[Closed] Catching burglars...

Get 'em off the smack - or just give them the smack

Put them in prison, surely many minor thefts should equal a major crime.

Cut their hands off.

I'm watching this. The team I'm on does exactly this kind of work but thankfully in not such an obvious way. Can't believe Notts have been happy to show this level of detail tbh.

+1 TJ, absolutely god damn right!

Or, just legalise it. Problem solved.

APF

Get them to train the other 92% who are massively under-performing, after the training, assuming a 100% improvement by the other lot, they will only committing 74% of the crimes - now that's joined up thinking.

tails - Member

Put them in prison, surely many minor thefts should equal a major crime.

Unfortunately it will make absolutely eff all difference if they are smackheads as most burglers are. They simply will go straight back to theft. Its expensive anyway to jail them.

for the cost to the country of all the crime and of all the wasted judicial system effort we could select a nice island for them and fly in food an smack an let them get on with it. Or pretty much any other way of giving them the smack and letting them be boring smackheads all they want.

add anthrax to the smack, problem solved.

Unfortunately it will make absolutely eff all difference if they are smackheads as most burglers are. They simply will go straight back to theft.

Not if they're in prison they won't.

for the cost to the country of all the crime and of all the wasted judicial system effort we could select a nice island for them and fly in food an smack an let them get on with it. Or pretty much any other way of giving them the smack and letting them be boring smackheads all they want.

Imagine that lol! Perhaps the Falklands, then give it back to Argentina! 😉

Aracer - £30 000+ a year to keep 'em in there - how long you gonna lock'em up for

Tails - like your style.

if they are smackheads as most burglers are

we managed and prided ourselves on the fact that we would never fk over joe normal because of our habbits.

That's just lazy thinking TJ and frankly demonstrates that you really do know cock all about being a drug addict

OD them ...? 😈

They will depart happy ...

tazzymtb - Member
add anthrax to the smack, problem solved.

Illegal drugs poisoned by government tampering? It'll never catch on.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.single.html

Tazzy - I am not just lazy generalising here - I have worked with them. I have seen the research. I have ben interested in the field for a long time

Were you are a real smackhead? £50+ a day habit? Hard to get that money witout crime

Not all smackheads behave like this I know but the prolific petty thieves tend to be smackheads. Its not "most smackheads are prolific theives" but "most prolific thieves are smackheads"

Its estimated that 70% of all low level burglary is smackheads. certainly almost all the ones I saw arrested were and I saw hundreds of arrests and the same faces time and time again.

there was a very interesting project done in Brighton on this. they identified the dozen most prolific thieves -all smackheads / alckies IIRC and put lots of resources into them - getting them help off drugs or stable on methodone, etc etc. petty theft in the area dropped dramatically. I'll see if I can find it.

the easiest way to stop petty theft is to take give heroin addicts tehir fix

[url= http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/comment/4629325._Treatment_for_Brighton_addicts_is_better_than_prison_/ ]this was the one[/url]

Government figures show that 10% of drug addicts commit 75% of all acquisitive crime – offences such as robbery and burglary – in Brighton and other cities every year.

127 heroin users for whom conventional treatment had failed took part in the scheme, and the results clearly show that prohibiting an action is not the best method to make it go away. At the start of the trial addicts reported carrying out 1731 offences a month, but after six months this had fallen by 2/3 to 547. While participants spent on average £300 a week on street drugs at the start of the trial, by the end this had decreased to about £50.

Nearly two thirds of crime is drug-related, and the legalisation of heroin and other drugs will eradicate entire black markets and cause levels of petty crime to plummet. By legalising narcotics, the cost to society that their abuse causes is reduced. Transform Drug Policy’s latest report shows that if heroin was regulated the cost to society could drop by nearly 14bn due to a fall in the costs of crime, health and social care.

http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/justice-and-civil-liberties/riott

So what did the government do with the study, nothing?

Don't know.

its the sort of thing that gets the tablods going - "thousands spent on holidays for junkies"

....And then afghanistan might become more stable as a result? (my theory)

More drugs analysis here.

http://www.freakonomics.com/books/freakonomics/chapter-excerpts/chapter-3/

Its certainly possible - trying to cut the supply without cutting demand aint worked

Not if they're in prison they won't.

We had a prolific burglar on my beat, out most nights.he got £4 k off the council as a payout.he didn't commit a crime for 5 months.soon as his money ran out and he needed money for gear he was back thieving.
Heroin is the devils work

Either lock em up and throw away the key - or legalise heroin....

he got £4 k off the council as a payout.he didn't commit a crime for 5 months.soon as his money ran out and he needed money for gear he was back thieving.

(For clarity: I'm not criticising what you're saying, easygirl - I am making a follow on point).

