To think criminals are very common?

I think there is a bit of a nuance that’s consistently being missed.

I don’t know any criminals personally- as far as i know. At the age of 40, the people I know personally, who I chose to be in my life boils down to family and a handful of friends, their partners and children.

when I was 20, I had many people in my life- people from school, college, university, part time jobs, friends of friends, friends you meet randomly on holiday.
The opportunities for friendships and socialising were endless and I absolutely did know many more types of people- including a few criminals- back then.
In fact it was only at a university friends wedding I found out her dad was a war criminal, no less. Did I chose him? No, he just popped up briefly in my life. FWIW- he was a European aristocrat too putting to bed the poor people criminal stereotype here.

I (and we) have no control over whether my neighbours, childcare providers, children’s teachers, sports coaches, work colleagues, personal trainer, cleaner, Gardner etc etc etc happen to be criminals. They might be, they might not.

For all of those who think they live in a naice middle class area- ask a child protection police officer where they are picking up their CSO from 🫣 my sister is one and believe me, men who watch CSA have no class barrier. Ditto men who beat their wives and children.

as previously mentioned it’s clearly a self protection mechanism to pretend that you’re too good and proper to have any contact with these people but no, it’s not realistic.

The implication that, if you say you don’t know any criminals personally you are either deluded or being snobbish is like the old lines ‘of course you must have taken drugs - everyone does’, or ‘everyone is basically dishonest’. No, not everyone.

Its a bit like bullying…if I find out someone is or has been a bully I’ll give them a swerve - I don’t want them in my life.

No I didn’t pick my work colleagues but I chose my profession and it tends not to attract criminals/ people from that kind of background

You haven’t picked your work colleagues though have you? I mean chances are they are not criminals but you have no control over it.

it doesn’t sound snobby particularly, just a bit of a weird flex

Honestly, I’m 50 and none of my friends, family or work colleagues have criminal records, sounds snobby but I don’t associate with people who I think might either
Its definitely a thing that is more prevalent in some areas, the secretary in one company I worked in knew loads of people ( mostly people in her locality) with criminal records and though nothing of someone having one, it was almost par for the course with her

But you’re mixing up on the books with off the books surely?
If I type out a receipt for a weeks work replacing a bathroom, but get paid cash and don’t put it through the “books” HMRC don’t have any way of connecting the receipt I’ve given the customer to the underpaid tax (providing of course, the customer doesn’t give it to them!)

I think what you’re describing is someone who keeps things on the books but then doesn’t bother paying the tax, which is different

You must be living in very deprived area, and I feel sorry for you that you are surrounded by criminals on daily basis 😳

most people don’t live like this or if they grow up in area like this they will make their bloody best to get out of there 😬

Haven't RTFT, but based on the OP, there's 'criminials' and then there's criminals. No, I wouldn't bend over backwards to correct a mistake if I discover after the fact that a retailer has charged me slightly less. Goodness knows I've been charged too much before and let it slide because the effort wasn't worth the difference. I don't think that makes me a criminal. I know people who smoked weed when they were younger and did other things they shouldn't have done. So technically they are/were criminals. But they've also grown into mature adults who follow the laws, and they're definitely not dangerous people or someone who shamelessly shoplifts or would ever commit a serious crime.

Yes, most of us know someone who has broken the law. It doesn't make it okay or make me any less prone to clutching my pearls over the crimes I think are worse or in cases where the person is a shameless repeat offender.

Registered for VAT? You have to store electronically transaction by transaction detail of your income to HMRC. An invoice number missing off your records will immediately be picked up as a discrepancy by AI. Self employed? This technology is being rolled out for self employed people too. The government are thinking of limiting the amount businesses can take in cash at the next budget. This is the case in many EU countries. Because cash usually = evasion.

Electronic records are incredibly useful in picking up all sorts of tax evasion. It’s the way forward for HMRC.

People launder money well. Say someone has a few pubs, their wife might not know they have these pubs because they've been fixing armed robberies for years. Or because they are the middle man for some cocaine import.

For me stealing, hurting another person or trying to is much worse morally than someone selling cannabis, for example.

I don't know anyone who would do a crime that directly affected someone else negatively.

Nick Leeson (brought down Baring’s Bank) wasn’t posh. Working class lad from Leavesden, Watford.

I’ve heard conversations on trains and in the hairdressers where women pretty much admit they don’t ask questions and just take the spoils. I’d find it hard to believe women are so naive as to have no clue when their partner is dodgy. If they are then that’s a crime in itself!

Low ambition criminals are pretty common.

White collar fraud/criminality practiced by the upper classes is generally a lot more lucrative and in general much less severely punished.

I fundamentally wouldn’t trust them so it’s about where they’d have least opportunity to do harm. By gardener I was thinking public park or NT gardens, managed and supervised, not my back garden!

They can and do, but if you asked asked to pay in cash to avoid VAT you are absolutely complicit in tax evasion. 23% of small businesses surveyed in 2021 thought it was ok not to declare income tax on cash in hand jobs. That’s a staggering amount of tax evasion.

I'm not sure you did miss the point 😏

I don't know, some criminals are absolute chavs but some appear very posh...oh.

deliberately misses point

Very interesting though as it gives quite an insight as to where you think danger lies- ex violent criminal as trusted position, in close proximity to a persons house often alone: gardener= palatable, ex violent criminal playing around with money= unpalatable?!?

Where in the world does this happen? A tradie simply gives you a paper invoice/ receipt or knocks something up on Microsoft word. How do you reckon HMRc get access to that?!

Yes they either suspect and dont care or are so invested in their own little made up world of delusions that they can't see past their net curtains.

I totally agree with you…in principle.

I’m absolutely in favour of rehab for criminals, but honestly, I’d be wary of someone with a criminal record for violence, theft or fraud. It would depend on what line of work they were put into. Gardening- OK. Financial services, no thanks.

Those statements may well be irreconcilable but I’m being honest.

If you are paying in cash to avoid vat you’re not going to get a proper invoice, because the first thing HMRC would say when they see the invoice is ‘where’s the VAT and corporation tax : income tax on this invoice’? The whole point about taking cash to avoid VAT is that your job is not going through the books!

Also, my turn to be pious one of the things that doesn’t get discussed much when we are all trying desperately to distance ourselves from crime to prove how middle class we are (😉) is discussing and trying to understand the societal causes of crime and discussion about rehabilitation. Criminals shouldn’t be shunned. That’s terrible for rehabilitation. We shouldn’t be running away as if they have the plague.

We’re all humans and we don’t all have the same lives. When people have difficult lives there is almost always a difficult story behind it and missed opportunities and learnings.