Violent crime

[Walsingham]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7442327.stm

 

Coming on the back of one of our best anti-gun crime campaigners getting stabbed I thought it could be good to reopen our look at violent crime. We've discussed shootings and bombings in the past, and my view after our discussion was that weapons were just the tools. Preventing these sorts of crimes has to centre on care for the mentally disturbed people who choose to try and hurt people other people. A solution I like because frankly our mental healthcare is rubbish and needs a massive overhaul.

[Sand]

I think the mental healthcare for many nations are complete rubbish, Walsh. In many places they still use the old 19th century stand of hiding those who are mentally ill and disturbed and pretending they don't exist. However, the most complex and the hardest to treat illness is mental illness for medical science hasn't trully mastered its understanding on how and why the human brain works.

[Walsingham]

Frankly this situation is caused by the other end of the spectrum. The so-called 'care in the community'. Some people are literally ticking bombs, and need to be dealt with accordingly. I am saying that we need a Jack Bauer who is clinically adroit, and sesnitive, but the end result has to be as emphatic as snipping the proverbial green wire.

 

I take your point that we don't yet understand how to do this. My response is that it isn't bloody good enough. We had better learn. Quick.

[Sand]

Agreed. More money is spent on punishing the crime instead of understanding why the crime took place. If we eliminate the "motivations" for such criminal behavior there wouldn't be such behavior.

[Tale]

I don't think people recognize what actually went on in that link. It was Akihabara. A district known for electronics... and video games.

 

This gentleman was obviously making a pre-emptive strike against those violent video games. He should be labelled a hero!

[Walsingham]

Agreed. More money is spent on punishing the crime instead of understanding why the crime took place. If we eliminate the "motivations" for such criminal behavior there wouldn't be such behavior.

 

I thought you wanted to spend all rehabilitation money on large sticks with nails in.

[Gorgon]

It's all in the mind, guns are just tools. What the hell kind of new age hippie bullcrap is that. It makes perfect sense to limit the availability of lethal weaponry in the population. If you don't send the kids out to play with scissors, less kids are going to get hurt.

 

Now of course there is one major caveat here, you have to reduce crime to a level that the population does not feel it needs to arm itself out of fear.

 

I don't think the scientific approach of 'understanding crime' has very much practical to offer. Crime is a social phenomena, and all the experts in the world aren't going to offer much in the way of solutions.

 

Forgive the Marxist departure, but the less difference there is between rich and poor the less crime will be a problem.

Edited June 9, 2008 by Gorgon

[Moatilliatta]

It's all in the mind, guns are just tools. What the hell kind of new age hippie bullcrap is that. It makes perfect sense to limit the availability of lethal weaponry in the population. If you don't send the kids out to play with scissors, less kids are going to get hurt.

The problem here is that guns and knives are used with the intention of causing harm quite unlike children with scissors. Would you argue that simply holding a gun causes you to commit a crime? If not then guns are just tools.

Forgive the Marxist departure, but the less difference there is between rich and poor the less crime will be a problem.

I don't think this is true since it isn't the difference that creates crime but rather there being an actual poor segment of society.

 

Walsingham is surprisingly correct in his OP.

[Rosbjerg]

Can we agree that Denmark has a less degree of violence and crime commited with weapons than America?

 

and can we agree that the availability of weapons are somewhat lower here than in America?

 

While it's a somwhat "Erasmus argument" linking those two, imo they are undoubtly connected. Fewer weapons = fewer crimes with weapons.. (I'm not not saying it equals less crime!)

 

Ergo, fewer people die as a result of crime, if weapons are harder to get.

 

Also I know this wasn't your argument, but I believe Gorgon was hinting towards this.

[Walsingham]

I'll not deny that weapons are helpful if you want to hurt people. If we all have flamethrowers there will be a rise in flamethrowings. But overall, the total degree of violence is in the minds of the people. Weapons really are a question of attitude. You can turn almost anything into a weapon.*

 

 

*If you are locked in a shed with BA Barracus

[Gorgon]

The problem here is that guns and knives are used with the intention of causing harm quite unlike children with scissors. Would you argue that simply holding a gun causes you to commit a crime? If not then guns are just tools.

 

Guns are primarily used to shoot coke cans - at least where you let everyone buy one. I'm not making any distinction between criminal and upstanding citizen, just that if the aim is to reduce incidents of lethal violence it makes good sense not to allow guns. Therefore, the scissors in the sandbox metaphor seems apt.

 

I don't think this is true since it isn't the difference that creates crime but rather there being an actual poor segment of society.

 

You seem to be agreeing with me, near as I can tell. It kinda goes without saying that a society without poverty is going to have less crime.

[Rosbjerg]

I'll not deny that weapons are helpful if you want to hurt people. If we all have flamethrowers there will be a rise in flamethrowings. But overall, the total degree of violence is in the minds of the people. Weapons really are a question of attitude. You can turn almost anything into a weapon.*

 

 

*If you are locked in a shed with BA Barracus

 

But what is the issue then? if we are more violent as an entire species now?

