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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 😬

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I was very surprise to learn that a third of men in the uk have a criminal record. I would have never guessed it was this high.

As far as I'm aware, I hardly know anyone with a criminal record. I'm not counting driving offences like speeding. I know someone who got a caution once for something they didn't realize was illegal. I suspect a distant cousin might have committed a crime at some point in his life but I don't know for sure. I'm quite confident I don't know anyone who has been to prison.

Yes, I realize people don't boast of their criminal records so I might just not know. But I would be genuinly shocked if anyone from my family or close friends turned out to be a criminal.

I myself am very law abiding, as far as I know the closest I ever came to breaking the law was overstaying parking at a leisure center for which I was fined £60.

Youth Cautions do not appear on DBS checks and only serious caution have to be indefinitely declared otherwise its 6 years. So….

@TheSpiritofDarkandLonelyWater that means your cautions were…. serious

It was affray. Two cops tried to get me out my house. Was a welfare check. I did not want to talk to them and I would not go and started screaming and shouting. I was arrested. I had never been in a police station before and was in a bad way and self harmed in the cell. I said no to a solicitor as I was too upset and didnt want to talk anyone at all.
I accepted a caution but still am not sure what it was really for. I have looked up what affray is and it does not sound like what happened at all but it was their word against mine. Now I have to have an appropriate adult with me if I end up in a police station although last time I was refused one but I have not been in one since anyway.
I have been diagnosed as autistic since then.

. Now I have to have an appropriate adult with me if I end up in a police station

so yes, it sounds like your caution was indeed for something serious hence it having to be indefinitely disclosed

You referred to multiple cautions @TheSpiritofDarkandLonelyWater ?

You would be astounded at the number of people with records and the types of offences.

That's hardly comforting to people who have spent 40 years not breaking the law and not getting interviews.

but it does explain why most places are a little bit shit.

If someone with no criminal history has been job hunting for 4 decades and not managed to get an interview…. Then something is likely very seriously wrong. With the someone applying.

Yes I have 2. The other is filtered off now I believe. But affray stays forever from what I have read.

Not automatically it doesn’t

it has to be serious for it to have a requirement to be indefinitely disclosed

Is there a way of checking your own DBS?

It’s astonishing how often mental health issues escalate into this situation.

Imagine believing you need to fight for your life because you’re going to be killed and oh look, 5 police officers had to leap on you and put you in cuffs to get you in the ambulance- maybe you smacked one of them, or a paramedic whilst you fought for your life. It’s so sad and very frightening. And it could happen to any of us.

You know what, I forgot my own mother was prosecuted for drink driving and had a criminal record (long since spent) in 1972.

my BILs mum lives in Russia and drink drives everywhere, just slipping any police who interfere a wad of cash, which makes you think about the reality of people who have criminal records vs “criminals” ie the unprosecuted.

nothing on earth would make me “distance myself” from my mother, I’d sooner not live. If anyone suggested they would I would assume they had an unrelated terrible relationship with their mum.

Well they haven't got a police record.