We had a prolific burglar on my beat, out most nights.he got £4 k off the council as a payout.he didn't commit a crime for 5 months.soon as his money ran out and he needed money for gear he was back thieving.

Could he not have been tagged, so you know where he is during thieving hours. They should be tracked 24/7 as his bag of skag is my £1000+ push bike, hobby and many hours spent at work.

Give them more benefits, enough to fund their smack habits, oh, and a widescreen with Sky+ too, and 24 cans of lager...

TJ - back to your initial posts.
Where do you get that most burglars are smackheads, have you never herd of career criminals this is how they make there living? Note make a living not feed there habit!

I would chop there hands off, but then you would start telling me that they have "RIghts" just like Foxes!

Oh and where do you get all your soap boxes from? 😆

IIRC here in Switzerland they give the drugs away for free. Not entirely sure how it works, pretty sure I can't walk up to one of the clinics after a big night out and demand a spliff to chill for a bit.

but, apart from the shock of drug use being quite open (it's very obvious in Basel around the areas where it is dispensed), there does appear to be a correspondingly, and quite startlingly, low crime rate.

It exists for course, a lot of what does happen gets blamed on French or Germans coming over the border, but it definitely has a hugely positive impact.

There are more things with Swiss society that affect crime than just free drugs, but I would guess it is a major factor.

Kev

Bren - from the research in the journals? From personal experience working in the criminal justice system? From personal experience working with junkies? From the experiences of the likes of Easygirl - an honest copper?

Click on the links.

yes there are career criminals. they are not usually the type to get involved in petty theft, housebreaking and shoplifting. The sort of crimes that blight communities re often done by junkies - 70% is the usually accepted figure. that's not 70% by value but by occurrence.

It's about time we start off-shoring our jails to places like India, would be more of a deterrent and cost a lot less, can't say I'd lose any sleep over the conditions they'd be kept in.

Can't we just dump em on the Falklands. About time we found a use for the place.

We had a prolific burglar on our beat. 13 yrs old. He could squeeze up a drainpipe and would rob all the students blind of their laptops and ithingys. He had a cannabis habit and I reckon was being ripped off by his dealer as he clearly stole more than he got in cannabis. Either that or he just enjoyed it.

Give them more benefits, enough to fund their smack habits, oh, and a widescreen with Sky+ too, and 24 cans of lager...

He could squeeze up a drainpipe

Jebus! He should spend some of his money on food!

FuzzyWuzzy - Member
It's about time we start off-shoring our jails to places like India, would be more of a deterrent and cost a lot less, can't say I'd lose any sleep over the conditions they'd be kept in.

How can it cost £30,000 to keep someone in jail, I'm sure it can be done cheaper - I like the idea of offshoring.

Surely the reason why no Government will ever legalise and tax drugs is that the profits from the manufacture and supply would go to a bunch of raghead farmers who do not wear business suits and do not play golf or belong to a gentlemen's club?

How deeply ingrained in centuries of Scottish society is the manufacture and sale of whisky and the distribution of the profits? How would you create a respectable infrastructure like that overnight in the recreational drugs business?

Rather an over-simplification but I'm sure you get my drift.

I like the idea of offshoring.

We have a long tradition of sending our convicts abroad <waves at psychle>

So lets get this straight..

I'm living in a society where there are a group of people who offer me two options.. they will take my stuff to feed their drug habit unless I pay for their drug habit through my taxes?

I'd prefer to pay for them to be locked up and PROPERLY supervised!

Throw away the key for all I care.

Surely the reason why no Government will ever legalise and tax drugs is that the profits from the manufacture and supply would go to a bunch of raghead farmers who do not wear business suits and do not play golf or belong to a gentlemen's club?

Where do the profits from tobacco go? 🙄

Actually I could have just pointed out the the Government has already legalised and taxed drugs.

I'd like to see the "give-away" approach adopted here - not as a free for all but as a programme for addicts. I'd imagine it would undermine the market for heroin and result in a long term reduction in new addictions. Big_Scot_Nanny, was that the effect in Switzerland, and if so was the criminal activity of the drugs dealers displaced in to something even more harmful?

I'd like to see the "give-away" approach adopted here - not as a free for all but as a programme for addicts.

We already do that, only with dosage-controlled Methadone. Struggling to see what you'd gain from giving free Heroin instead of free Methadone to addicts. It'd thin the herd, perhaps.

I agree pretty much word for word with TJ

petty thefts and housebreaking is done by, in the majority of cases, drug addicts, there are loads of reports out there to back this up, as TJ has posted.

Prison really does means nothing to them.

Career criminals aren't really into robbing houses (as a generalisation) they want money or easily sellable goods (ie cables, lead etc), not second hand TVs that sell for peanuts.

