Ram-raiding thieves arrested after completely destroying bike shop front and stealing two bikes

alexuk wrote:

The shop owner needs to identify these swine and go find them with a few of his freinds and a lead pipe. The police only take easy convictions, knowing our liberal CPS seldom prosecute these so-called minor crimes. Too much liberal love out there. Some people need hard justice beat down on them in order to change their ways. You lot make me laugh with all your communist cr@p. 

I think you'll find that communist regimes aren't usually soft on crime

And then after they had beaten the criminals up with a lead pipe the criminals' friends could go after them with machetes and then the shop owner's friends could go after them with shotguns and then…you need to learn that what you think sounds proper hard from the safety of the keyboard isn't necessarily the best idea in the real world, Alex.

jimloisdavis [at] gmail.com wrote:

Scumbags. What sort of person thinks it is ok to steal anything? We need to get a grip on crime in the UK

Perhaps they come from a disadvantaged background?

I read an interesting article t'other day, asking whether the apparent increase in criminal behaviour - and antisocial behaviour in general - can be partly blamed on how for the last few years we've seen people in public office constantly breaking 'the rules' to a greater or lesser degree and getting away with it.

The premise of the article was that when we see people in public office breaking the rules and getting away with it, we start to think that it must be fine for US to do the same…

That being said, and I have said it on here myself plenty of times, I do wonder about the mindset of people who will quite happy steal this, that, or the (very expensive) other.

They presumably wouldn't be happy for someone to come and steal all their stuff, so why do they think that it's fine to steal other people's stuff?  Do they genuinely not care, or do they think "Well, the insurance will cover it" so it's victimless, or (in a case like this one) do they think "He owns a shop, he must be loaded"?

brooksby wrote:

I read an interesting article t'other day, asking whether the apparent increase in criminal behaviour - and antisocial behaviour in general - can be partly blamed on how for the last few years we've seen people in public office constantly breaking 'the rules' to a greater or lesser degree and getting away with it.

The premise of the article was that when we see people in public office breaking the rules and getting away with it, we start to think that it must be fine for US to do the same…

That being said, and I have said it on here myself plenty of times, I do wonder about the mindset of people who will quite happy steal this, that, or the (very expensive) other.

They presumably wouldn't be happy for someone to come and steal all their stuff, so why do they think that it's fine to steal other people's stuff?  Do they genuinely not care, or do they think "Well, the insurance will cover it" so it's victimless, or (in a case like this one) do they think "He owns a shop, he must be loaded"?

I think the general attitude is that it's fine and expected for people to exploit other people. Some people get immensely rich by exploiting a work-force and underpaying them just so that they can get richer, so it's just a question of what kind of stealing of resources is considered legal and what isn't.

I doubt that the behaviour of politicians has much impact on whether someone will go out thieving or not, though they might use it as an excuse.

Simpler: our society is set up to facilitate/drive large differences in wealth/ability to do stuff.  That is pretty much a feature of humans!  However it is magnified as we "power up" (level up maybe?) to be able to consume more ( like fresh fruit in winter) or do more.  Those "superpowers" (via "magical" artifacts like cars, smartphones etc.) are then "requirements".

We have hyper-visibility of this via ever faster data exchange.

Those who can't aren't happy.  Also standard! Given inevitable fluctuations in supply and increasing numbers of humans then there are more people who won't "play the game".

Culture changes -  I hypothesize there's also less "acceptance of one's lot" / acceptance of limits (increasingly "you can get it next day / right now" - until you can't) / some "immutable relations" (eg. belief transcendent powers which would always hold you to account or a system which while flawed was a given).

I blame the enlightenment...

It won't be a conscious decision of "oh well, Bojo extorted the public finances to the benefit of him and his cronies, I'll go and mug someone in the park"
It's a wider degredation of the already nebulous sense of community. As @chisonabike has said, there are links between this psychology and late-stage hyper-capitalism.
The philosophy correlation aside, you can't deny the cuts to public services like empowered police officers has enabled the rise in crime like this

Hahaha!  Yes, perhaps if some scrote is stopped for cycling in a pedestrian area or going through a red light they should try the line "yeah, well, just like Brandon Lewis said I'm only breaking the law in a very specific and limited way..."

brooksby wrote:

That being said, and I have said it on here myself plenty of times, I do wonder about the mindset of people who will quite happy steal this, that, or the (very expensive) other.

They presumably wouldn't be happy for someone to come and steal all their stuff, so why do they think that it's fine to steal other people's stuff?  Do they genuinely not care, or do they think "Well, the insurance will cover it" so it's victimless, or (in a case like this one) do they think "He owns a shop, he must be loaded"?

An estimated 2/3 of shoplifting the UK is committed by drug addicts, 70% of burglaries and nearly 50% of homicides, these people aren't thinking of moral justifications, all they are thinking about is how can I get my next fix. Addressing the drug problem with treatment and rehabilitation would do a massive amount to reduce crime, but it's seen by the majority as pandering to people who have created their own problems and so not politically popular.

EraserBike wrote:

Police arrested 2 men and released both... that'll show them

No attempt to stop organised crime from our useless police service.

We don't actually know that those two people had anything to do with it - being arrested isn't proof of guilt. At the very least, there presumably wasn't sufficient evidence (yet) to hold them.