New British Crime Strategy: Even More Leniancy

[Crazed Rabbit]

Well, apparently Britain has decided that the way of dealing with more crime is be advocating a new type of punishment that can be imposed by Officers on the spot of the crime...(drumroll)...cautions! That's right, you can buglarize somebody's house, get caught, and get off without even going to court, much less a fine or even (*GASP!!!!!*) prison time.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=381799&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

For 60 some different offenses (arson, vadalism, sex with a minor, buglary, threatening to kill, assualting somebody and physically injuring them, hard drug possesion, etc.) Personally, I think this is a great step forward for Britain. Who are we, after all, to hold people to such strict standards and demand they all live life by what we deem right? After all, it is most certainly that great bogeyman of socialist's nightmares, society, that caused these good, decent folks to invade a person's home or some other crime, which they were only doing because society failed them. We should not punish them, but accept, nay celebrate!, their unique lifestyle.


'Let burglars off with caution', police told
08:08am 3rd April 2006

Burglars will be allowed to escape without punishment under new instructions sent to all police forces. Police have been told they can let them off the threat of a court appearance and instead allow them to go with a caution.

The same leniency will be shown to criminals responsible for more than 60 other different offences, ranging from arson through vandalism to sex with underage girls.

New rules sent to police chiefs by the Home Office set out how seriously various crimes should be regarded, and when offenders who admit to them should be sent home with a caution.

A caution counts as a criminal record but means the offender does not face a court appearance which would be likely to end in a fine, a community punishment or jail.

Is this justice? Should criminals be let off with just a caution? Tell us in readers comments below.

Some serious offences - including burglary of a shop or office, threatening to kill, actual bodily harm, and possession of Class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine - may now be dealt with by caution if police decide that would be the best approach.

And a string of crimes including common assault, threatening behaviour, sex with an underage girl or boy, and taking a car without its owner's consent, should normally be dealt with by a caution, the circular said.

The Home Office instruction applies to offenders who have admitted their guilt but who have no criminal record.

They are also likely to be able to show mitigating factors to lessen the seriousness of their crime.

The instruction to abandon court prosecutions in more cases - even for people who admit to having carried out serious crimes - comes in the wake of repeated attempts by ministers and senior judges to persuade the courts to send fewer criminals to jail.

The crisis of overcrowding in UK prisons has also prompted moves to let many more convicts out earlier.

It emerged last month that some violent or sex offenders, given mandatory life sentences under a "two-strike" rule, have been freed after as little as 15 months.

The latest move provoked condemnation yesterday from Tories and critics of the justice system.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "Yet again the Government is covertly undermining the penal system and throwing away the trust of ordinary citizens that criminals will be punished and punished properly.

"In the last few weeks we have witnessed a serial failure of Labour to protect the citizen, with murders of innocent people by criminals variously on early release or probation, and now we're finding that ever more serious crimes are not being brought to court at all."

Criminologist Dr David Green, of the Civitas think-tank, said: "They appear to have given up making the court system work and doing anything about delays and the deviousness of defence lawyers.

"This is part of the wider problem that the Home Office has an anti-prison bias. But while they regard prison as uncivilised, they don't seem to care whether the alternatives work or not."

The Home Office circular to police forces has been sent amid a Government drive to reduce the number of cases coming before the courts.

A number of crimes - notably shoplifting - are now regularly dealt with by fixed penalty notices similar to a parking fine.

A whole range of offenders who admit traffic and more minor criminal offences will in future have their cases "processed" by new Government bureaucracies rather than by the courts.

At the same time judges and magistrates have been bombarded with instructions from the senior judiciary to send fewer criminals to jail.

Burglars and muggers should be spared prison more often, courts have been told, and last week sentencing authorities ordered a further "raising of the custody threshold" to keep out of prison more offenders who would in the past have been given up to a year in jail.

The new instructions to police on how to keep criminals out of the courts altogether are given in a 'Gravity Factor Matrix'.

This breaks down offences into four categories, with the most serious rated as four and the least serious as one.

For criminals over 18, who admit offences ranked at the third level of seriousness, the instruction is: "Normally charge but a simple caution may be appropriate if first offence".