What would 'free' heroin (not legalised but as a treatment option) give that methodone doesn't? Is the 'high' higher with the real stuff?

We have a long tradition of sending our convicts abroad <waves at psychle>

Huh, now you mention it...

Methadone is a poor replacement for heroin. The answer is to have GPs or specialist clinics prescribe heroin to registered addicts while simultaneously working with them on their social, psychological, employment and emotional problems.

There appears to be enough evidence above that burglary could be reduced by treating the underlying drugs problems, and reducing the "need" to steal to fund illegal habits.
At the other end of the scale, there is also evidence that stricter laws and punishment, such as cutting their hands off, is also effective against burglary.
The graph on p28 of this link to a European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control Statistics Report demonstrates the massive difference in burglary rates in the Middle East compared to Western Europe, North America, and Oceana.
http://www.heuni.fi/Satellite?blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobcol=urldata&SSURIapptype=BlobServer&SSURIcontainer=Default&SSURIsession=false&blobkey=id&blobheadervalue1=inline;%20filename=Hakapaino_final_07042010.pdf&SSURIsscontext=Satellite%20Server&blobwhere=1266335656647&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&ssbinary=true&blobheader=application/pdf

So why is burglary not being tackled? Who would lose out? Not the victims, not the police, and with the "treatment option" not the burglars.
Could this lack of political will be anything to do with the insurance industry in this country being worth £250+ Billion per year?

Some people get through their treatment programmes using methodone, many that I've met have not: the treatment plan fails, and the crime continues.

How about giving the junkies training in how to avoid capture when housebreaking. Our courts are full of rubbish criminals whilst our political chambers and media are full of the ones who avoid capture.

Smackheads don't want methodone - they want smack! Methodone is also more addctive ( arguably) and more expensive.

Purely pragmatic - give 'em the smack and then they won't annoy anyone. a junkie with his fix is just dull boring and a waste of space - no active harm.

loum - Got it in one. Insurance industry is a large and powerful lobbying group that probably has interests in making sure that drugs are not legalised and treatment is kept rubbish. Also its about H&S nowadays, if alcohol was "discovered" in the last decade, as well as the automobile, neither would be allowed due to Health & Safety.

elzorillo - Member

So lets get this straight..

I'm living in a society where there are a group of people who offer me two options.. they will take my stuff to feed their drug habit unless I pay for their drug habit through my taxes?

I'd prefer to pay for them to be locked up and PROPERLY supervised!

Throw away the key for all I care.

Its cheaper to just give em the smack

Teh reason why we don't have a more pragmatic approach to this is that politician are terrified of the press on drug issues. See the treatment of Professor Nutt for example for daring to say that actually ecstasy and a cannabis don't do much harm

" millions give to fund junkies lifestyles"

"take smack and get a free holiday"
etcetc

give 'em the smack

Some stuff which is nice and pure so they get a much bigger hit than normal ought to save money in the long run 😈

🙂

There doesn't seem to be a cogent intelectual argument against de-criminalising all narcotics. The biggest losers would be the drug dealers themselves.

Its time we all got off our moral high horses and realised that the so-called war on drugs is already lost.

How much money would the goverment save if the prison population was reduced by 30%?

Giving away Methadone - you ****ing suckers, it has never worked, they just sell it for real Heroin or anything else and then come back for more.

Look at glasgow and see what happens in the Hospitals and Surgeries, its a complete load of shit and everyone involved is making excuses that it works to protect their jobs.

We should just kill them as they are a waste of a life.

We should just kill them as they are a waste of a life.

Try being a bit more subtle 😉

We take a soft touch with the ****s and need to knock **** out of them when caught, forget the courts, just bust their legs and leave them in the streets. plus the sentencing for handling stolen goods needs to be made a lot tougher to stop people thinking its alright to buy stolen goods.

TJ - would not class housebreaking and burglary as petty theft, neither would the victims.

Methadone is a poor replacement for heroin.

How so?

Giving away Methadone - you * suckers, it has never worked, they just sell it for real Heroin or anything else and then come back for more.

Never? Have you got any figures or reports to back that up?

(Incidentally, I'd like to make it clear that I've never sucked any *'s, despite your allegations, though I've drunk XXXX if that helps?)

Look at glasgow and see what happens in the Hospitals and Surgeries,

Unfortunately I can't; would you care to enlighten us as to what happens?

would not class housebreaking and burglary as petty theft, neither would the victims.

Absolutely. You feel violated, and the scars run deep.

