London Riots Aftermaths: My Thoughts on Sentencing

I'm not even sure if this post is still necessary, seeing as from what I can gather, most people seem to be coming around to the view that maybe sending someone off to jail for half a year for nicking a bottle of water during the London riots is a bit over the top and not a great way of demonstrating that our justice system is fairer and less random and repressive than, say, Iran's.

On a side-note: I am preparing a much longer post about my general thoughts about the riots, their background and causes, but for the purposes of this, let's assume that we believe that those involved in the riots are to some degree responsible for their actions, that they chose to engage in random looting of their neighbours' corner shops, and that we wish for the criminal justice system to respond to this in some way.

Let's be a bit less emotional for a second and look at what we're trying to achieve here.

Are we trying to dissuade current and/or potential future rioters from engaging in this behaviour?

There is a very simple reason why higher sentences won't work:

People who commit crimes generally do not expect to get caught. They think they're the clever ones who'll get away with it; everyone else is the dumb suckers who will get arrested. Nobody, repeat, nobody, commits a crime in the expectation that they will get nicked for it.
This is the main reason why murder rates are not lower in countries where capital punishment still exists.

Or are we wishing in a more general sense to see justice be done?

If so, we're currently getting it wrong. We are throwing any semblance of "let the punishment fit the crime", one of the guiding principles of British law since the Magna Carta, out of the window here.
Right now, someone stealing a bottle of water is going to prison for the same amount of time as if they had engaged in a common assault (assuming no previous convictions or aggravating circumstance).
Do not tell me you believe that's proportional. If you genuinely think this, you are deluding yourself.

At one time, during the great (and completely non-existent, outside the media frenzy of that period) crime wave of the late 1700s, more than 180 crimes carried the sentence of capital punishment in this country, including, and this is my favourite, "Interfering with the Walls of an Artificial Fish Pond in a Way that allows the Fishes to Escape".
From our present perspective, that's ridiculous. And wrong.
Let me assure you that sending someone with no previous convictions off to prison for 6 months for stealing a bottle of water is just as disproportionate, and frankly idiotic.

Do you want to send the message that assaulting someone is only as bad as stealing a bottle of water? I know I don't.

Finally, let's look at costs. Most of the rioters are teenagers, and it costs roughly £140,000 per year to lock a minor up.

Do the maths. About 1,500 arrests have been made across the UK, let's say in the current climate about 90% of those will lead to convictions, and current convictions for participation in the riots average about a year in prison.

That's nearly £200M of tax payer's money.

There will be more cuts to finance this nonsense.

Cuts to your schools, hospitals, social services.

Is your knee-jerk wish for the courts to show them rioters worth that much to you? Really? Nope, I didn't think so.

Open letter to Brompton Cycles

Dear Brompton,

ever since buying one of your fantastically designed folding bicycles more than two years ago, I have become a total convert. I have recommended your products to anyone who would listen, despite them being a bit on the pricey side.

I have, however, criticised the build quality of your smaller accessories on occasion, e.g. your flimsy plastic chainring guard which interferes with the folding mechanism and breaks every 4-6 weeks as a result, and your totally non-waterproof rear light which stopped working after the the first two rainy days.

It is this rear light I want to talk to you about today.

As it stopped working ages ago, I was not worried when I lost it while going round a bent this morning (no idea how it came lose in the first place, but I guess we'll never know).

Imagine my surprise when I found that this flimsy excuse for bicycle lighting doubled as an essential spacer for parts of the folding mechanism, meaning that without it, the bike does not stay folded.

Really? A folding mechanism on a state-of-the-art bicycle depends on the presence and exact positioning of a crappy, overpriced rear light?

Get real, seriously. Back to the drawing board for you.