Officers dealing with those who admit level two crimes are told: "Normally simple caution for a first offence but a charge may be appropriate if (there are) previous convictions or appropriate to circumstances."

The Home Office said the guidance had been circulated nationally because there had been regional anomalies in the way offenders were dealt with and these needed to be removed.

A spokesman said: 'Cautioning in individual cases is an operational matter for the police and Crown Prosecution Service.

"'The new circular firstly provides up to date guidance on the use of cautions to encourage consistency across the country.

"Secondly, with the introduction of statutory charging, the guidance needed to clarify what the effect would be on police responsibility for cautions. Finally the guidance was introduced to outline the practical process of administering a caution."

Cautioning was used heavily in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly for juvenile offenders under 18.

Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard cracked down on cautions in 1994 because young thugs and thieves were getting repeated cautions but no punishment.

But cautioning for adult offenders is now on the rise. Dr Green said: "The Home Office is missing its target to achieve a set number of offenders brought to justice. But it seems they regard a caution as an offender brought to justice.

"This is a nod and a wink to police forces - deal with your cases by cautions and we will hit our target."

Crazed Rabbit
P.S. A fun bit:
It emerged last month that some violent or sex offenders, given mandatory life sentences under a "two-strike" rule, have been freed after as little as 15 months.

EDIT: From the comments section (is this really true?):

This seems just about right... after being the victim of 2 burglaries in 9 months a short while ago - following the 2nd I actually found a mobile phone that had been dropped on the floor in my bedroom by the scum that broke in - when I advised the attending police officer of this, I was mortified to find that his response was that they would not be able to do anything with it in an attempt to catch them, as it would "violate their human rights"! Never mind my human rights as the person whose home was ransacked... why not just leave all doors and windows unlocked and invite them in.

- Casey, South Wales

[Divinus Arma]

Goodness. Have fun with that.

[Tribesman]

Have fun with that.
Thankyou I shall .
Well, apparently Britain has decided that the way of dealing with more crime is be advocating a new type of punishment that can be imposed by Officers on the spot of the crime...(drumroll)...cautions!
It is not a new type of punishment and it is not imposed by officers on the spot of the crime . Though there are some cautions that can be imposed on the spot of the crime they are not cautions in this sense .

That's right, you can buglarize somebody's house, get caught, and get off without even going to court, much less a fine or even (*GASP!!!!!*) prison time.

Gasp , shock horror , nothing new , perhaps they will agree to big plea bargains where you can get away with serious crime by doing a deal instead of doing time eh .

From the article .....Is this justice? Should criminals be let off with just a caution? Tell us in readers comments below.
....tahta should be fun comments from readers of the Mail :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
'Cautioning in individual cases is an operational matter for the police and Crown Prosecution Service.

Ah I see it is the police and the CPS , errrr.....isn't it the CPS who decide if charges should go to court anyway or if no action should be taken or if a caution should be issued.:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

'The new circular firstly provides up to date guidance on the use of cautions to encourage consistency across the country.

Oh no , shock horror , quaking in my boots with fear and outrage . They are giving guidance so that everyone uses the already existing rules in the same manner .:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:
Well Divinus did say have fun , cheers Rabbit for providing a good laugh :2thumbsup:

[Divinus Arma]

You sure are one angry guy, Tribesman. :no:

Always so hostile. I can't even figure out if you like the British plan or hate it. What do you think of the Home Office taking this action?

[Tribesman]

What do you think of the Home Office taking this action?
What action ? issuing guidelines so that an existing long standing practice is implemented in a consistant manner nationwide ?
Absolutely shocking , what is the world coming to !!!!!!:furious3:

Its a non-issue Divinus .
It is a typical Daily Mail take nothing , build it up and feign outrage issue .

[Banquo's Ghost]

DA, just for context, you should be aware that the Daily Mail is a newspaper of the disenfranchised right, that is the kind of people who complain about everything that happens nowadays from the safety of their suburban homes, and have never done, nor are ever willing to do anything about anything except complain. Most of their readers ( 'Outraged of Tunbridge Wells' ) pine for the days of Empire, slavery, children working up chimneys and so forth.

Daily Mail editorial outrage supported by reader's comments is not a reliable source for actual news.

