To think criminals are very common?

[ChicJoker]

I see lots of threads on here claiming moral high ground and pearl clutching for example about people not correcting large company’s on a billing mistake. All very tsk tsk tsk “that’s stealing” etc.

it got me thinking, I’m sure it’s dependent on your region but I don’t believe there’s a single person where I’m from that doesn’t either know or have a relation to a criminal in some way. If mums net was a true representation of the public, surely criminals would be shunned from communities and the holier than thou would reign free.

where I’m from, everybody, and I do mean everybody - either knows someone directly or are themselves involved in illegal activity in some way. Even if it was historically. It’s astoundingly common. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying or incredibly naive.

what are your thoughts? How do the whiter than white cope in life? FWIW there’s absolutely not a chance on this earth I’d correct for example Tesco on sending me a free online shop by mistake. I’d actually find it more morally inferior TO correct them.

I mean, that's nonsense.

100% of any city's population are not involved in drugs, even if 100% of the people you mixed with were.

I’ve done loads of crime, shoplifting as a kid, graffiti, stealing from an employer (alcohol), loads of driving offences. I signed my ex up to swinging sites, that would be done under the new malicious communications act now I think.

obviously not been caught for any of it. I try hard not to break the law now but it still happens.

I assure you they are. Whether it be directly, they’re related to somebody who is directly involved, or they just know of somebody. I know this for sure.

The other key is where I've worked and met criminals.

I am not naive; very worldly wise.

You knew everyone in the city?? And their connection to the drugs trade?

Everyone?

Interesting. I know that technically if you commit a crime, you are a criminal. However in my head a criminal is someone who either continually breaks the law (eg shoplifts often), or someone who has committed a serious offence (murder etc). If someone forgot to scan their bananas at scan and go, realised by the tills and went ‘ah never mind’, does that mean they’re a criminal? 🤣

In that sense I do think everyone, well maybe most, are criminals - if the threshold is so low. I mean, my kid at 1.5 yo picked up a toothbrush in the shops before and I only noticed outside. I didn’t go back to pay for it. Am I a criminal? Is he? For life?!

My cousin is a drug dealer, my dad used to help people rob department stores and generally helped move stolen goods, he committed insurance fraud at least a few times that I know of and was convicted of elder neglect. Where I grew up the drug dealing cousin is standard - I think most people I grew up with would say they had a dealer somewhere in their family (and my cousin has never been arrested, never mind convicted).

My DH grew up what I considered posh (just Southern really but to me feels posh), one of his uncles was a bank robber and another one worked for the Met

I do think MN is another world, particularly stuff like stolen and counterfeit goods. To be fair as an adult I don't know any criminals!

Everyone knows someone who uses recreational drugs. Might be a bit of weed for their stress, a line of coke once in a blue moon, a little social something for the young, but they all get it from somebody. That somebody is a dealer, who has a supplier, who has a distribution network.

This gives you six degrees of separation from a big-time trafficker. And it's reproduced with each different kind of user/substance.

If you think you don't know anyone in the UK who uses, you either don't know anybody or they're carefully not mentioning it around you.

As far as I know I don’t know anyone with a criminal record.

But I do live in a leafy area and also work in a profession where you can’t have any serious criminal convictions so I’d accept that my sample is probably not representative.

I actually had no idea that the proportion of the population with a criminal record was so high. I remember reading a while back that a very small proportion of the population is responsible for a huge proportion of the crime.

I only know one person who has been convicted of a crime. An ex colleague who was found guilty of some minor drugs offence years ago.

I don't think I could name anyone who hasn't broken the law on occasion.

In the sense that they've never tried to sell drugs to you possibly. In my working life I knew of many people who used "recreational pharmaceuticals", I suspect that some of them were also dealers. They don't waste time on people who don't want the product or might shop them,

I thought drugs were rife in the country

I am always amazed at the posters here when it comes to crime, drugs and fraud. I personally know many people committing benefit fraud (am related to a couple), know lots of others who take class A drugs regularly. Or people who don't declare income.

A reasonable number of friends / family have been arrested for drugs and violence. Most have been cautioned or NFAd - no jail time.

That said, they are in the minority of all the people I know.

I feel like I'm on another planet when people consider returning a shop / money to tesco cos they weren't correctly charged.

I'm middle class now but raised working class in a city.

To be honest, when I was at school & uni I think a couple of people there dealt drugs. But I don’t personally consider myself as an associate of a criminal, I don’t know them and I never was friends with them. I think you’re taking a really exaggerated view of “everyone knows of a criminal”, like it’s a really tangential link isn’t it? By your logical everyone who ever comes across a criminal becomes permanently tainted.

Who do you define as a criminal? Someone who constantly breaks the law or someone who was in a bad situation and ended up with a record for a one off thing?

No, in the specific sense that the OP stated:

Dealers who have done nothing but that their whole lives and roam free.

I don't know any people whose only job has been "professional drug dealer."

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated 8.8% of people aged 16 to 59 years (approximately 2.9 million people) and 16.5% of people aged 16 to 24 years (around 971,000 people) used "any drug" in the past 12 months in the year ending (YE) March 2024.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/drugmisuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2024

That's one in eleven people under 60, one in six if they're under 25.

The CSEW is likely to underestimate the level of drug misuse in England and Wales because of these possible limitations.

I'm interested by all these people who are adamant they don't know any criminals. I'm confident that nobody I know would think of me as a "criminal" - I'm well educated, well spoken, middle class, in a respectable profession that requires a DBS check... but over the course of my teens I probably shoplifted a couple thousand pounds worth of stuff. Then at uni I had a little stealing to order business. I've also done a little trespassing and distributed some drugs for a friend. It's long since behind me now, but it's only by luck that I didn't get caught and can now work in the field I work in. My friends would be absolutely horrified if they knew my past.

Hit the nail on the head.

to those that are in doubt, I know very high ranking people in legal roles in the public sector iyswim and many people in certain forces. All of which frequently buy cocaine and many engage in prostitutes.in the private sector, a ceo I know of a particularly VERY well known insurance company was having an affair with a prostitute (also known to me) for a long time, always taking coke and speed together!

Someone who has committed or been convicted of a crime.

Organised crime I would say. Or going out of their way to discreetly avoid the law

When are they no longer a criminal?
I have cautions on my DBS that will be on there forever.
My boyfriend ended up in court for something and his DBS will be clear in a few years like nothing happened.

Well no, not tainted. I’m not saying it’s negative to be associated. I’m just astounded that so many people don’t think they have rubbed shoulders with criminals at some point

OK I'll 'fess. I come from a very middle class family, all university educated and some of us went to private schools. One of my brothers has a conviction for theft when he was a teenager and another for obstruction at a demo though I imagine both pass DBS checks. I'm several years younger and I didn't know about the theft at the time. So you may have criminal records in your own families and not know about them (I imagine most people would try to keep quiet if, for example, their teen was caught shoplifting)

How the fuck do you get to "If you think you don't know anyone in the UK who uses" from me saying that 100% of a city population is not involved in drugs?