Party Vibe

I would say “no” but only because the other alternative would leave us in the same (legal) situation as America or a third world country where life is a lot cheaper.

the current British situation is acceptable, where the cops very rarely actually shoot to kill but to neutralise a threat to themselves or others. they will actually call an ambulance for the person they have shot so they can be patched up and brought before Court!

British cops still normally use 9mm fully jacketed rounds (with less stopping power) when US cops use .40 hollowpoints as a minimum and sometimes .45 (although these make it more likely to hit innocent bystanders)

when people get shot it isn’t like the movies – they can take a fair few bullets before they keel over and if its a fat person and vital organs are missed, survival is fairly likely with non fragmenting rounds. A few years back a chap in West Berks was shot with 10 x 9mm rounds yet is alive today, although his bodyguard was killed.

I also feel that if we did move towards an armed constabulary, then private individuals should also be able to have guns as well – not to “fire pon de babylon” but just to even the stakes as criminals would have more guns.

in reality though anyone, anywhere in the worldhas the ability to take a “life for a life” (or just take a life) if they feel so inclined, provided they are strong enough to overpower their opponent or have access to the right weaponry.

it is how society deals with them when they do so (or trys to prevent them from taking such drastic action) which really matters.

rehabilitation is also about facing up to what they have done is a crime and the effect is has on others, so they want to change..

I think it may work for some chav what smashed a window or vandalised a school or robbed an old ladys handbag (in many cases some genuinely do feel remorse for what they have done) but for some violent criminals I’m not sure if it would work just as well, unless it was an intense programme of psychiatric treament rather than a weekly talking to from some do gooders

I feel that for many who are prepared to commit serious crimes they have already weighed up the consequences (including the risk of their own death, after all gangs often fight back or organise reprisal attacks) and still do it..

a few years ago the interviewed the survivor of the two who shot (Mahatma) Ghandi dead decades ago (might have been the 50th anniversary of the assasination)

I think the Indian cops shot one but the other got life in jail.

He told the reporters from his prison cell

“I hate that bastard Ghandi. He gave away half our country to Pakistanis. If I could turn back the clock I’d shoot the bastard again.”

There are definitely some people who cannot be rehabilitated (but if they had hanged him I expect it would have cost thousands more lives from those who would have seen him as a martyr)

whilst guidance and discipline and some sort of constructive actitivty would be good, the 1950-1970s style bootcamps were actually counterproductive (which is why they were abandoned)

As someone a bit older in my thirties, when I first started raving. obtaining drug etc I would often encounter older people who had been through Borstal.

Many of them said all they would do is bulk up because of the emphasis on PT and drill etc, then when they got out they’d rob someone and give them a thorough beating to “make up for” all the abuse they had got from the screws when they were inside

many went in and out of Borstal multiple times until they just decided to “grow up” one day and not do as much crime. These sorts of people also tended to make good drug dealers as they were used to dealing with rough situations and getting one over on authority..

So this strategy was hardly making the streets safer.

There are too many things in the old style bootcamps that would be appealing to angry young men rather than a punishment.. maybe they should put them on bootcamps run by full-on yoghurt weavers where the kids have to knit their own vegetarian muesli etc (but you keep the knuckle dragging guards in reserve to stop the youths attacking the hippies – or have a bizzare mixture of hippies and 7 foot tall 18 stone meatheads forcing the kids to dig the vegetable garden! I could guarantee many of them would never want to go back :laugh_at:

this is going to be a difficult one for people like us who are ravers and often operate outside the law ourselves. it would be fairly simple to lock down this country a bit more without making life too intolerable for “normal middle englanders” but you can kiss goodbye to stuff like nightlife when it gets to that point..

it takes more than one person to change things. The Prime Minister doesn’t have that much power at street level on an estate or town/village, and the biggest problem is that normal ordinary people can be far more intolerant than politicians especially when they feel under pressure or the economy isn’t going to well..

Gordon Brown, Blair, even Major and Thatcho are/were all very smart and highly educated people.

When Blair first came to power his government actually had a ton of good and positive ideas, all of which ended up being diluted and pretty much destroyed due to various sections of Britain disagreeing over how they should be implemented, then we are blighted by a pointless rush to war that was fuelled as much by the British publics stubborness to keep its consumer society as by any outside pressures.. – this war (its cost, the divisions it causes amongst communities) is clearly causing a lot problems at home as well as foreign nations. :hopeless:

That said I don’t think British society is crumbling all that much, we are merely regressing to the early 1980s again..