(They're still outraged that you lot over the pond were allowed independence, apparently because the communists that run the civil service made a clerical error. ~D )

[Rodion Romanovich]

Burglars will be allowed to escape without punishment under new instructions sent to all police forces. Police have been told they can let them off the threat of a court appearance and instead allow them to go with a caution.


It's all about policy - if the policy is that you can't punish anybody before they've committed a crime, then if you interfere and stop them before the burglary you can't punish them, if you are to follow that logic. Having a logic where you can punish persons because it "seemed like the were going to commit a crime" isn't safe either - it's the best way of starting a Gestapo/KGB terror rule, which has worse consequences for society than if a few burglars aren't punished. If the police officers would instead stay hidden and wait while the burglar committed his crime, the police would be almost useless because the main intention is to stop crimes before they're committed. So what can be done? If you set up directives for sneaking and waiting until exactly when the intention of crime is clear, then you could solve the problem, but a new problem arises in that you need to set up some kind of rules for when intent of burglary is clear, that can't be abused for a Gestapo/KGB like terror.



A number of crimes - notably shoplifting - are now regularly dealt with by fixed penalty notices similar to a parking fine.

Where's the outrage in this? Both shoplifting and illegal parking are about stealing a service without paying for it.



For criminals over 18, who admit offences ranked at the third level of seriousness, the instruction is: "Normally charge but a simple caution may be appropriate if first offence".

As long as they take notes on who the guy is, it might work. Otherwise every offence will look like the first offence. Because the objective of law is to prevent crimes and repair damages of crime that has happened, another important aspect here is whether the victim of burglary can get the damage repaired. The idea of putting somebody in jail for a burglary to make him suffer isn't in any way related to repairing the damage unless you are a sadist and by seeing somebody suffer compensate the bad mood a burglary gets you in. I don't see why avoiding jail for a burglary would be bad, as long as law makes sure to have mechanisms for repairing the damage - such as the burglar having to work without salary until he can pay for the damage. Otherwise he could return the goods stolen, if he still has them. Finally, adding a small fine to compensate for the fear a burglary might cause for the victim, would make the system complete, especially if you raise the penalty for repeated offenses. But I don't see an outrage in actual avoidance of jail (although it's in a way an outrage that a nation relaxes punishment of criminals not because of ideology, but because, as it seems, of lack of prison cells).

The only outrageous thing I see in the new policy is that certain sexual offense crimes only gives a warning (sexual crimes can't be repaired so punishment is the only option as far as I can see...). It's unclear which assault and body harm offenses were to render warnings and which were to give jail, but if it's only minor assault and minor body harm that causes warnings, then I don't see the problem here either, because "minor body harm" usually means something like patting somebody just a little bit harder than what's considered friendly, and is done every day without any criminal intent.

[Xiahou]

Whoah, whoah... backup. There's criminals in the UK? ~:confused:

Courts too busy? Prisons too crowded? Stop prosecuting criminals- problem solved.

[rory_20_uk]

What the hell is the goverment playing at??!?

On one hand: anyone can be arrested in theory at any time if the police think that this will speed up an ongoing criminal case; people can be detained if the police think they as a group could in the future cause trouble (a group is two people, and only one needs to be a perceived threat). Looks like the KGB could take lessons.

On the other: death threats, ABH and burglary amongst others if you are caught gets the police to tut-tut in your general direction.

Oh, this is to help clear up inconsistencies...

IMO some things make sense. If someone is a drugs user, I don't care. Don't waste the time to try to sort it out - as it won't. But rather than this farce, just legalise the drug!

Individuals that class themselves as "career criminals" must love this idea. Basically less chance of getting jail time, and more time to "earn" money. I think the idea of having to pay back for the crimes was extremely good. If the useless sods say they can't get a job, well I think that one should be provided.

So people that read the Daily Mail are complainers. Yup, that's true. But when you mention wish to defend their home, how are they supposed to do this legally? Steel doors and bars on the windows? Attacking the burglars means they get a warning, and you get arrested.

Most are small, bitter people, but I would be interested to hear what options are available to them apart from complaining.

~:smoking:

[Alexanderofmacedon]

What do you think of the Home Office taking this action?
What action ? issuing guidelines so that an existing long standing practice is implemented in a consistant manner nationwide ?
Absolutely shocking , what is the world coming to !!!!!!:furious3:

Its a non-issue Divinus .
It is a typical Daily Mail take nothing , build it up and feign outrage issue .

