Prospects for Thursday, 31 January
- 31 Jan 08, 10:31 AM
Today's prgramme producer is Simon Enright - here is his early email to the production team. What would you like to see on the programme?
Hello Newsnight colleague or viewer
I'm interested in several stories today:
Who is really in charge in Afghanistan? Several reports out today indicate that the country is in a mess and the military operation is facing a huge challenge. But as any general will tell you, military force can only ever be part of the solution. So who is co-ordinating everything else? Not Paddy Ashdown now. Who should we talk to?
We get crime figures out today - both recorded and British Crime Survey. They are likely to show a fall in crime again. In fact they've shown a fall in crime over the last ten years. But that is NOT the public perception. Why? Are the figures wrong or our perceptions or can, curiously, both be right?
The re-classification of Cannabis will be debated next week. The Joseph Rowntree Trust has got their paper on the issue out early - we have a possible film from Steve Smith on the issue.
Also today the House of Commons will vote on whether to suspend Derek Conway. Is there more on this that we should do?
And other stories?
Shell's record profits? The transcript of the bail hearing which saw Gary Weddell released to murder. Social workers and their ability to take children away from mum and dad.
Let's talk at 10.30 or message below with your thoughts for what we should do.
Simon
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CRIME FIGURES
I am curious to know what all the one-time criminals are doing now. Clearly some are in the expanded prison numbers, but where are the rest? Also, the education statistics suggest we are busy building an underclass, for whom crime is surely the only "earner" of account. I don't know the answer and I am in no doubt government hasn't a clue. From time to time, we are told that, where crime is concerned: "a few do a lot". In that case, i suggest we should not talk of "recorded crime" but of "registered criminals". Ooops - must dash, Human Rights Thought Police at the door.
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It's all gone very quiet re the forthcoming income-tax ( 2p or not 2p )cut.
Given the projected size of this morally and economically corrupt governments' spending defecit over the next couple of years, is there something we should be updated on?
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A couple of issues intrigue me.
Crime - We supposedly have big eared politicians, always wanting to listen to the public. But yet when it comes to crime (and many other issues)we have a quandary for Brown et al.. His beloved figures say one thing but the public another. We have seen at PMQs/press conferences/interviews before that questions on crime are met with standard answers quoting the figures. But with the revelation from Jacqui Smith how long will the politicians be able to ignore the cries from the man and woman in the street that they just don't feel safe!
Shell profits - Fuel prices are high. It is affecting families and businesses alike. The oil company makes record profits in the million拢 per hour area. But the biggest chunk of the price we pay goes to Mr Darling. What a pickle.
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A couple of issues intrigue me.
Crime - We supposedly have big eared politicians, always wanting to listen to the public. But yet when it comes to crime (and many other issues)we have a quandary for Brown et al.. His beloved figures say one thing but the public another. We have seen at PMQs/press conferences/interviews before that questions on crime are met with standard answers quoting the figures. But with the revelation from Jacqui Smith how long will the politicians be able to ignore the cries from the man and woman in the street that they just don't feel safe!
Shell profits - Fuel prices are high. It is affecting families and businesses alike. The oil company makes record profits in the million拢 per hour area. But the biggest chunk of the price we pay goes to Mr Darling. What a pickle.
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Dear Newsnight
my view:-
hard drugs on prescription to those hooked on them, the Police want this but are ignored by people/'simple'crats' who know less than them about the effects of this) but keep canabis illegal as leads to heavy addiction,
unless crimes are committed to pay for cannabis, doubt it?
best wishes
Bob
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Barry (#1) 'Criminogenic behaviour' peaks in the late teens (is largely male), and then declines with age (harder to catch or they get younger ones to do their dirty work - see below). Over recent years, great efforts have been made by the police, the YJB, their YOTs, etc, not to prosecute... allegedly in an effort to not start them off with a bad record... Whilst this has certainly brought down the recorded crime rate under New Labour's watch, one has to ask at what cost to others (e.g. schools and communities) which have to make efforts as part of MAPPA to 'include' the behaviour.
But I agree, asking difficult questions and pressing such concerns is bound to infuriate the Human Rights/Civil Liberties (care in the community) unwitting 'Marxists' who think containment and distraction is far better than social exclusion. To some degree that is true as imprisonment makes little difference, it just takes them out of circulation, usually for a very short period which disrupts their lives in an unhelpful way.
I think it's remarkable that most of the 'care in the community' brigade appears to be predominantly female these days, the precise opposite of the sex of offenders (80% of forensic psychologists are female, as are nearly 70% of probation staff, it used to be the reverse). Female offenders have become more frequent than they used to be through the ready availability of alcohol and to a lesser extent, drugs (alcohol raises testosterone levels from baseline in females much more so than it does in males).
Dare I say it, but the frequency of females in these caring professions is also remarkable given that there are twice as many males with IQs of 120 as there are females.
At the risk of being even more 'discriminatory' (aka scientific), as with ethnicity and crime/educability, it's all a matter of frequencies, and the figures, as you imply, look like they're growing (whether reflected in the recorded crime rate or not, and there are methodological problems with the BCS which I won't go into, but are well known), for reasons which I've given before, and which many others have given, time and time again before me, alas to little or no avail. The big move in recent years is to contain in the community, even though community sentences don't work. It isn't hard to see why that has happened...over-crowding and cost.
We appear to have a hopelessly romantic faith in 'environmentalism' which comes down to hubrism (or just plain stupidity I fear). The alternative is so politically incorrect that it's dismissed without a thought. Until this changes, this problem will grow and grow until we have scenes in our inner cities like those we've seen in Kenya, Pakistan etc, by which time it will be too late as we won't have the human capital/resources.
The solution is surely to acknowledge cognitive diversity for what it is, and to accommodate it rather than to try to change it? The only way to do the latter is through changing the gene pool, and one can't do that in a generation or so, even if it were legally viable (or desirable) to do so. It's not viable in the EU anyway, the laws proscribe it.
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Spelling, 大象传媒! The country is Colombia. I live in British Columbia -- South America vs North America.
Canada's Harper is now debating role in Afghanistan and is stationed in the most volatile/dangerous area.
What a travesty that we're being told what a great job we're doing and to stay when poppy-growing is back to previous levels (and it is reported Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium now after the Taliban had nearly eradicated it), and the Taliban are coming back.
Why does the West insult other peoples by assuming they're making things better.
Any help shd be social/medical/educational.
Any forces shd include Muslim foreces -- don't they want to help their brethren?
Or is this a cover for more control of oil and gas by Western interests with an altruistic transparent veil.
?
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