To be sick of living in a country that has decriminalised crime (Scotland)

[Torven]

As you'll all be aware, it's very hard for an under 25 to be sent to prison now even if they commit a really violent assault or rape that leaves the victim with lifelong injuries. There is no reason for under 25s not to commit crime (aside from their own moral compass:-/ ) unless they're planning to go into a line of work that requires a background check.

Now, the law is being changed so that criminals won't be held in prison on remand except in very rare cases. So, victims will have to cope with dangerous people living alongside them for months and maybe years.

Why do people keep voting for this? And calling it "kindness"? It's frightening. Criminals might be vulnerable but non-criminal vulnerable people are completely stuffed. If you don't have a big threatening guy to chase people off you're fair game.

why do people keep voting for it? Cause they don’t have two brain cells to rub together and don’t like the English.

But it is totally mind blowing. They think they are being progressive because Scandinavia does this sort of thing but in Scandinavia there is an extensive, extremely well funded rehabilitation program. Here there is nothing so they are free to rape and rape again.

Even in Sweden there's a real problem with uncontrollable youth crime (kids used by gangs to transport drugs and bombs).

Sheepshop · Today 23:21
why do people keep voting for it? Cause they don’t have two brain cells to rub together and don’t like the English.

😂

I know north Welsh don’t like the English but didn’t realise the Scottish don’t like us. I don’t blame them. I don’t like us much either

You see the same craziness taken to extremes in some places in the US, where things like stealing are effectively decriminalized. It ends up being a shit place to live.

Ironically it's often sold as being anti-racist, but it also tends to hit poor areas with lots of non-white people hardest. Those are the people in communities full of criminals who lose services when they leave the area.

Fundamentally I think those who really push this don't believe in personal responsibility. We make these criminals by being unjust, so it would be unfair to punish them, and the privileged deserve what they get anyway.

Most voters though, IMO, aren't really thinking about this stuff when they cast a ballot.

I think this is separate to the Nat thing. Scots can't stand to think of themselves as "Tory" and criminal justice is Tory.

Women and children and the elderly being battered, robbed and sexually abused (and generally harassed and treated like crap) is, apparently, the progressive alternative.

It says in that article they will take an 'individuate approach'

In some cases I can see this will be a good thing

The stated policy aim is to vastly reduce the number of people on remand. People only get remand now when a very high bar is met. The repeal of 24D (which allows remand for people with serious previous convictions for offences such as serious assaults) is particularly scary.

I've always felt Scotland is a bit safer (on the whole) than England (again generalising). Don't feel that any more.

Not everyone in Scotland is an English hating face painted loon. The snp have decimated Scotland with their crackpot policies and corruption. The populace of the rest of UK have the same worries, problems as Scots people. It's politicians are the problem both sides of the border.

Like many things, it's a global problem

I have a relative doing a bunch of research into how prison doesn't "work". He has no recognition of the fact that some people are in favour of punishments for crimes, or that even that it's good to keep these people off the streets for a while and at least try to improve the safety for others.

I've not looked at history of crime but is it a "pendulum swing" thing? Like we'll have an era of being too soft and then revert back to being more inclined to punishment?

And here's an example of that individual approach being put to good use. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-65173054

Because there's loads of loony policies you can bring into the fold with people voting for you if you're "not Tory".

Speaking as someone who's not a Tory I found this very troubling.

Indeed. Everyone wants to assume the plans are reasonable. The plans are for life to be more dangerous.

The irony is, it's based on the fact that criminals are often created by trauma. Obviously true... But why respond to that by setting the scene for many, many more people to be traumatised?

Without 23D a lot of domestic abusers will be heading back home pending trial.

#BeKind

This is so true. Read any school exclusion policy in Scotland and it boasts how Scotland tries and tries to keep kids included in mainstream society - they actually boast about his few kids they exclude - but the numbers of school refusers are going through the roof and the reason in a lot of cases is violence-induced anxiety. Get violent kids out of our schools and let well behaved kids get on with learning in a safe, calm environment. It’s what our kids deserve.

Sentencing for crime isn't just about rehabilitation. There is meant to be an element of punishment and deterent to deter others from committing crime. There is also the protection of public safety. These all seem to have got lost in a move to be progressive. Most crime is inflicted on poorer communities anyway, so it's not really helping them.

You see the same craziness taken to extremes in some places in the US, where things like stealing are effectively decriminalized. It ends up being a shit place to live.

This happens, but the ones I'm aware of in the US tend to severely reduce or eliminate jail time for first offences but actually increase it for repeats - like California's Three Strikes laws, where your third crime gets the full weight of the system thrown at you even if crime 3 is relatively trivial - so there is still a kind of deterrent built in. And the usual impetus is to reduce overcrowding without incurring the expense of building too many new prisons (and raising the ire of NIMBYs) rather than any kind of social engineering. Also, these programs usually wouldn't include violent crimes like rape; it's more for "victimless crimes" or crimes against property, financial crimes, drug possession, etc.

The under-25 aspect in Scotland seems particularly weird as Scotland has the "age of legal capacity" set at 16, as well as voting, marriage (when everyone else in Europe has committed to eliminating marriage for under-18s) and the new GRR which allows people to have social/medical sex/gender reassignment at 16. By what logic are people adults two years earlier than the rest of the world UK for all of those purposes, but not for taking responsibility for their violent crimes that destroy other people's lives?

just another crack pot SNP policy

how do we actually get these lunatics out?

This I really don't understand how their thinking works.
Push and change things to keep in mainstream pupils who vandalise and destroy school property and physically/verbally/sexually assault other pupils/staff, but ignore or chastise those who have been so badly affected by this they cannot go to school?!

It seems like this bail change was almost sneaked through. It was only in the news yesterday when the Bill was finally passed. I have friends who work in criminal justice who didn't know it was coming. It's so malevolent, this culture of "we'll do what we think is best".

The schools situation is also appalling, yes. Good kids who want to be doctors, nurses, even bloody civil servants are sitting targets because they can't fight back as there will be lifelong consequences that their attackers simply don't have to worry about.

I do know that if I'm the victim of crime by an under 25 now my choices are to fight back hard (and possibly be arrested myself) or just let it go completely.

It makes me scared of seeing young people out and about.

It's cheaper - dressed up as modern thinking.
I hope there is a change in the make up of the Scot Gov after the next election.

It is terrible and will get worse. When the majority of people realise it will be too late. See San Francisco.

If you're a witness to a crime I'd ask keep that to yourself because the accused is much more likely now to be out and about, paying you a wee visit.

Whatever happened to believe victims?

What frustrates me especially is, if this happened at a UK level I think there'd be a big campaign against it. It's an abuser's golden ticket. But we're too small and too lacking in accountability for anyone to do anything. They could legislate to do anything and get away with it.