Long live the king? :inquisitive:

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The Plice a broken backed and totally ineffective, you look at a lot of them, they're so fat they look like they're about to keel over and have a heart attack, never mind run down a criminal.

Look at some of the crimes on the list. A caution for sex with a minor? I'd prefer a catration personnally but I'd settle for having the scum away from my prison.

The Government reckons every Policeman should arrest 60 people a year, thats only just over one a week! There was a story in the Sunday Times about one Copper who was doing 20 a week, he had very little crime on his patch. We got bergled and the forensics guy turned up about two hours later, just to dust for finger prints. We were basically told to turn our house into a maximum security prison. We were also told they'd never catch the people who did it. The Officer was just going through the motions.

The Government dosen't care and the Policemen just want to keep their heads down and get their pensions.

[Tribesman]

Look at some of the crimes on the list.
Yes lets .....
A caution for sex with a minor?
disgusting nonces ....
I'd prefer a catration personnally
right on
But consider this context , two 15 year olds going at it .
Oh dear , time for castration ?
Time for a long stretch in prison ?
Or time for the CPS to decide that it ain't worth going to court and issuing a caution instead .:idea2:
BTW Wigferth , if that copper you mention had very little crime on his patch how was he able to manage 20 arrests a week ?
Also if every cop is supposed to make 60 arrests then how do those on desk duty , dispatch ,custody ,liason , training etc. make up their numbers ? Do they make arrests in their spare time so they can meet the quota:inquisitive:

[Red Peasant]

Oh dear, I shan't leave the house. All the crime. The horror, the horror! The country is going down the pan.

Get a life!

If I want to live in fear then I'll emigrate to the US. Oops, did I just form an opinion based on bullshit? :2thumbsup: :laugh4:

[Strike For The South]

I belive a Ron White Quote is in order. "Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty. My states putting in an express lane."

On this law its an expermint and it might pay off but I fear this shall reap no dividens and instead further the crippling of Britans police

[Tribesman]

On this law its an expermint

Experiment ???Its a decades old practice :no:

[Crazed Rabbit]

Experiment ???Its a decades old practice

Being put into wider use.

And for all of the griping about the bitter right leaning readers of The Mail, does anyone here think this will help? Everyone knows there are two ways to approach criminals; punishment or rehabilitation. The ideal, I think, includes rehabilitation of some sort with punishment. But this neither rehabilitates or punishes.

I have read of old women being told to take down home defenses because it might hurt burglars. When the government is worrying more about the health of people breaking into your house, intent on stealing belongings you have worked long hours to aquire, than they worry about actually catching the person, and even if he's caught, punishing him, don't you think things are a little messed up?

Crazed Rabbit

[Soulforged]

And for all of the griping about the bitter right leaning readers of The Mail, does anyone here think this will help? Everyone knows there are two ways to approach criminals; punishment or rehabilitation. The ideal, I think, includes rehabilitation of some sort with punishment. But this neither rehabilitates or punishes.
You forgot the obvious one: attacking it's roots. Not everything is done by a harsh stance or by standing in the high moral ground.

[Crazed Rabbit]

That's another philosophy, yes (though one I feel is done best just by increasing economic oppurtunity, noe expensive social programs). But this 'caution' concept does not even do that.

Crazed Rabbit

[Soulforged]

That's another philosophy, yes (though one I feel is done best just by increasing economic oppurtunity, noe expensive social programs). But this 'caution' concept does not even do that.
Rabbit, what you see there is just another level of rational penal system. You see, here the system is a little different. The state has to persecute even the most absurd of crimes (i.e. a guy takes 50 cents from another guy). That's because we live in the stone age in terms of penal law, we believe in magic and in fantastic solutions. In your country the system is more liberal, they take an step forward and say, why persecute all crimes? Let's persecute some, to give an example, and those wich are really grave. Even more, the persecutor is the one who understands in this subject when anything goes to trial. The list of crimes that you gave are not grave at all, they're just normal and ordinary. The officer should judge case by case if they deserve any treatment beyond a caution. It's a perfect and rational solution, not only to get rid of overcrowed jails, wich is not a problem in UK for what I know, but also to create a more rational and liberal state.
Then again, if you want you can return to magic again, but it's absurd, at least %80 of the crimes that "should be" judged here, with our system, remain in the files for years until they prescript, because you cannot treat them all, and because it isn't necessary, as it isn't necessary to treat the ones in your list as they usually come.

