Bobby Watch Five

Regular readers will have noticed an absence of blogging activity on my part in recent weeks - the result of copious amounts of marking and a serious backlog of writing.  So what have the boys in blue been up to in my absence?

A spot of burglary according to the Exeter Express & Echo who report the Exeter's Police Officers have been identifying "insecure" residential properties and then entering them, collecting up valuable and placing them in a swag bag together with "crime prevention" literature which they kindly leave in the premises. This entirely illegal activity they claim is innocent and designed purely to scare people into improving their home security. 

As well as obvious objections to the police yet again seeing themselves above the law such behaviour could go horribly wrong if they targeted someone like Tony Martin.

Mephedrone & Glue - A tale of two drugs

Mephedrone, plant food and occasional drug is to be banned by Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, on the advice of the Committee of Scientists who are prepared to give politically acceptable advice (AMCD).  This follows reports that Mephedrone may have been related to a number of its users deaths which have whipped up a moral panic with the media demanding action. There have been exceptions to this reporting most notably Edmund Conway in the Daily Telegraph whose article What economics teaches us about drugs  is well worth a read.

The number of deaths attributed to Mephedrone has been estimated as up to 25. None of these are confirmed and it could be that it turns out that none of the deaths were actually caused by the abuse of plant food. However compare this with glue and other solvents. We can still go to any major DIY retailer, supermarket, or even the average corner shop and buy this product. But glue has a number of uses one of which is as a 'legal high'. It does indeed but the only coverage of the alleged 60 deaths a year I can find is on CBBC and that is from 2003!. 

Glue and other solvents of course remains legal. As do the drugs which kill the most: Alcohol and Tobacco.

Hat tip to Mills for the idea and research.
Hat tips to Syncronium for picture - Link to Mephedrone article on that site here

Letter to the Editor of the Birmingham Journal 23 June 1853

I am currently researching the Birmingham Prison Scandal of 1853 and spent last Friday and Saturday looking through the Birmingham Journal of that year.  I came across this letter to the editor

Sir, Will you allow me, through the medium of your columns, to ask for the presence of the police at the upper end of Bath Street, at the hours of twelve noon and four pm. At these hours the children attending St Mary's Schools, Bath Street, and St. Chad's Catholic School, Shadwell Street, are let loose; and it has been their custom since the vacation to meet, to the number of thirty or upwards from each school, and attack each other with brickbats and stones.  The affair has to-day, on both occasions, assumed a very serious aspect, and if not speedily suppressed may necessitate an inquest, as the combatants are not at all particular as to the size of the missiles, and are evidently bent on doing each other mischief.
I am, sir, yours obediently,
William Parkes,
7 Bath Street,

But at least they didn't have any anti-social behaviour!!

If and when I have time I will go back and pull together a selection of the court reports and write something comparing them to those published today.

Michael Foot 1913-2010

"We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer 'To hell with them.' The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do."

Spot the difference

Tesco's current Corporate Page promoting its "responsible" attitude to the sale of alcohol

The same page before it was quoted as evidence against Tesco in their recent court action to be allowed to sell alcohol in one of its Cambridge stores in an area "with known disorder issues".

Tesco and socially irresponsible attitudes to selling alcohol

Tesco's drive to dominate the high street continues. Part of their strategy to achieve this means the promotion of high strength alcohol brands, often at less than cost prices.

Many of its express stores are located in areas where there are problems related to alcohol, particularly steet violence and where they are able to boost sales by targeting the proxy purchasing and pre-loading. The former refers to adults buying alcohol for children, the latter to clubbers getting tank up prior to going out on cheap tesco alcohol.

This week Tesco took Cambridge City Council to court over its refusal to grant them a licence to sell alcohol in their Mill Road store following police objections. this comes in the same week that Diageo, the world's biggest spirits seller is redirecting its marketing budget to supermarkets in an attempt to boast sales. Meanwhile in Leicester, Tesco has been caught out breaking its pledge not to sell high strength largers and ciders in a store in a new store in London Road.  These promises were made to help Tesco overcome objections to its licence application but appear to have been rapidly forgotten once the store was open.

Given this track record I was really pleased to see Tesco has lost its court action in Cambridge.

New Medium, Old Techniques

I was working on a lecture on cyber crime this afternoon and highlighted how spam often plays on people's guilt or insecurities. Nowhere is this more obvious than in offers of penis enlargement, not only a whole industry for spammers but also a sizable real industry providing treatments, potions and contraptions. A Google search demonstrated this with sponsored links, shopping results, videos as well as information from Wikipedia.

The success of this industy I would hazard a guess is a direct result of a sizeable (pun intended) number of men feeling insecure about their natural endowment. The spammers hit a raw nerve!

There is nothing new in this technique.  I recently read Ben Wilson's excellent Decency & Disorder: The age of cant 1789-1837 who told the story of a quack called Samuel Solomon who after purchasing an MD at the age of 20 went onto make his fortune through marketing his cure all wonder drug The Cordial Balm of Gilead. The promoting of this drug was achieved by sales of Solomon's A Guide to Health which went through 66 editions in racking up over 120,000 sales.

To sell the balm for over a quarter of a century only through promotion in his book was an amazing achievement. His success was down to his book's ability to link all known medical conditions to teenage masturbation. As he delicately put it:

Youth of either sex, who have practised a secret and destructive vice, and thereby relaxed, weakened, and debilitated the whole nervous system, will find the Cordial Balm of Gilead the most powerful, certain, and effectual restorative.

He had put his money on the universality of self pleasure and his judgement that when it was diagnosed as the cause his customers would be reluctant to request a second opinion. He made an awful lot of money. He had like today's spammers hit a raw nerve.

UPDATE - Apparently you can buy Balm of Gilead Oil on Amazon for the bargain price of £3 - no mentioning of masturbation - apparently you should

Wear this oil to mend a broken heart, or to attract a new love. Also add 1 drop to red wine for a simple love drink. Burn as a material basis for spirits, and also carry on a tissue for protective and healing purposes.

Well I never

FURTHER UPDATE - Penis Enlargement really does increase the size of your blog readership.  Following me posting this blog late on Sunday, the following Monday saw a record number of visitors in a day. I wonder what else I can do to pump up the size of my readership?

Whose Fraud? What Cheats?

Early this month it was reported that the Labour Party was considering including rewards for people who grassed up  so called "benefit cheats".  They hope this idea will appeal to middle class voters and essentially involves offering (often poor) people cash rewards for spying on and grassing up other poor working class people.  What they are not offering is any reward for exposing tax cheats, planning fraud, safety crimes, corruption or consumer fraud.  These crimes which do far more damage to ordinary people and cost the tax payers billions more than benefit fraud are carried out by powerful people who wouldn't want ordinary people snooping on their cheating and stealing.

I was interested to see in today's times that attempts are being made to target the richest 100,000 people in the country for tax fraud.  However despite these good intentions the article reported that:

• In 2007 four hundred people earned more than £10,000,000. Out of the 400 on 65 paid any tax.

Which makes you understand why these people don't want ordinary people snooping around their very private business. However utilising all the skills developed from my training as a Criminologist I estimate that leave 335 evading tax.  I will report this to the Inland Revenue immediately and hope to soon have my reward.

P.S. For those not familiar with the picture at the top of this blog its graffiti from Stokes Croft in Bristol showing five "benefit cheats" - Harry, Wills, Charlie, Liz and Phil.  (thanks to Bristol Graffiti for the picture)

32 Chief Constables have qualifications in Criminology

A survey by the Police Review of qualifications of Chief Constables shows that 32 have obtained qualifications in criminology since joining the police. 

Only two Stephenson at the Met and Graham in Fife have no degrees.

Not sure what the significance of this beyond it suggesting that 'criminology' is seen of being of use to senior police officers.

Simply the best

...  batsman I every saw play cricket

Whose terrorism? What terror? - Update

I posted a blog Whose terrorism? What terror? on the 20th December 2009 in which I called for readers to write protesting at the treatment of Sunny Nasir Ahmed in HMP Glenochil.  Sunny was being victimised for becoming friends with Mohammed Atif Sadique, a convicted "terrorist".  Sunny's treatment by the prison service demonstrated how prison service racism is trying its hardest to radicalise muslim prisoners.

Last week the Appeal Court in Edinburgh threw out Mohammed Atif Sadique's conviction and set him free declaring his case a miscarriage of justice.  Sunny remains in prison and I suspect will continue to be victimised for his friendship with a man who the prison service still regards a terrorist but who was in fact a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Letters of solidarity to

Sunny Nasir Ahmed,

#61751,
HMP Glenochil
King O'Muir Road
Tullibody
Clackmannanshire
FK10 3AD

The cost of poverty

New research this month shows that people living in the poorest areas of England can expect to suffer about 17 more years of ill health and disability than those in wealthier areas. The research was commissioned by the Government and carried out by Michael Marmot. He correctly points out that tackling health inequalities is a matter of social justice.

I blogged last month about the damage done by poverty and inequality and gave a plug to Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's excellent book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.  This YouTube video plugs the book.  Watch and read the book.





Hat tip Janet Shapiro (via radstats)

Profits from the infliction of pain

Correction Corporation of America (CCA) is the World's largest private operator of prisons. It operates prisons with a capacity to cage over eighty six thousand people. It has a long history of abuse of the prisoners in its custody and of covering it up.  Early this year Arizona Prison Watch reported more abuse by CCA in their state.

This month CCA reported on their accounts for 2009.  In a year where many companies had suffered from the global recession CCA were able to report earners per share up by a massive 12.5%. One of the major threats to their future profits is if America comes to its senses and ends its imprisonment binge.  CCA will resist this by continuing to spend significant sums out of the profits they generate through pain infliction on lobbying for further increases in the use of imprisonment.

OAP hoodies rampage through Lancashire

I saw this story last month in the Lancashire Evening Post - Hundreds of 'OAP hoodies' commit crimes in Lancashire.

It presented the image of a crime plague by elderly yobs. They had discovered that 550 pensioners have been arrested in the past two years with 320 charged. Nigel Evans, a local right wing Tory MP claimed  "The figures will help to explode the myth that anyone over the age of 65 with a bus pass is fine" and John O'Reilly, chairman of Lancashire Police Federation declared "people will be surprised at the number of plus-65 hoodies we have in the county."

The article ends by telling us that Lancashire's Jails have 28 prisoners over 70. To put this in some context Lancashires population has 125,000 people over 70.

Although this journalism is designed to be sensational and distort the reality the rising number of old people being caught up in criminal justice system and ending up in prison is a real concern. The over 60s are the fastest growing group of prisoners. The Prison Reform Website identifies these key facts about Senior prisoners

• On 30 June 2007 there were 2,221 prisoners aged over 60 in England and Wales, including 405 over 70. The number of sentenced prisoners aged 60 and over rose by 169% between 1995 and 2005.
• More than one in ten older prisoners belong to a minority ethnic group, far higher than the proportion of the general population.
• The majority of men in prison aged 60 and over (56%) have committed sex offences. The next highest offence is violence against the person (20%) followed by drug offences (11%).
• In March 2007, the number of prisoners over 60 serving sentences of 1-5 years was 541. 551 were serving sentences of 6-10 years. 749 were serving sentences of over 10 years.
• The number and proportion of men aged over 60 sentenced to prison by the courts has increased significantly. Between 1995 and 2000 the number of elderly males given custodial sentences increased by 55%. In 1995 fines accounted for the majority of sentences (31%). By 2000 imprisonment accounted for the majority of sentences (31%) and fines accounted for 24%.
• The significant rise in the number of male prisoners aged over 60 is not matched by a corresponding rise in the number of men convicted by the courts for indictable offences. Between 1995 and 2000 the number of convictions for this age group increased by only 8%.
• The increase in the elderly prison population is not explained by demographic changes, nor can it be explained by a so-called ‘elderly crime wave’. The increases are due to harsher sentencing policies which have resulted in the courts sending a larger proportion of criminals aged over 60 to prison to serve longer sentences. This has particularly been the case in relation to sex offenders and drug traffickers. The courts are also tending to imprison those older offenders whose crimes most challenge society’s age-related stereotypes.
• A Department of Health study conducted in 1999/2000 of 203 sentenced male prisoners aged 60 and over in 15 establishments in England and Wales (about one-fifth of that total population) reported that 85% had one or more major illnesses reported in their medical records and 83% reported at least one chronic illness or disability when interviewed. The most common illnesses were psychiatric, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and respiratory.
• More than half of all elderly prisoners suffer from a mental disorder. The most common disorder is depression which often emerges as a result of imprisonment.
• In 2003, 21 people aged over 65 died of natural causes whilst in prison.
• Most older prisoners are held more than 50 miles from home, causing particular problems for visitors, many of whom are themselves older people.
• A thematic review of older prisoners by HM Inspectorate of Prisons published in December 2004 found little evidence that their individual needs were being assessed or provision made for them. It concluded ‘Prisons are primarily designed for, and inhabited by, young and able-bodied people; and in general the needs of the old and infirm are not met. A number of academic studies and a report by the Prison Reform Trust and the Centre for Policy on Ageing have also concluded that the health, social care, rehabilitation and resettlement needs of older prisoners are not being satisfactorily met.
• Despite the dramatic rise in the number of elderly prisoners the Home Office has no plans to put in place a separate national strategy for elderly prisoners. The Department of Health is developing a health policy for older prisoners and the Disability Discrimination act (2005) now applies to prison.

Corporal John Moore RIP

This week we heard of more British troops being killed in Afganistan.  When the names were released it turned up that one of the dead soliders was a fellow John Moore.  Even for someone as opposed to the war as me, whose concerns are nornally for the innocent civilians who bear the brunt of the deaths and injuries in this conflict, it was still a chilling feeling to hear a name so close to home being read out.

Fox News doesn't add up

Sniffer Dogs as Tough Love Parenting

Came across this privatised service for parents on the BBC - sniffer dogs to search their kids bedrooms. 

Part of the deal is if they find something they dob your child up to the police.  Thus ensuring not only that they have completely violated their child's trust but that they have also severely damaged their future life by getting them a criminal record.

Utter madness

DNA, eugenics and the future of the 'race'

I belong to a number of mailing lists, one of my favourites is RADSTATS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK the mailing list of Radical Statistics.  This morning a member posted a quote from Havelock Ellis from The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)

Eventually, it seems evident, a general system, whether private or public, whereby all personal facts, biological and mental, normal and morbid, are duly and systematically registered, must become inevitable if we are to have a real guide as to those persons who are most fit, or most unfit to carry on the race.

He was a supporter of eugenics - basically selective breeding of humans. Havelock Ellis writing a century ago could never have dreamed on the potential of the DNA database and computers for registering and controlling populations. 

Tont Blair however was well aware of the potential and strongly argued for everyone to be on the DNA database, dismissing civil liberties complaints with the question 'if you are innocent what have you to fear? There is in fact much to fear and GeneWatch UK are running some excellent campaigns on this topis that I would urge everyone to look at and hopeful support. But surely whatever the problems with the DNA database no-one would seriously argue in the 21st Century for eugenics?

Must blog this I thought and moved onto my next e-mail - the excellent DS Drug News, a daily summary of news concerning drugs- and the second item was a story run by BBC news entitled "Should drug addicts be paid to get sterilised?" detailing a current programme Project Prevention in the US which is paying drug and alcohol addicted women $300 each to get sterilised.

Hat tips to Ted Harding (via RadStats) and DS Daily