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January 12, 2008 10:24am by David Farrar

42 days jail for tagging

A tagger has been given a 42 day jail sentence for his vandalism.

I suspect tagging in Gisborne is about to become less frequent.

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Lee C

Kahui still out on bail though?
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January 12, 2008 10:29am
Graeme Edgeler

Of course – unlike the tagger, he hasn’t been convicted of anything.
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January 12, 2008 10:33am
Lee C

But you could argue breaking his bail conditions might come close?
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January 12, 2008 10:34am
Mr Nobody NZ

I understand and agree with the sentiments Lee however Kahui still is “innocent till proven guilty”, however what a wonderful judge. Lets hope more Judges look at the example set by Judge Adeane in both the district and youth courts and start making offenders truly responsible for their actions.
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January 12, 2008 10:35am
Murray

Yay, at last an island of common sense in a sea of PC denial.
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January 12, 2008 10:37am
PhilBest

Guiliani and the “broken windows” approach to policing in New York WORKED. Good stuff.

But for the crims who’ve been let go for too long, the only course is their removal from society. Listen to the victims.
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January 12, 2008 10:38am
pdm

Was it Judge Tony A’Deane? Gisborne may well be part of his circuit and as he used to live there it may have been a rellies property that was tagged.
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January 12, 2008 10:39am
Lee C

Ok you got me. I shot from the lip. But my sentiments were as much an expression of frustration at the apparent lack of consistency I feel is attached to how criminals/those accused of crime are treated.
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January 12, 2008 10:40am
Andrew W

Yay, it’s dumb that the justice system is usually such a joke, unfortunately the sentence will probably be quashed on appeal, and the judge censured.
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January 12, 2008 10:44am
Lee C

yup phil, I liked the philosophy behind Guiliani’s zero-tolerance approach but it would be useful to us only it were to be applied everywhere here in NZ. This brings us to issues like the courts being under-staffed, the police being under-funded and the jails being over-full.

Cue the alt. view: – so I thought I’d save them the time:

It’s all here in this link:

http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/krupke.html
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January 12, 2008 10:46am
Graeme Edgeler

But you could argue breaking his bail conditions might come close?

Absolutely.

He was arrested for these breaches, and spent time in prison – much more time than most people get for relatively minor breaches of bail conditions.
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January 12, 2008 10:51am
Lee C

I guess I don’t understand the point of Bail. I will have to do a little reading about it evidently.
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January 12, 2008 10:54am
Danyl Mclauchlan

I liked the philosophy behind Guiliani’s zero-tolerance approach but it would be useful to us only it were to be applied everywhere here in NZ.

I don’t know – Guiliani’s policies worked so well in New York they even reduced crime rates in hundreds of other cities all across the US that weren’t implementing his policies.
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January 12, 2008 10:56am
Danyl Mclauchlan

I guess I don’t understand the point of Bail.

You are mistakenly arrested for murder, thrown in prison and charged. The court case will be in six months time. If you don’t show up for work on Monday you won’t be able to pay your mortgage and your family will be out on the street.

Now do you get the point of bail?
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January 12, 2008 10:58am
Seamonkey Madness

The guy was a 31-year-old.
A 31-year-old tagger! Jiminy Cricket!!
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January 12, 2008 11:01am
Graeme Edgeler

I will have to do a little reading about it evidently.

The site appears to be down at the moment, but I wrote a “Speaker” piece for Public Address (November, I think) looking at the rationale behind bail and how it’s supposed to work in practice. I don’t usually pump my own musings, but if you’re serious, you could take a look at that once PA’s back working…
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January 12, 2008 11:05am
Lee C

Danyl yeah get that. Thanks for the clarification.
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January 12, 2008 11:14am
Lee C

yes Graeme I will. thnx
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January 12, 2008 11:14am
reid

Bail is fine, it’s parole that should be abolished.
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January 12, 2008 11:15am
Lee C

he guy was a 31-year-old.
A 31-year-old tagger! Jiminy Cricket!!