[rory_20_uk]

One "root" is that in the UK there are fewer and fewer blue collar jobs. To compete on the world market their wages would have to be very, very low.

Thus we have more jobs in the service industry. These require a greater degree of education and presentibility in the people (vocabulary, accent). Literacy is also required.

Amongst the Great Unwashed there are many who are thick, lazy and illiterate. They messed up their schooling which was free, and are now not suitable for many jobs.

I am not going to go to a sales assistant with tatoos all over his face who can't speak clear English. Whereas 100 years ago he could still get a job in many industries they generally don't exist in the UK any more.

So, treat the "root". One could argue that society no longer has need for these people. In Edwardian England a large house might have 10 or more servants, with many more doing ancillary tasks. These are not rarely needed, as machines are doing the tasks human "machines" were previously required to do.

How does single parent syndrome get sorted out? It has INCREASED as social security has increased, as it was previously not possible to survive by oneself. Now, it increases one's benefits, and pushes one up the council housing ladder.

Some of these children have half educated parents who are on the dole. They see no point in learning, and neither do their parents.

Unless the cycle is broken, nothing can change. Society doesn't have the stomach to effectively break these cycles, but continues to wring their hands and hand out money to assauge its own concience.

~:smoking:

[Rodion Romanovich]

One "root" is that in the UK there are fewer and fewer blue collar jobs. To compete on the world market their wages would have to be very, very low.

Thus we have more jobs in the service industry. These require a greater degree of education and presentibility in the people (vocabulary, accent). Literacy is also required.

Amongst the Great Unwashed there are many who are thick, lazy and illiterate. They messed up their schooling which was free, and are now not suitable for many jobs.

I am not going to go to a sales assistant with tatoos all over his face who can't speak clear English. Whereas 100 years ago he could still get a job in many industries they generally don't exist in the UK any more.

So, treat the "root". One could argue that society no longer has need for these people. In Edwardian England a large house might have 10 or more servants, with many more doing ancillary tasks. These are not rarely needed, as machines are doing the tasks human "machines" were previously required to do.

How does single parent syndrome get sorted out? It has INCREASED as social security has increased, as it was previously not possible to survive by oneself. Now, it increases one's benefits, and pushes one up the council housing ladder.

Some of these children have half educated parents who are on the dole. They see no point in learning, and neither do their parents.

Unless the cycle is broken, nothing can change. Society doesn't have the stomach to effectively break these cycles, but continues to wring their hands and hand out money to assauge its own concience.

~:smoking:

Indeed, it's the result of misdirected socialism, or rather - something that goes under the name socialism even though it isn't even close to the ideals of socialism. The following mistakes have been made:

- redistributing skill requirements for jobs so that ALL need a higher education. For example a nurse could before do things that were easy to learn quickly. Nowadays, the nurses act like 90% doctors, which means they need an almost as long education. Much better to let doctors only have higher education and let nurse become a work with much lower requirements. This opens the path for more jobs of the kind that are easy to learn and get, making the lower classes able to have a chance in the labor market. This was intended (by the policians pretending to be socialists) as a way of raising status of blue collar jobs, to create more equality. A quite naive approach to socialistic ideals, as it makes the people who can't pass a higher education feel even more worthless, and makes them end up even further outside the society. Plus the people in between, who aren't suited for higher education but barely pass through it, aren't fit for having high responsbility jobs like being doctors, engineers (would you want surgery by a debile person, or would you drive over a bridge made by a debile person?). The result has become the opposite of the intended - the lower classes are more than ever unwanted, unneeded and without future hope. Reorganize jobs back to the old style again - redistribute the skill requirements back to concentrate them to fewer posts. This would also save a lot of money wasted on education of people who still won't act like they're educated - money that could even be used to social care programs, or money for somewhere to live and something to eat for people who are now without security net.
- when all mostly easy jobs require high education, it's more problematic to be a person with lower education. Before, you could look at a wide range of jobs - maybe 90% of all jobs - and learn the job in place immediately after being hired. Now, you need to take a risk of 2-5 years of education without salary in the meantime, before you can get any work at all, and after that education you're restricted to 1% of all jobs, at the most. This obviously gives much more stress to everyone. Being able to go and know you can be hired almost anywhere is a lot better for your health than having to take such a huge risk.
- because so many people go through long educations, it's impossible for employers to give high salaries for people with long education. This means you barely get compensated for the risk it meant to go through higher education - often people with little or no education who start working earlier get much richer than people who went through an education. This is quite strange. If you take the risk of higher education you need compensation for both the risk taking (restricting yourself to very few jobs), and not getting any payment - maybe even getting in debt - during the time you got the education.
- the strategy has been to steal money and chances of success from the middle class - people trying to rise above poverty by hard work - while giving this money to those who don't care and to those who are already extremely rich. The idea was that by destroying the middle class, the lower class and middle class would become more equal. They forgot the higher class, who get richer and richer so the differences in income between society layers become even worse. Plus it's throwing pearls at swines to try to give an apathic person higher education.
- at the same time this is done, everybody has to work 8 hours per day when there aren't jobs for more than 4 hours per day per person. Machines also get cheaper than men in many cases. With the reorganizations above, the job shortage problems of today could mostly be solved, but in the future we might have to consider lowering the work time per person.

[English assassin]

Doobee doobee doo. Police in discretion shocker.

Now, if any part of the guidance said that any one HAD to be given a caution instead of being taken to court, that might be a story.


And a string of crimes including common assault, threatening behaviour, sex with an underage girl or boy, and taking a car without its owner's consent, should normally be dealt with by a caution, the circular said

I can't immediately find the circular on the Home Office website but I guarantee this sentence is a lie.

[rory_20_uk]

If work time is lowered, people therefore earn less moneyl, as after all they are only able to do so much in a unit time. We've had the three day week before and that was a disaster.

And I'd rather one person trained to do a job well than two do it part time. I want a decent surgeon, not one who'se off 3 days a week. Unless the trained get to work 5 days, and earn decent money, and the lower lot divvy the jobs between them.

What about work plans? Cleaning beaches, cleaning rivers? Doing up abandoned houses?

But the money is low, and who'se going to bother when there's always handouts, and prison isn't exactly bad either...

~:smoking:

[Vladimir]

The same leniency will be shown to criminals responsible for more than 60 other different offences, ranging from arson through vandalism to sex with underage girls.

Sweet! :2thumbsup: I'm off to England. Gotta find the nearest high school.

[drone]

Meh. What they really need to do is discover a new island somewhere, send the criminals to colonize it, and wait a couple of hundred years for them to reform and start beating them in sporting contests. :inquisitive:

[Rodion Romanovich]

If work time is lowered, people therefore earn less moneyl, as after all they are only able to do so much in a unit time. We've had the three day week before and that was a disaster.

And I'd rather one person trained to do a job well than two do it part time. I want a decent surgeon, not one who'se off 3 days a week. Unless the trained get to work 5 days, and earn decent money, and the lower lot divvy the jobs between them.

What about work plans? Cleaning beaches, cleaning rivers? Doing up abandoned houses?

But the money is low, and who'se going to bother when there's always handouts, and prison isn't exactly bad either...

~:smoking:

Yes, but the problem is that many countries, European at least, seem to already have around 20% of the jobs being made just to hide unemployment figures - unneeded bureaucracy jobs for example, which cost a lot to the state already. But I think it might be possible to do without lowered work time now, but in the future? How solve increased unemployment when machines get increasingly effective?

[Vladimir]

Yes, but the problem is that many countries, European at least, seem to already have around 20% of the jobs being made just to hide unemployment figures - unneeded bureaucracy jobs for example, which cost a lot to the state already. But I think it might be possible to do without lowered work time now, but in the future? How solve increased unemployment when machines get increasingly effective?

Migration. Although I fear that too many societies will become complacent and not take the risks involved to begin one. Most likely a major war or pandemic will occur to alleviate this problem.

[rory_20_uk]

Migration? To where? There are no places that offer menial tasks at a good wage. Almost the entirety of Europe has unemployment. Generally where unemployment is low, productivity is low as well (not so much as employed, as being paid their benefits for doing a job that doesn't need doing).

