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

Mumo if ever you don't need a licence and cancel, rescind any implied right of access (Google for the exact phrase) and the Capita pricks can't come to the door.
You can do it email but they ask you to confirm you still don't need a licence every two years, post and email.
No risk of any "Inspection" then.

I very vividly remember the police coming and arresting my mum and taking her to court for not having a TV license. At the time she was newly divorced from my dad and we were living on a very low income.

I've no idea what happened in court, presumably she was fined and paid it off.

I had no idea this was still happening, humiliating women by dragging them to court and giving them a criminal license is horrible.

Does anyone know who is prosecuted in a household with more than one adult? Would it be the person who opens the door who would be liable or would all members of the household face prosecution?

Given the facts about the Bashir documentary and the way the BBC reported the Salmond enquiry (accusing Nicola Sturgeon of breaking the ministerial code two days before the enquiry results which said he had not done that) do they deserve our money anyway?

About 20 years ago when I was still on the left of the picture and like most left wingers, thought the sun shone out of the BBCs arse, I was talking with a right wing friend (in the days before identity politics when you were allowed to have one) and he said something that stopped me in my tracks.

He said imagine if the BBC like ITV and all the rest, was free to use but to be able to watch all the free channels you had to pay for a Sky Subscription to Rupert Murdoch. How would you feel about it then?
I had to admit he had a point.

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

But phones, pcs and laptops do and watching live tv and BBC (and other terrestrial catch ups) presumably do?

Abusive men will often allow all the bills be put in to their partner's name and then don't pay towards them. Leaving the woman struggling to pay. If you have to choose between the gas, food, kids shoes or tv licence. I bet tv licence ends up at the bottom of the list of priorities.

MargaritaPie - It is about the concept of public service broadcasting. It is not meant to be driven by popularity. If it was there would be nothing but love island, selling houses and gossip.

The problem is who decides what public interest it.

Like the NHS the concept of the BBC is about having an easily accessible shared source.

More strange is that anyone would think subscriptions tv is a standard to aspire to. It is, as has happened with Universities driven by the downward spiral of the lowest common denominator.

Or possibly the Roman Circus.

Privatise the BBC, and let it compete for audiences and funding in the free market. If tens of millions of people are quite happy to voluntarily subscribe to Netflix, the Beeb should be fine in the private sector. I’m sure there is a vast market for its PC, identity politics obsessed output. After all, most people enjoy being constantly preached at about diversity & climate change, don’t they?

No more sexist prosecutions. No more women with criminal records. Problem solved.

You can’t spend that amount of money on Strictly and then claim you’re fulfilling a gap in the commercial market. Ditto paying ‘competitive’ salaries to top TV and radio presenters. The BBC has tried to be all things to all people for far too long. Time to return to the core Reithian values and stop prosecuting low-income women.

I'm not claiming the BBC is filling its remit but that comparing a product that depends on getting bums on seats to an organisation that is intended to try and meet the needs of minority interests.

For instance I rarely watch any of the cultural (or do I mean arts) output of the BBC but for some people this is their main source.

And in fact it is clear from what happened during lockdown that this myth that everyone is one line etc., just isn't true. And the BBC failed in not providing more air time to online learning etc..

And the problem is that Tory capitalist competitive tendering even within the BBC means that a huge amount of money goes out of the organisation, so its potential to plan etc., had been underminded. As with the Tory cuts to the funding so that the BBC now pays fot the World Service (previously funded ie PR for UK) and for the over 75 free licence.

this is about diminishing the BBC by attrition.

So you may like the output of a particular streaming service. Lucky you. The point of the BBC like the NHS is to recognise that there is a wide range of needs to be met. Using the streaming service model would mean that the NHS would end up saying oh well so few people get x disease dont lets bother looking into it.

I think in the long run the BBC will fail and will we end up with Fox news (eg launch of GB news) and nobody will care.

I'm not claiming the BBC is perfect, and like most of the establishment in this country is male, pale and stale. But if the alternative is organisations with the mental age of social media companies I'm not interested.

I remember reading a similar statistic in 1988.
A friend of mine had been prosecuted for having no licence. She was a single mother and had no money to pay the fine. Her ex refused to pay maintenance and she was desperate so I paid it for her. I was shocked then to see how many other women had been convicted.
Clare Short was working on it at the time and she also highlighted how much more likely women were to be jailed at all.

Yes- this has been in the news every few years for decades!

Yes i remember seeing a TV investigation about it back in the 90s. On the BBC ironically!

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?

There a clear benefit to the public in locking up violent men. In fact it seems we should be doing much more of that, not less. There is almost no benefit to the public in locking up TV license evaders and it causes a great deal of harm to the women and their children... (they almost always have children don’t they?)

How is a policy with no benefits that causes massive harm to mothers and children not a case of discrimination against women?

I thought the figure was higher actually, but that does not make it a good thing that it is only a third.

Given that the vast majority of houses have a tv, and that there is already a household based tax, the council tax, why not collect it as part of that, and have the same process for late or non-payment?

@newnortherner111

I thought the figure was higher actually, but that does not make it a good thing that it is only a third.

Given that the vast majority of houses have a tv, and that there is already a household based tax, the council tax, why not collect it as part of that, and have the same process for late or non-payment?

What about people who have no interest in the BBC, would they be forced to pay?

I watch very little TV, the TV that I bought at Christmas is not even tuned in for any live broadcasts and I don't watch iPlayer.

There are enough people struggling to pay their council tax without adding an extra £170 onto it.

I think in the long run the BBC will fail and will we end up with Fox news (eg launch of GB news) and nobody will care.

Why should people care about the launch of GB News?

If it was the only news channel, fair enough; but when you have a variety of news channels with different perspectives, where is the problem?

I think it's far better to have "open bias" and a variety of sources rather than the BBC pretending to be impartial.