He was just keepin it real – down with the kids – in the ‘hood. I think jail is going to be a bit of an eye-opener for him. I hope for his sake he isn’t good-looking.
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January 12, 2008 11:19am
BeShakey

Reid – if you want to reduce crime then abolishing parole is an awful idea. If on the other hand you want to increase the likelihood of people offending again once they get released, you should go for it. It’s always odd that the right go on about being ‘tough on crime’ but are often committed to policies that demonstrably increase it. I guess you need to make sure there is enough crime to be tough on.
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January 12, 2008 11:39am
Redbaiter

“Reid – if you want to reduce crime then abolishing parole is an awful idea.”

Gawd, you commies will tell any lies to justify your sick bleeding heart compassion for criminals won’t you? You parole supporters and advocates have the blood of scores of innocent NZers on your hands. The parole board should be jailed for rank incompetence and criminal negligence.

Keep the bastards locked up, take away their plasma TVs and make them break rocks. Triple current jail sentences for first offences and then double and triple for subsequent offending. Three strikes and you’re away for ten twenty of thirty years depending on the severity. Death penalty for murder with strong conviction.

The soft on crime fraternity needs to stop its constant lying about tough justice. That’s what will do the most to increase public safety.
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January 12, 2008 11:48am
Redbaiter

Of course the real way to reduce the incidence of crime is to reject the amoral religion of socialism.
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January 12, 2008 11:50am
reid

BeShakey, crime will reduce when and only when the system reflects society’s attitude that requires people to take personal responsibility for their actions. At the moment the system is geared toward benevolence in the mistaken belief that people will respond to that. They haven’t yet, and they won’t, since as Greg Newbold says, many crims simply don’t want to change. Therefore what we see today is exactly what we should expect to see, which is that people take advantage of that benevolence and literally give us and the system the fingers.

Please don’t imagine I’m advocating a return to Dickensianism, I’m not. What I’m suggesting is that we use the 21st century’s tools especially psychology, jurisprudence and criminology, in a way that realistically reflects what common sense and actual observation bears out.

Some people will respond to benevolence, many palpably don’t. Deal with it. You don’t have to brutal, that would be wrong, just be strict, spartan and be intelligent about the conditions you impose. Simply having freedom denied is not working for some people, and never will. Parole is not a right it’s a privilage, and by denying it in all cases, and making people serve their full sentences, you send a signal that there’s a new game in town.
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January 12, 2008 11:51am
Policy Parrot

“Of course the real way to reduce the incidence of crime is to reject the amoral religion of socialism.”

Sure. That’s why Scandanavia has the lowest prison population per head around 50 per 100,000, and low crime.

While in the U.S. the chief proponent of tough justice, the bane of socialism, the imprisonment rate is higher than Russia’s under communism and South Africa’s under Apartheid (both of which are lower now).

I don’t have a problem with tough justice, just inflammatory comments that has no basis in fact.
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January 12, 2008 11:56am
reid

Scandanavia has a highly educated population. Maybe that has something to do with their low crime rate. I imagine they have a fairly low incidence of criminal parents who had criminal parents. Maybe by looking specifically at that 5% who commit the majority of crime we might get somewhere. But socialism doesn’t allow us to do that because that would be wrong. What a fundamental mistake that is.
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January 12, 2008 12:00pm
Redbaiter

“Maybe that has something to do with their low crime rate.”

Its not that low.
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January 12, 2008 12:04pm
BeShakey

Reid – while it would be good to have a system that reflected society’s attitude there are going to be problems. Firstly, figuring out what it is, not impossible, but difficult. Secondly, and more importantly, figuring out what to do when there is a clash between society’s attitude, and things that have been proven to work – like parole. To be clear – my position isn’t that everyone should get parole, or that we should have parole rather than using other measures that have also been shown to work (psychology, health (particularly drug and alcohol) services etc). My position also isn’t that we should give people parole because its a nice thing to do and will make them happy. I think parole is good because it can help people who have been in jail ‘acclimatise’ (for lack of a better word) to being a part of society again. There are numerous studies showing that parole has a positive impact on rates of reoffending (obviously it is a complex area as there will be various complicating factors, but if you look at the studies overall its a reasonable conclusion). I’m supportive of measures that will reduce reoffending rates, unfortunately some sectors of society have a perception that doing things for prisoners that have a beneficial effect on recidivism is being soft on crime. I see it as being pretty much the opposite.