There are many tha could retrain and do tasks that are required, but there is a minority that has no function, and their absence would not be missed by society.

~:smoking:

[Vladimir]

Migration? To where? There are no places that offer menial tasks at a good wage. Almost the entirety of Europe has unemployment. Generally where unemployment is low, productivity is low as well (not so much as employed, as being paid their benefits for doing a job that doesn't need doing).

There are many tha could retrain and do tasks that are required, but there is a minority that has no function, and their absence would not be missed by society.

~:smoking:

That's a rather small minded opinion. I don't want to get too sci-fi on anyone but I really think we should seriously look at the possibility of off-world migration. While the trend amongst advanced societies is to focus inward (which ironically is causing a lot of our problems) we should be focus our efforts on looking outward. The technological hurdles are there but we could make it work; we've done it before (like the migration to Europe in the first place). This would be especially true if it is profitable.

:alien:

[Xiahou]

But the money is low, and who'se going to bother when there's always handouts, and prison isn't exactly bad either...

~:smoking:
That's one of the problems with a nanny state. If you can sit around doing nothing and have a better quality of life than someone who's out busting their hump just to scrape by, there isnt much incentive. :yes:

[rory_20_uk]

Off world is unrealistic, and far too costly for the reason of finding somewhere to put the least desirable members of society.

The ocean is a far better place to start. It can be farmed and it can be made habitable far more easily than space can be.

~:smoking:

[Rodion Romanovich]

But another problem with migration is - when the workers decrease in numbers, the buyers decrease in numbers, so there's still no further possibilities for growth that will solve unemployemnt, due to increased efficiency thanks to machines. Besides, many of the people who are least desirable are people with great potential who have been beaten, child abused and similar. There are for example women who have been raped by their fathers since childhood, who have serious trouble getting back into society, boys who have seen their father murdered, etc. These people shouldn't be considered undesirable just because there aren't enough jobs for them in society. And besides, it's not an insignificant minority that's without normal, needed jobs. Remove all unneeded bureaucracy jobs, all unneeded education etc., and the statistics will show that almost 33 to 50 percent are unneeded in modern society - very shocking compared to the faked figures of 1-10 percent that are usually given as official unemployment figures. And if 1/3 or 1/2 of all people are involved in the problem, it can't under any circumstances be considered an insignificant problem, or a problem that is caused by people themselves, and that all who are struck by it are undesirable and worthless.

It's one of the few problems that aren't caused by overpopulation, but also by the modern society structure - there will never be room for a fully decent life for more than 50 to 66 percent of the population unless cheating methods are applied on top of the system, with these faked jobs being payed by tax money.

So something more radical is probably needed to solve the problem. But what? It's a question of ideology, because it's clear that the problems can be solved, but not clear which solution would be preferable and just.

If we want to solve it by growth, it's clear that the solution must be an increase in services and not in products, for environmental reasons. Much further increase in production of items and machines for general use is practically impossible. So if we increase services, we're in many ways back to early 20th century and 19th century life style, with servants, housemaids etc., which seemed to have worked then. There's also the controversial idea of letting it become normal to have one person in each couple home to handle the household work, which would immediately give work back to the 33 to 50 percent that are out of work in today's system.

[rory_20_uk]

There are also many that are just not very bright. True their upbringing wasn't perfect, but they are just dim. I went to my mother's school when I was 7. It was the local "sink" school (still is) where everyone wanted to avoid. I was better at the lessons that the people about to sit their GCSEs. Not only on factual stuff, but also on verbal reasoning. Most wern't abused etc etc. Just... dim.

When professionals marry they usually marry other peofessionals. If they both work they have the ability to earn far more money, and therefore can employ others to do the menial tasks. So they maximise their earning potential. Everyone benefits, as the best are still able to do their jobs.

Servants is an OK idea. But what are they to do in the modern home? And that would also require something else that has mostly been destroyed by the end of the rigid class system: respect. You were polite to your employer, else you got sacked, and no reference. That meant hardship or possibly death. Simple as that.

Inteligence is linked to one's genome. Sadly at the moment the ones at the bottom of the heap are producing far more than at the top.

~:smoking: