"We cannot and should not pasteurise the streets of this city. They will always be full of life and excitement, but they can be safer, and they will be."
That is a very sound statement, but Mr Johnson, the new Mayor of London, has a brand new crime manifesto. If the voters were specifically concerned with crime, they had a real ex-policeman to choose from. But Brian Paddick came a distant third.
For a Conservative, talking about crime is code for a respect for private possessions, the right to hold accumulated wealth and defence from the unruly. In short, the speaker has no socialist leanings. This posturing is irrelevant in modern London, where we all walk pass the stinking rich and the homeless everyday. A Londoner accepts extreme socialism and extreme capitalism without blinking.
Serious crime in any big city defies prediction and often understanding. It certainly cannot be legislated for by a Mayor. The number of sociopaths attracted to a city dwarfs the size of any organised policing system. Indeed, it probably subsumes any policing system.
What there is left to talk about is anti-social behaviour and marginal crimes. And there is a never ending conversation about how to deal with these. Whatever initiatives the Mayor adds to the list I somehow doubt they will stop some ruffian nicking your bike, picking your pocket or puking on your tube train. And you will be rightly riled when it happens.
Measuring the quality of city life by how long you can go without being touched by crime is pointless. In the same way that measuring happiness by the number of consumer goods you have doesn't really work. Society only advances when large numbers of people live and work close to each other in relative freedom. And so does crime.
Fixing broken lights, cleaning up graffiti (unless its by Banksy of course) and creeping gentrification is how most cities successfully improve themselves. Mr Johnson does have other plans that he will hopefully spend his time on as opposed to confusing the Metropolitan Police any further.
4 comments:
Yes, the sociopaths exist in their own right without having been 'made that way' by society or anything else. You can't police against them; you can only hope to capture them before their first killing turns into a second one.
But the other stuff - which you correctly identify as the anti-social and the marginal - is the stuff that is often not measured (there are no ONS stats on the number of people clearly f-ing and blinding in public for the years since 1997, for example) but which is increasing at such a rate that the texture of our lives (outside of the four walls of our homes) is becoming irredeemably blighted.
But talking about crime is NOT code for respect for private possessions. And respect for private possession is not a political thing anyway: nick a socialist's bicycle or break into his house and he will be as displeased as anybody else. As a conservative (both small 'c' and big 'C') private possessions are only part of the consideration.
The other part is the maintenance of a base level of order, decency and consideration for others. My foul language might be offensive to you, as might my drunkeness, spitting and loud music (I really am an urchin, aren't I?) Why should you be forced to put up with it? Such behaviour should not be tolerated in public because these habits, whilst not criminal, form a backdrop to people's lives outside of their homes.
The question is how to deal with them and here Boris faces a problem. I think some of the low-life behaviour is a result of imported bad habits where an understanding of English reticence and restraint is non-existent.
More, though, I believe our popular culture is the main culprit pushing, as it does, cheap shock, excitement or fascination of people's wrongdoing (eg fly on the wall docs, some of the dramas and so on) and so eroding the taboo against some of the worst excesses. Monkey see, monkey sometimes does but most bad behaviour is hidden and thus does not ever get a chance to look 'normal'.
There's not so much the blond one can do about this...
I'm sure a socialist would miss his bike more :-)
Nice to hear from you Gary, hope your political life is going well. While I'm fairly sure Boris did use crime to complete his "donut" policy to target outer Londons more Conservatve areas, you are right to pull me up for appearing to state that Torys see crime through different eyes.
Today there were two girls on Barons Court station, loudly f-ing and blinding to each other across the tracks. They were young, and they soon ran out of gas. It was unpleasant - but there was nothing threatening about it. I would prefer them to be nudged into better behaviour over time as opposed to be bludgeoned. I would prefer people to accept a little bad behaviour as opposed to expect a peaceful continuum. I don't doubt there are different standards afoot - I simply doubt they are necessarily all pernicious.
While its not a bad thing to stop people drinking on the tube, it would make more sense to simply use posters or similar to point out how others feel about it - which is acually the point.
My feeling is that imposing behaviour by law usually weakens society. A content majority with a few disruptive malcontents seems natural to me.
"My feeling is that imposing behaviour by law usually weakens society. A content majority with a few disruptive malcontents seems natural to me."
I couldn't agree more. Law is a blunt instrument and is imposed on us below by those above. Better that we treat each other with courteousy and consideration because we freely choose to do so than because we're afraid of the consequences of doing otherwise.
That being said, though, those 'few disruptive malcontents' aren't so few anymore and one wonders quite where it will stop.
As mentioned previously, I think our popular culture is saturated with lousy behaviour made to look fun and flashy - and, therefore, attractive and worthy of emulation. Television especially is, I think, a major determinant of behaviour (not the only major determinant but certainly one of just a handful) and its relentless journey into the gutter is dragging a section of our society with it.
That section isn't so small and it's growing up with few examples of good, honourable behaviour to emulate but plenty of superficial, immediately-pleasing (though ultimately empty) examples. Then it raises its own kids and the circle is complete.
We have existing laws for much of the creeping crime we suffer from in London. It doesn't help that punishment barely exists. Indeed, once can shoplift small items with impunity now.
Killing and raping is fine too - people get let out of prison after four or five years after stomping on someone's head until it explodes, but download a document that exists on a non-Muslim's drive and the Muslim will get banged up for decades.
I thought it risible that TfL was complaining about the alcohol ban. They were worried about having to cope. Well, that's what the Transport Police is for, isn't it?
Much crime in London, including knife crime, exists because more and more people realise that CCTV has its limits and that they can get away with pretty much anything.
I would be quite happy seeing Judge Dredd around, but no so sure I'd trust the police.
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