In terms of Scandanavia, I suspect there would be comparable countries educationally. The low incidence of multi-generational criminals can’t be used to explain the low crime rate. Of course a society where there are few criminals would also have few incidents of multiple generations of criminals, the question is what led to that in the first place.

Lastly (long post I know) I have no problem with looking at the 5%. I think my political position isn’t socialism, but if you call the left wing generally socialists I obviously am. I can’t see any reason socialism prohibits such a question being asked.
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January 12, 2008 12:16pm
BeShakey

Given your recent work red I don’t think it will often be worth replying to you, but when you lie I will.

Murder rates in the 2000’s (per 100,000 population):

Norway: 0.78
Sweden: 2.39
Denmark: 0.79

It’d be interesting to know what has lead to Sweden being so different. But regardless, the rate for Denmark and Norway is very very low.

For reference:

New Zealand: 1.29
Australia: 1.28
England and Wales: 1.62
Canada: 1.85
US: 5.9
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January 12, 2008 12:28pm
Redbaiter

Look, its Saturday, and I really do not have the time to bandy words with socialist dogmatists. Here, as succinctly as possible, is the basis for my claim that socialism is one of the root causes of crime-

Sure, the Scandinavian countries have social welfare. In general they can almost afford it, although bludging indolent (as they have become as they have been seduced by socialism) Norwegians will be in for one rude shock when their oil reserves disappear. However, they stand not as testament to the success of social welfare in reducing crime. Rather the opposite. In spite of massive welfare systems, these countries in reality still have extremely high crime rates. Given the extent of social welfare in those countries, shouldn’t crime have almost vanished??? Like how much fucken welfare do you people need to stop burglary etc???

Crime is much much lower in structured Singapore, where there is very little social welfare but harsh punishment for criminals.

End of argument.
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January 12, 2008 12:29pm
reid

BeShakey, I agree you need to acclimatise people toward the end of their sentences, I just don’t think you need to do that with the mechanism of parole.

I have wondered about having a two-phase approach. Phase one is punishment, with spartan conditions, some form of work is required, if they refuse to work, they don’t get that day deducted from their sentence and they stay inside till they complete the full number of days the court sentenced them to. Phase two is acclimatisation, which runs similar programs to today, except there is huge emphasis placed on what happens to them when their sentence is over, especially concerning ways to remove them from the conditions which prevailed when they committed the crime. The prison system has lost respect in society mainly because their policies haven’t worked. Perhaps if they changed their approach and explained the rationales to the public, the public might change their attitude toward employing offenders.

The key point I guess is that as in most things in life, you need to be open to looking at what’s working and what’s not, and have a mindset that if something’s not working, to change it and be prepared to consider all options when doing so. At present, both the prison service and the justice system is not open to this approach but rather they simply appear to look for new ways to justify their palpable failure.
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January 12, 2008 12:39pm
Redbaiter

“While in the U.S. the chief proponent of tough justice, the bane of socialism,”

Just lies.. lies lies lies, its all you commies ever have…
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January 12, 2008 12:41pm
roger nome

“Crime is much much lower in structured Singapore, where there is very little social welfare but harsh punishment for criminals.

End of argument.”

Here’s an alternative take on the issue of crime and income redistribution, replete with facts and figures, oops, I mean “socialist dogma”.

http://rogernome.blogspot.com/2007/11/link-between-imprisonment-rates-and.html
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January 12, 2008 12:52pm
BeShakey

Reid – My main focus is on reducing crime, so (within reason) I wouldn’t have a problem with the general approach you outlined provided it could be shown to do that. I agree with you that one key problem is that the justice agencies (Ministry of Justice, Corrections Dept etc) and the government, haven’t done a good job conveying to the public the intent behind what they are doing. I think this is made harder by people like Garth McVicar and the unwarrented attention he gets, and the medias focus on when things go wrong. Clearly there have been some mistakes, but I’m not convinced that all cases of someone on parole committing a crime are a mistake (in the sense that the policy was wrong). To figure it out you need to compare recidivism rates with and without a parole system. The fact that the recidivism rate with a parole system isn’t 0, doesn’t mean the policy is a mistake, its a mistake if the rate is higher than if we didn’t have parole. Obviously there are other ways of doing things beyond these and we should look at them on the same basis.
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January 12, 2008 12:54pm
reid

Perhaps you’re right BeShakey, maybe parole as a tool shouldn’t be disgarded completely, although we both seem to be saying that the way it’s used needs to be re-examined.

roger nome I repeat the same question I asked on a previous thread, how is it that if there are two people who are in exactly similar socio-economic conditions, one will commit crime and the other won’t?

The answer of course is attitude, and that is free. The answer is not wealth redistribution but attitude adjustment.

The problem I have with socialists is they appear to treat people as mere automatons who are driven by social conditions and therefore the way to change them is by changing their conditions. Their astute use of propaganda (not usually discussed or admitted), is the only tool through which they acknowledge the fact that free thought processes are the real drivers of human behaviour. The fact they never admit doing that is an example of how underhand and evil the smart ones really are. Many socialists, like the Greens for example, aren’t evil, simply deluded.

The self-righteousness of some of the dumber socialists, seems to lead them to imagine they’re doing it for the good of humanity, and so they disregard the cost to society of imposing artificial mechanisms such as wealth-redistribution which damages economic efficiency. The smart ones of course know what they’re really doing and they have a larger mission in mind. Google the Fabians for example.

Ultimately, the unbreakable force of human freedom breaks through the bonds of socialist power, viz the lessons from Soviet Russia which collapsed because of the cynicism created by its socialist masters. What a terrible waste of time, effort and human life resulted from that socialist experiment.
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January 12, 2008 1:22pm
BeShakey

“how is it that if there are two people who are in exactly similar socio-economic conditions, one will commit crime and the other won’t?”. Obviously there are various situations that are associated with an increased likelihood of crime, the fact that not everyone who, for instance, is in a particular socio-economic situation commits crime, doesn’t negate the importance of addressing socio-economic (and other) factors that increase the likelihood of someone committing crime. I, for one, don’t think socio-economic conditions are the sole cause of crime. I suspect that for the foreseeable future there will always be people who will commit crimes, nonetheless addressing socio-economic factors will reduce the number.
In terms of your socialist rant, I think you’ll find Russia was a communist country, many here don’t seem to realise there is a difference. If you look around I think you will find a large number of successful countries operating under socialist conditions (I’m using ‘socialist’ in the way you did, ie NZ isn’t really a socialist country, but you called it one so I assume you are using a very broad definition of socialism).
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January 12, 2008 1:42pm
roger nome

“roger nome I repeat the same question I asked on a previous thread, how is it that if there are two people who are in exactly similar socio-economic conditions, one will commit crime and the other won’t?”

Reid – to be honest I’m more interested in reducing crime than setting people up to fail, then punishing them. Blaming the victim is a fruitless exercise and achieves nothing. Tackling the root of crime (i.e. social and economic deprivation) is an effective and pragmatic approach to take, which is why I advocate it.
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January 12, 2008 2:00pm
reid

Russia was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics BeShakey. IMO you can see in NZ examples of the same social engineering mechanisms that they used over there. Ever wondered why Lange appointed himself Minister of Education for example. He knew the levers.
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January 12, 2008 2:05pm
Mr Nobody NZ

Danyl Mclauchlan Said:
You are mistakenly arrested for murder, thrown in prison and charged. The court case will be in six months time. If you don’t show up for work on Monday you won’t be able to pay your mortgage and your family will be out on the street.

I agree with you however there does seem to be a method of getting rid of Parole which nobody mentions……increase the speed of the justice system.

People shouldn’t be arrested and charged with a crime unless the Police are ready and prepared to take it to court. At present this doesn’t always seem to be the case, however if it was and:
1) the justice system was equipped to hear the case within 24-48 hours of arrest
2) law was passed that a job must be left open for a person until the end of a trial or convicted (I’m thinking something along the lines of the one TF defence personal have to protect their employment if deployed overseas).
3) Innocent people are compensated for their lost time at a rate equal to their usual rate of pay.

The end result is guilty offenders aren’t released into the community, innocent people caught up in the justice system aren’t unfairly penalised and justice moves along swifter.

A definite increase in justice resource required but a possible solution. One easy starting point could be the introduction of night courts as found overseas to deal with district court crimes like drunk and disorderly, urinating in a public place, vandalism, fighting at time of arrest.
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January 12, 2008 2:25pm
tim barclay

You will cut crime substantually if you could stop alcohol abuse. I do not drink and always voted for prohibition when I had the chance. I do not know the answer I really don’t, but strident approaches with sentencing will not do much at all except turn this country into a police state and we will all suffer. But alcohol abuse should be clamped down, and I am quite prepared to take very very stern measures there.
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January 12, 2008 2:37pm
BeShakey

Nonetheless Reid, it is usually considered to be a communist country, rather than socialist. It’s an academic point though, in the context of this debate.

I’d be interested to hear about these social engineering mechanisms though.

The PM before Lange also held the Finance portfolio, so it wasn’t unusual for the PM to hold something significant. Lange chose education because it interested him. I’m sure you would be complaining just as much if he had chosen something else.
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January 12, 2008 2:40pm
goodgod

Tim Barcley…

Why Tim why, why did you have to say that?! Now we will get all the boneheads within a 10,000 Kb radius telling us all that… “prohibition doesn’t work”. Don’t you understand that only total loss of control leads to utopia?

Why… why did you do it?
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January 12, 2008 2:48pm
tim barclay

These stern measures could include making it UNLAWFUL for a person to have more than 1000 on a breath test. (that is clearly intoxicated) For that person to be arrested, placed overnight in custody and Ordered to undertake an alcohol, assessment. Repeated breaches (say a 3rd) will involve the person being sentenced to community detention and ordered to undergo abstention from alcohol, confiscation of all alcohol and must undertake counselling for alcohol abuse.
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January 12, 2008 2:49pm
tim barclay

Goodgod I realise prohibition has problems. Booze culture is well entrenced in our society. But a very severe clamp-down on alcohol abuse should be implemented.
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January 12, 2008 2:56pm
roger nome

“You will cut crime substantually if you could stop alcohol abuse.”

Absolutely. Not sure how you police people’s consumption of alcohol though. i.e. do you have police randomly busting into people’s homes to see if they’re drunk?

A better way to address alcohol abuse IMHO would be to take a proactive approach rather than a reactive approach. Look at the factors that have lead to our binge-drinking culture – i.e. second longest working hours in the OECD = stress = substance abuse. Income inequality creates greater levels of despondency amongst poor = substance abuse, etc ….
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January 12, 2008 3:29pm
Shawn

“Guiliani’s policies worked so well in New York they even reduced crime rates in hundreds of other cities all across the US that weren’t implementing his policies.”

Actually many of those cities did implement similar policies under different names.

As to Scandanavia, one of the true but politically incorrect facts is that until recently Scandanavian nations had ethnically and culturally homogeneous populations. The US on the other hand has undergone rapid demographic and cultural change since the 1960’s with virtually uncontrolled immigration and an effectively open border with Mexico. I know people living in Texas, and the crime there is being driven largely by illegal immigrants and Mexican drug gangs.

And crime has begun to rise in Sweden, Germany and especially in Denmark since those countries began importing large numbers of Muslims.

