Did you know that nearly a third of women’s convictions are for TV licence fee evasion?

[SimonedeBeauvoirscat]

This is shocking. I’ve known about the terrible consequences of not paying the TV licence fee because it is a criminal offence for a while but I hadn’t realised it was so prevalent in the female prison population. This is also very informative and shocking about the wider population of women in prison.

• almost a third of women’s convictions are for not paying the licence fee

• women are 10 times more likely to be convicted for not paying the licence fee than men

• women in prison are commonly victims of more serious crimes than what they were convicted of

• only 1% of women in prison are there for violent offences

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tv-licence-fee-women-convictions-b1763192.html

PlanDeRaccordement Theres no need to be rude.

You've confused the number of people evading the licence fee with the number of people convicted of evading the fee. I was wondering what the former is. The BBC must have a rough idea of how many households do not have a licence.

Plan I'm confused.

First you say

'Now how about you answer my question? Why are you crying discrimination regarding more women than men being prosecuted over tv license evasion, but not crying discrimination over more men than women being prosecuted for violent crimes? '

And then say you won't read the links (including the ONS) and say duh look at ONS men are more violent than women.

So in the end I'm not sure what you're arguing.

Plan- you don't trust the ONS?

WTAF, you are the one not trusting the ONS. Not me, ONS says 10x more women than men guilty of tv licence evasion and I trust it. You are the one who does not trust it because you see 10x more women convicted than men and think, right there are either a lot of innocent women wrongly convicted or guilty men getting away with it because you’ve said that the ONS statistics were “appalling” and clearly showed “indirect discrimination”= not trusting the ONS.

The ONS has more than one section about TV licence on that link.

@Thelnebriati

PlanDeRaccordement Theres no need to be rude.

You've confused the number of people evading the licence fee with the number of people convicted of evading the fee. I was wondering what the former is. The BBC must have a rough idea of how many households do not have a licence.

I am sorry to have confused you. I thought the whole time we were referring to number of convictions.

The BBC must have a rough idea of how many households do not have a licence.

That would tell you nothing though because not having a licence doesn’t = license evasion. Many households don’t watch TV as defined by the U.K. gov. For example, if you only watch Netflix. No TV license required. That’s not evasion.

@NiceGerbil
I said I hadn’t read your links because I’ve researched this issue recently and don’t need to re-read it all again. I’ve read the ONS stuff.

Criminy, do you mean to be so tedious?

So you've read the bit about the massively skewed prosection conviction rate female v male and that they state a contributing factor is the greater availability of women at home.

Given you do trust the ONS in general and have read what they have published on this, can you say why you don't trust/ believe them on that particular point?

And also assume that my post was based on bias etc rather than on what they said.

The stats around it are mind boggling tbh. All there in black and white.

I have no facts to back this theory up, merely floating a thought I had on the situation in regards to more women being prosecuted than men...

To have a conviction the tv license inspectors need access to the property which doesn't have to be given as far as I'm aware? I wonder if it's easier to coerce or frighten women into letting them enter the property to check (and this convict) perhaps they aren't so quick to demand entry to a property with a big bloke in front of them.

Only a thought, feel free to tell me otherwise I'm happy to be educated on it.

According to the 2019 Gov report on Women and the Criminal Justice System.........

females made up 74% of the 114,000 convictions in 2019, up
3 pp from 2015. TV licence evasion made up 30% of all female convictions, compared to 4% of male convictions. A contributing factor is the greater availability of females when an enforcement officer visits the home. Fines accounted for 99% of
those sentenced for TV licence evasion in 2019 across both sexes.

PaddleBoardingMomma The BBC and Ministry of Justice both agree with you.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tv-licence-fee-women-convictions-b1763192.html

[quote Thelnebriati]PaddleBoardingMomma The BBC and Ministry of Justice both agree with you.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tv-licence-fee-women-convictions-b1763192.html[/quote]
Thanks for the link!

It's interesting that it seems to be the case. When I was mulling it over I thought if my husband was here then he wouldn't let anyone in and would stand his ground, but I would feel quite intimidated to do as I'm asked. Probably says more about me than I'd care to admit but it's interesting that it's clearly a theme...

The question is what do we do about it?

