. I have
returned to a nation whose leaders appear to be slightly psychopathic. Harsh words... but
having observed the process of the assisted dying bill I feel nothing less than horror. Not merely
at its very conception but also its process.
Committees stuffed with proponents, witness lists biased towards proponents, and swathes of
safeguards brushed aside. This rush has seen the concerns of every medical college, and every
disabled charity, ignored. The sheer ineptitude and vagueness of the Bill's sponsor is, on such a
profound matter, frightening. It has all the hallmarks of a rather messy rush, as if any delay
would risk the arguments of proponents falling apart under considered scrutiny.
The assisted dying Bill could have as profound effects as our previous belief that life is sacred.
The Bill heaves that into the river of history, to be carried away to irrelevance. No longer is life
supremely important, to be a bedrock of our civilisation. No longer is the primary function of the
State to protect life.
Rather, we are making the value of life conditional. A moral relativism that risks divorcing us
from basic standards. Despite all of humanity's bloodshed, at least the sanctity of life was an
aspiration. Now it risks becoming merely an impediment to the State offering you death rather
than pain relief.
Bizarrely, and horribly, as private companies will be allowed to kill under the Bill, this provides
opportunities for ex murderers. Or aspirational ones. Murderers could set up a killing company-
KillUQuik? - and introduce those who have an urge to kill with those who wish to die. That this
Bill could help reduce the unemployment rate of ex prisoners would make more sense than the
homicidal screeching of its supporters. I’d say “what a time to be alive!”, but being alive may
slowly become a somewhat risky business...