Nations with a unified and shared cultural and national identity naturally have less crime. Welfare spending has little if anything to do with it. If it did NZ would be a crime free paradise. Violent crime has risen in NZ at the same time that the Clark regime has thrown vast sums of money at welfare.
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January 12, 2008 3:44pm
goodgod

Socialism cures alcohol abuse? haha Now I’ve heard it all.
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January 12, 2008 3:47pm
BeShakey

I’m generally in favour of the idea of using taxes to ensure people are charged the full cost of their activities. Although some on the right hate this, it is in many ways a right wing idea. Unfortunately it is tough to do with alcohol – I drink, but not to excess, and I suspect the cost of my drinking (through crime, health costs etc) is probably negligible or negative (given the various studies correlating moderate drinking with improved health). So should I (and the numerous others in the same situation) be charged extra to cover the general costs of alcohol, or should there be some other way of charging? It’s tough, but I think it is worth looking further at whether some kind of market based mechanism that made people pay the full costs of these activities would be a good step in addressing the issue.
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January 12, 2008 3:49pm
Shawn

Oops, should be Scandinvia sorry.
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January 12, 2008 4:10pm
Shawn

“I’m generally in favour of the idea of using taxes to ensure people are charged the full cost of their activities.”

I agree.

Much of the NZ Right is essentially Liberal and hence hardly worth voting for.
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January 12, 2008 4:12pm
BeShakey

Shawn – some interesting points, but a touch misleading to point out that violent crime has risen under Clark. It has, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Most crime rates have been declining, the clear problem areas being youth crime and violent crime.
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January 12, 2008 4:21pm
Rex Widerstrom

Mr Nobody recommends some sweeping reforms to the NZ “justice” system and then concludes with:

The end result is guilty offenders aren’t released into the community, innocent people caught up in the justice system aren’t unfairly penalised and justice moves along swifter.

Thank you for acknowledging the flip side to the corrupt* justice system we have at present – not only do the guilty walk free but the innocent suffer.

Your solutions are all sound but I think you’ve overlooked one important aspect of reform – accountability. When a police officer or prosecutor makes a decision to arrest someone and charge them, and then to keep pressing the case, they are knowingly damaging and quite possibly destroying at least parts of that person’s life regardless of whether or not a not guilty verdict is eventually delivered.

Yet they regularly take the decision – and clog up the courts – to proceed with prosecutions which are highly unlikely to be winnable. This is due to a range of factors:
– personal animosity toward the person arrested, either on their own behalf or that of another officer. Annoy one cop, you annoy them all.
– the fact that even a small percentage of wrongful convictions still adds to the “wins” on their record and thus their chances of promotion.
– the fact that an arrest counts as “clearance” of the crime even if months later the arrested person is found not guilty. Rarely is a case re-opened in these circumstances, the attitude being that the arrested person “got away with it” not that the real guilty party is still out there.
– and of course, incompetence.

Yet while the wrongfully charged person struggles to pick up the pieces of their life the people responsible for destroying it sail on unchallenged, never being held responsible.
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January 12, 2008 4:31pm
Rex Widerstrom

* I mean corrupt in the sense of ‘decayed, decrepit and useless”, not in an accusatory sense.
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January 12, 2008 4:32pm
BeShakey

Rex – what is the ratio of not guilty to guilty verdicts? (Thats a genuine question I’m not trying to attack your position, but I think it would provide some useful context for your claims).

You claim that police officers “regularly take the decision – and clog up the courts – to proceed with prosecutions which are highly unlikely to be winnable” and you cite as a factor for this “the fact that even a small percentage of wrongful convictions still adds to the “wins” on their record and thus their chances of promotion.” That sounds contradictory. They regularly take cases they can’t win, but only get a small number of wrongful convictions? Surely regularly taking cases you can’t win (and therefore presumably don’t win) would look pretty bad on your record when it came to promotion time?
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January 12, 2008 4:41pm
baxter

Be Shakey…I think you are in a dream world,the overwhelming majority of those on parole have been in the same situation several times before ,they have rap sheets with scores of previous convictions. The only ones who might reform are the odd serious fraudster or thief or provoked domestic offender who committed a serious assault, they weren’t inherently bad in the first place the rest were.. As for bail its become a joke and an open invitation to continue offending and imtimidating witnesses. Whatever happened to bonds and cash sureties.
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January 12, 2008 4:47pm
BeShakey

