Buck-passing?

Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, has recently complained that many peoples lives are made miserable because the courts do not deal adequately with low-level offenders. Many of these offenders are serial offenders, and blighting local communities.

These offenders are not facing proper justice, he claims, a view held held by a large percentage of the population.

Could this be the police who do not turn out when such crimes are reported, and so people do not bother to report them and merely live in hell and frustration?

It may be that the courts have no sanctions. ASBOs have not worked, despite countless changes, and even community service has seen offenders fail to turn up for all stipulated sessions.

The Tory variation is to give instant punishment, such as grounding orders. They have little money, so fining offenders is pointless as they will merely turn to burglary or drug pushing to re-fill their coffers.

As I have blogged before, it is too late by the time the offenders reach 14. They have already run wild at school, where discipline is undermined by weak local government who merely send those excluded back to school, the same or another, with little other sanction. Even keeping them out of school is no punishment, since they are determined educational failures

The problem has to be tackled much earlier at primary level, where early failure receives remedial inputs, or even in the family!