1. More SAHP are women than men
2. Fewer women than men will ignore the door
3. On opening the door, more women will let the bastards in

My theory is it's not because they let them in. They don't need to get in and in most cases they dont.
The vast majority of people convicted are caught out and convicted by what comes out of the mouths on the door step.
The salesmen ( that's what they are) are experts at tripping people up and getting them to self incriminate. The longer you talk on the doorstep the more likely you are to be caught out.
We all know for various reasons women are higher on the agreebility scale and less likely to abrasively tell somebody to sling their hook very early on in a door step encounter.
The other main way they are caught is it they see or hear live TV through a window or door as the approach the property
I think it's this plus You tube being more likely to be watched by men.
Why?
Because there's hours of footage on YT of people, self filmed, (always men) in doorstep encounters.
Comments under he clips advising how not to be caught if you are watching unlicensed. Because of this men are more likely to be savvy on how to avoid getting caught in the first place.
Do you know that TV detector vans a complete con btw. I only found this out watching yt and reading comments below. There were a relatively small number of them for publicity and those that were going about were unable to operate as all the scary adverts said. Nobody has ever been convicted with evidence collected by "TV detecting technology. " I only found this out watching yt.

Its fascinating.
Check out "TV licence Goons" or something similar on YT. ( see, even the language is more abrasive)
YT is a "How to get away with not paying your TV licence fee" masterclass and I am amazed the BBC haven't put pressure on them to take down the vids.

I didn't realise it was as much as a third, but I knew it was alarmingly high.

That's why Boris's proposal to decriminalise non-payment (or at least remove imprisonment for it) is a good move.

Childrenofthestones

Thanks, you explained that really well.
The convictions are for non payment of the fines handed out, not that, that makes it any better.
Women are targeted for all the reasons above, it is a disgrace.

This is 100% true story albeit about 15 or so years ago.

My best friend was at home with her 2 toddlers when there was a very loud banging on the door, 4 police officers and a meat wagon were there to take her to the police station/ court can't quite remember which.

Apparently she had been getting letters for months and her abusive ex had hidden them from her.

She had to get her next door neighbour to look after her kids until I could get there, while she was taken away in the wagon. All neighbours outside, agog. Very very posh neighbourhood.

Really can't remember the outcome, think she was heavily fined, which luckily she could afford to pay. I have never trusted the justice system since, and my friend was severely traumatised.

Even now all those years years later, I feel sick thinking about it.

Another factoid is the fines talked about in TV Licence adverts.
"You can be fined up to £1,000" says the threatening voice in the advert. Most fines are under £300, so in the region of 2x a licence. Many may consider this worth a risk. Many others do it on a point of principal of not paying a regressive poll tax.

They may think, how is it right for a single mum living in a bedsit with a 19 inch Polaroid TV from Asda to be paying the same amount as say JK Rowling in 20 bedroom mansion with a 60" OLED in every room with family and guests watching as many as they like.

I really don’t understand why funding can’t just be rolled into general taxes.

That would be guaranteed cash for the BBC and there would be little incentive for them to provide viewers with what they want, because they already have their money.

Rather, switch to subscription for the people that actually like BBC programming.

Public funds shouldn't go anywhere near the BBC imo. It's like being forced to pay for the Daily Mail when you don't read it and strongly disagree with the politics that they promote. Actually it's worse, because at least the Daily Mail wouldn't try to lie to the public and tell people it's "impartial".

You shouldn't have to fund one-sided political propaganda that you don't agree with.

I don't think it's automatically "discrimination" just because they catch a lot more women for it, even assuming the crime is committed equally by males and females.

If more women open the door and start talking, that's just how it is. It's difficult to see that as "discrimination" on the part of someone else.

Unless... what if they know that single women are much more cooperative? What if they know that they are an easier target to get a conviction? What if they deliberately focus their attention on them?

Is it discrimination then?

It's crazy Brits still have to pay a TV licence to watch live TV. Especially now times have moved on and there are other options of watching what we want eg Netflix.

It's outdated and needs scrapped.

"Unless... what if they know that single women are much more cooperative? What if they know that they are an easier target to get a conviction? What if they deliberately focus their attention on them?"

You might be onto something. Unlike computers, TVs don't store logs of your activity. The TV licence people can only know if a household watches TV if they enter your garden and look through your window, or if someone from the household admits to watching it.

Just speculating here but in cases where the licence hasn't been paid and the inspectors come visiting, men may be more likely to deny watching live TV and just claim they use it for video games or DVDs, or simply not answer the door to them(unless they come with a cop who has a warrant, you don't have to answer). Women may be more likely to be honest and admit, which secures an easy conviction.

This thread just made me realise that my ex cancelled the TV license when he moved out.
Just went and got myself a new one. Luckily we had already paid this month but now I’m back to paying double for the next few months.

Worth it to have him out of my house, but still. I definitely don’t want the tv license people after me!