How so?

it's not heroin.

i'm not a heroin addict, but a friend of mine is a psychologist working with addicts.

he tried explaining it to me: it only numbs the cravings, it doesn't satisfy them. A heroin addict on methadone is still addicted to heroin.

at least, that's how i understood it.

i say we try giving heroin to addicts, we already give them drug A (methadone), why not give them drug B (heroin)? it would be cheaper than throwing away all those keys (such a waste of good keys), it could stop anyone selling it, so may even stop people getting addicted in the first place.

Cougar - never been violated in anyway and what scars I have are self inflicted.
If I was lucky enough to come across someone trying to or burgaling my property it would be me up in court to give reason to my actions!

Knowing my luck the criminal justice system would hang me out to dry. After all the victims have f*ck all human rights.

Knowing my luck the criminal justice system would hang me out to dry. After all the victims have f*ck all human rights.

Capital punishment is the only solution, the problem we have is the do gooders fighting to say its not fair.

Glasgow is one of the worst places in Europe for Heroin addiction and the clinics there are trying to deal with it by handing out Methadone, but its not worked, the addicts come in get what they can, the doctors are not bothered anymore and just hand out whatever they think is ok to get rid of them.
They then sell it and are back within a day asking for more making excuses that they lost it etc and the doctors cant be arsed so they give them whatever to get rid of them.

This I got first hand as partner was a doctor who worked there basically left as she was disgusted and despite protestations, the NHS isnt interested in dealing with it - but then why should they.

Bad batch would finish them!

elzorillo - Member

So lets get this straight..

I'm living in a society where there are a group of people who offer me two options.. they will take my stuff to feed their drug habit unless I pay for their drug habit through my taxes?

I'd prefer to pay for them to be locked up and PROPERLY supervised!

Throw away the key for all I care.

Unfortunatley this complaint is logically flawed and falls down due the actual facts.

The cost of insurance, cops, drug tratment, drug crime detection, customs, armed forces (in afghan remember the war on drugs?) far outweigh what it would cost to produce and distribute a cheap drug freely to all the idiots who want it. And we would solve the problems in afghanistan in minutes. Here have loads of money, grow poppies for us but don't let the taliban or Al Qaeda in.

I'm with toys19 and TJ on this, where countries have legalized/de criminalised there have been positive reductions in crime (Portugal / Switzerland and small scale experiments here) We have been fighting the "war on drugs" for 30-40 years and got nowhere, isn't it time to try something different? It would probaby reduce crime, the prison population and possibly even the number of addicts. The long term benefits to society could be immeasurable (Taliban finances through opium production affected, safer streets, BILLIONS of ££'s of our taxes saved and put to better use improving society) Why not try it??

I don't really get it. I reckon I could keep ten cons chained up in my cellar for about £1000 a year. Why does it cost £30,000 a person?

I would feed them on bread/water/potatoes and give them a vit pill a day to keep them from getting scurvy. Three strikes for a crime like burglary and it's a 20 year sentence. They could come up from the cellar twice a day to break rocks to be used for road building manually or do some other pointless task. Jobs a good un.

Thats one thing that our American friends know about; nasty jails.

Our problem in society is that we're obsessed with costs. Even if you don't like my idea for victorian chokey, then maybe £30,000 is a good price to keep a cretin off the streets. Worth every penny in all honesty. Lock-em up and throw away the key.

Even if you're goint to stick to this lunatic cost/benefit analysis that we're obssed with, it probably takes 3/4 police officers, a probation officer, a few judges, a barrister for a few hours and tonnes of wasted admin hours for every loony-smackead out of jail who carrys on commiting petty crimes (not to mention the emotional trauma they cause).

to be fair if we compare,sheer volume of police time, life cycle of drug use, criminal damage, long term chronic health issues, cost to the NHS and antisocial behaviour we may as well leave the odd IV drug user out of it and kill/jail/transport all the tossers who enjoy a beer.

Thats one thing that our American friends know about; nasty jails.

and obviously their crime rates are low, and re-offending practically non-existant?

oh...

and obviously their crime rates are low, and re-offending practically non-existant?

Are you trying to say that the ones they have killed have re-offended?

to be fair a lot of them were not guilty in the first place 😯

What is the economic advantage of reducing property crime in a consumerist economy?
The problem is not "how" to reduce burglary, its "why"?
Nacho hits the nail on the head

The long term benefits to society could be immeasurable

Tazzy - its fairly comparable in effects = drunks thump people, junkie nick stereos IME. In terms of reducing burglaries which is where this came from giving junkies smack would stop a huge amount

The harm index thingy is interesting on this. Its as near as we get to objective data

[img] [/img]

to be fair a lot of them were not guilty in the first place

How do you possibly rehabilitate such prolific offenders into society?

Bin them.

No, really. It's nearly impossible to get people to stop using whatever drug it is they need to fund. They'll only stop when they OD.