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Comment by nickdothutton

8 days ago

Politicians have not taken action on a wide spectrum of problems (some of which are crime related, other problems in society below the level of crime) for many decades now. While the economy is good, this doesn't occupy the mind of the public too much, life is OK. Now that the economy is not good, and has not been good since at least 2008, the public has begun to notice these things. The public has even started to notice domestic opinion management (nudge unit, 77th Brigade etc). Passing this sort of "manage the symptom not the cause" legislation has become popular. It's easier to do than deal with the cause, it pushes the actions onto 3rd parties, and superficially it sounds good to the general public. At least for a while. To get an idea of how "off target" the state itself is in managing serious crimes look no further than [1] (warning, pretty grim story, but very typical).

[1]. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg87yvq529o

Edited for typo.

2 comments

nickdothutton

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pjc50  8 days ago

Crime has, despite everything, gradually been falling. Scotland has a 100% murder clearup rate for the past several years.

The incident you mentioned is yet another piece of fallout from Rochdale, but if you look closely the offences mentioned are from 20 years ago. I don't think that should be used to talk about the present. There is a lot more safeguarding these days.

The main negative factor is the press, responsible for both "opinion management", doomerism, and sensationalist demands to Do Something in a way that doesn't help. The Online Safety Act and Brexit are both victories for the Daily Mail that are losses for the rest of the public.