Baxter – do you have any facts to back that up? Exactly who are the ‘inherently bad’ criminals and how are they identified? What is the rate of offending (not violating bail conditions since that isn’t what you claimed) on bail, and how many of those offences are intimidating a witness?
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January 12, 2008 4:58pm
tim barclay

Why is it soclialists can only come up with taxes to solve a problem. We already have excise taxes on alcohol. Why the Labour Government even increased the sherry tax but did very little about RTD’s which contribute more to alcohol abuse.
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January 12, 2008 5:02pm
Shane Phillips

We finally have an idiot serving the time that is quite rightly deserved. If only all other like minded people who have been caught were sentenced to time which actually makes them think twice.
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January 12, 2008 5:03pm
BeShakey

Tim – the suggestion I made is to use the market to address an issue. It involves ensuring that consumers are sent price signals by the market so that they can make more rational choices about their actions. If you can’t understand the difference between that and socialism you shouldn’t bother commenting.
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January 12, 2008 5:39pm
tim barclay

I understand it very well but what you are doing is creating an artificial market through taxes. Making something slightly more expensive does not really deal with the problem of alcohol abuse. It might at the margins reduce consumption. In any event we have had taxes on alcohol for over 100 years and alcohol abuse continues.
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January 12, 2008 5:59pm
BeShakey

Creating markets is usually seen as a fundamental component of many right wing ideologies, its not usually seen as socialism.

I agree that slight price increases won’t deal with the issue/s of alcohol abuse. It isn’t obvious to me that paying the full costs of alcohol abuse would require a slight increase (I’ve already stated the mechanism would be complex, and obviously the exact mechanism would impact on the price increase). Nor did I say that it would solve the problem, I think that other steps should also be taken. For one, it relies on people acting rationally, and people who have an addiction don’t usually act rationally in relation to the addiction. However, it would address some aspects of the problem e.g. me subsidising the health care of a teen who has gone on a binge and got alcohol poisoning. It would also have the advantage (compared to privatising health care) of penalising the negative behaviour rather than the positive one.
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January 12, 2008 6:08pm
baxter

Be Shakey…For more than thirty years I dealt with criminals in one way or another on virtually a daily basis. I can’t quote official statistics which are bullshit anyhow. Police know of some witnesses who have been intimidated where the intimidation is unsuccessful we only suspect many more cases where the intimidation is successful.I doubt you could find any experienced cop that would disagree with me.
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January 12, 2008 7:54pm
tim barclay

Using taxes to fund some of the diseconomies of alcohol abuse is just playing with the issue. Alcohol abuse has to be stamped out or at least made very costly to those who practicise it. A tax simply catches everybody and then redistributes the money to the few who need help. I call that socialist. I favour targeting those who abuse alcohol with punative laws aimed at people who get drunk.
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January 12, 2008 11:06pm
kiwitoffee

Good work. That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. One small step for mankind…
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January 12, 2008 11:58pm
GPT1

I regard tagging as similar to spam. Hard to catch but extraordinarily annoying to law abiding members of society and something that should be dealt with severely. I have been told that summary hanging from the nearest lamp post is a little harsh but perhaps we could bring back the stocks?
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January 13, 2008 1:22am
Right of way is Way of Right

Isn’t David Bain on bail at the moment, pending a retrial?

Having said that, 42 days for tagging is a start, but make sure for every one of those days he is escorted, in chains, to areas of tagging with scrubbers, water blasters, and so on, in a high visibility vest with TAGGER written on it, and he can spend 10 hours a day scrubbing off tags!

That should dampen his enthusiasm in future!
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January 13, 2008 10:27am
RRM

Speaking of bad public look, does anyone else like those new adverts on TV where thosewho try to justify speeding are portrayed as dung beetles (or whatever those ugly little creatures are…)?
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January 13, 2008 4:56pm

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