 

Maybe that's so, but rather I believe violence is on the rise due to certain factors in the world - a focus in the media on hopeless violence and a colouring of facts and spins on crime. People believe society is more violent, so they react more violent to protect themselves from that. (a cheap argument, but I believe it's true from my time working in a rehab)

 

Plus we are becoming increasingly individual in our perspective in the West. Not independet, but individual. We can forge a world view today without even meeting people, which creates some rather crazy people.

[Moatilliatta]

@Rosbjerg

I'm pretty sure that we (Denmark) have both a lower crime rate and a lower rate of crimes with weapons. It is a bit of a jump to state that this is because of weapons being illegal (you only attributed the latter to weapons being illegal but doing so with both is wrong unless specific evidence is shown).

 

I would personally point a finger at our better education system, our lower rate of poor people, our better ability to take care of the mentally ill and our better after-school programs for the youth related violence. Stuff that I believe is universally recognized as helping prevent crime.

[Walsingham]

I guess what I meant was that

 

1) Reducing the lethality of the weapons used in crime reduces the lethality of each incident

2) Violent incidents are likely to remain at the same levels; they will merely be reduced in severity but will still be unacceptably serious

3) To truly eradicate the problem we have to reduce the number of violent incidents, and that means the non-weapon segments. Thsi in turn means focussing on the human aspects of violence. After all, guns don't jsut fire themselves.*

 

 

* Except like in that film.

[Gorgon]

Let me ask you this, what is the greater truth to prisons, is it that criminals exist, or is that society incarcerates.

 

When we attempt to dissect criminality what we are really doing is defining a moral foundation which we all expect people to live up to. Do you really think we have the resources to deal with deviants by getting inside their minds. Thats sounds awfully lot like one of those ideal societies that never work in reality. It's work worth doing, but it's not a solution.

 

Crime is a variable component to any society, the aim has to be to limit the total number of people who are ostracized from the whole while maintaining protection for the individual.

[Tigranes]

A perfect summary of the post-Renaissance approach, Gorgon. But you seem to have gone and remained there - let's update it to post-Mettray, too: surely you would agree that if a society is found to be awfully conducive to the production of deviants, then you are looking at neither an ideal nor a cost effective situation. That 'balance' in the variable of crime you suggest is surely just as related to systems of ostracisation and justice as much as it is to do with social conditions, poverty and so forth.

[Gorgon]

France - Holland is on, ftw, to be continued.

[Aram]

Are we talking about crime in general, or totally senseless insane rampages like this one. Because crimes like this have nothing to do with society or poverty--some people just have some loose screws and there's nothing to do about it but deal with it when it happens.

[Gorgon]

Yes the guy in the opening link obviously had some wires crossed. Nothing much to do about violent maniacs. Either they don't show symptoms or the infrastructure to deal with them is just not present. Walsh is on the money there I suppose, but I think achieving a level of readiness that would prevent these occurrences would require an extremely invasive apparatus. We are talking Orwellian in size here, not merely welfare state.

[Rosbjerg]

Even that would be hard. Anyone can go on a rampage, you don't even need knives, guns or vehicles. Which is why these things are so horrible, it can happen almost anytime and anywhere.

 

Now if everyone was armed!! - The best defence against tyranny (in any form) is a well armed populace.

[Walsingham]

1. I'm talking about crimes like this, but also so-called 'normal' crimes, like we have had in the media recently, where some kid knifes a random bloke on the bus over a disagreement no-one even understood.

 

2. Recent media coverage has illustrated that in the case of these hyper-aggressive incidents the individuals concerned have a long history of escalating behaviour, and mental issues. A history which was recognised at each stage as being a warning of things to come, but sod all was done about it.

 

3. Because of the above I am arguing that we should be doing more to

- Connect the dots of noticing dangerous behaviour

- Doing something about it

- Doing something about it may mean anything from shipping them to antarctica, firing them into space, or giving them a yellow poncho. Whatever it takes, get it done.

[Sand]

The man that did these attacks in Japan also sent a warning of sorts via the Internet. That seems to be an outlet for discontents to "warn" their victims. If countries had a more active law enforcement that over saw the Internet in local grids such warnings could be more readily seen. Of course, most people wouldn't want "Big Brother" overlooking their Internet visitations.

[Gfted1]

The man that did these attacks in Japan also sent a warning of sorts via the Internet. That seems to be an outlet for discontents to "warn" their victims. If countries had a more active law enforcement that over saw the Internet in local grids such warnings could be more readily seen. Of course, most people wouldn't want "Big Brother" overlooking their Internet visitations.

 

 

Do you have any concept of the task you've outlined? How many more police would you need to "oversee" every stupid thread in every single forum?

[Sand]

Do you have any concept of the task you've outlined? How many more police would you need to "oversee" every stupid thread in every single forum?

 

Yeah, I know it would be a nigh-impossible task, which begs the question why would such buggers use the Internet to warn their victims if their vicitms would have a impossible chance of getting the warning? Of course asking for these nutjobs to think rationally on this point would be an exercise in futility at best.

[Gorgon]

Even that would be hard. Anyone can go on a rampage, you don't even need knives, guns or vehicles. Which is why these things are so horrible, it can happen almost anytime and anywhere.

 

Now if everyone was armed!! - The best defence against tyranny (in any form) is a well armed populace.

I think you would have to show that the shooting related deaths resultant from every one being armed would end up being less than those of the maniac killing sprees.