Nonsense. You stop when you want to. Some people just don’t want to enough. A couple of examples from close to home

a) female. Get pregnant. Stop smoking

b) male. Late 40s. Get mysterious chest pain. Stop smoking. The pain turns out to be nothing to do with smoking, but why not quit while ahead ?

Jesus. Let’s leave aside the fact that this would have been at best a half-arsed answer to my first post.

To repeat:

1) Barton got 6 months plus a suspended four month sentence for an offence that took place BEFORE the one he got locked up for.

2) The longest sentence given to a council tax martyr is 32 days, the government are considering proposals which will mean council tax martyrs won’t go to prison at all

3) No-one has ever received either a custodial or community sentence for smoking or being fat.

This IS ‘how things are enforced’. Unless you can provide evidence of a top secret ‘Operation Lock Up The Fatties’ or you’re willing to argue that 32/0 days in prison is worse than 6 months I don’t see how you can suggest that:

“crimes against the dominant ideology of the day are punished more harshly then vicious assaults”

Either the NHS saves money and resources from the reduction in smoking related illnesses.

Or people save money and live longer.

Either is fine with me. ps. I am actually a smoker.

“Rumbold I respect a lot of your opinions but find this to be one of the times where I will respectfully totally and utterly disagree with you. People are not so simplistic to be divided amongst those that want to improve their health and those that don’t. The inverse rule of health provision mean that that the worried few and socially affluent will have access to the health information and care they require.”

I was thinking more about people who smoke/drink/eat a lot, rather then groups who have higher rates of particular diseases then others. For example, much of the TB currently in this country appears to have originated from sub-Saharan African migrants, so I would have no problem with sepnding money telling them about this and encouraging them to get chekced out. In the same vein (excuse the pun), I think that there is a lack of blood and/or organ donors from South Asian coommunities, so a targeted ad campaign etc. is fine. What I have an issue with is where the state spends money and time trying to get people to change their lifestyle habits, when they didn’t ask for help.

Inders:

“One could argue that Domestic Violence schemes are overfunded as they offer no preventative aspect at all. The argument is that they should be mainstreamed along with conventional social services, which is still handled at local government level and deals extensively with these issues along with the police.”

Domestic violence schemes are certainly not overfunded. How could they law is, there will always be crime, so one of the responsibilities of the state is to provide protection for the victims of crime. I agree that domestic violecne services could be better co-ordinated with the rest of the state, but that is not an argument for cutting funding.

“By helping people give up smoking it is clear that the money is being used to

a> prevent future strains on council and NHS resources
b> lead to a steady decline of the problem
c> improve the health of the communities in which they serve”

It is debatable whether preventing smoking saves money, as the tax take drops, and people live longer which costs the NHS more money.

It never matters what the law says, it is how things are enforced which really matter. Increasingly the state is concentrating its efforts on repressing those it considers to be ideologically unsound.

“Oh, hang about, turns out the government want to stop sending council tax evaders to prison altogether.”

Only to avoid media attention. Instead, they are just going seize whatever assets they want. Typical.

“I think Rumbold’s point appears to be that more or less everything related to the state is controlled by a quasi-masonic librul-fashist cult that wants to lock up old ladies and create a master-race of five-a-day eating, non-smoking, wife-beating Joey Bartons.”

Thanks for the summary.

Soru:

“If you disagree, you are free to vote for a party with a different set of priorities. But there is nothing in that list that sounds remotely like it would be outside the things a democratic mandate should allow a state agency to do.”

I am not questioning their right to make such lists, just questioning what they have put on those lists.

Roger:

“Local authorities have so little control over the police force now that reducing crime is no longer effectively part of their responsibility. They do have powers to control where people can smoke and what is provided in school dinners.”

They might have little control over the preventative aspects of crime, but they could provide more women’s shelters, for example. If they have so little to do, one wonders where all the council tax goes.

MaidMarian:

“But what I had in mind was things like knife-carrying kids. The act in itself of carrying a knife does not per se hurt anyone does it? These kids could get a knife legitimately through any number of means – how to stop that? Mass stop and search? Profiling of police targets? None of the alternatives are palatable to my mind.”

I’m stumped as well. How do you stop someone doing something that they think is cool and/or necessary?

I think Rumbold’s point appears to be that more or less everything related to the state is controlled by a quasi-masonic librul-fashist cult that wants to lock up old ladies and create a master-race of five-a-day eating, non-smoking, wife-beating Joey Bartons. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but there you go.

I’m not sure how Rumbold can claim that there is not enough money is being dedicated to Domestic Violence victims without figures and comparisons with monies spent elsewhere.

One could argue that Domestic Violence schemes are overfunded as they offer no preventative aspect at all. The argument is that they should be mainstreamed along with conventional social services, which is still handled at local government level and deals extensively with these issues along with the police.

By helping people give up smoking it is clear that the money is being used to

a> prevent future strains on council and NHS resources
b> lead to a steady decline of the problem
c> improve the health of the communities in which they serve

There are plenty of things funded by local government that could be considered a waste of money but I don’t think that stop smoking campaigns are one of them.

But what I had in mind was things like knife-carrying kids. The act in itself of carrying a knife does not per se hurt anyone does it? These kids could get a knife legitimately through any number of means – how to stop that? Mass stop and search? Profiling of police targets? None of the alternatives are palatable to my mind. With the greatest of respect to those that go on marches or write letters to newspapers, those activities will do nothing to take knives off the street. How to go about that – what should knives being a priority actually physically involve? Again, I don’t pretend I have an answer.

Local authorities have so little control over the police force now that reducing crime is no longer effectively part of their responsibility. They do have powers to control where people can smoke and what is provided in school dinners.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23505129-details/No+prison+for+rebel+council+tax+pensioners/article.do

Presumably by the Rumbold less-is-more theory of punishment, this is further evidence of the political class being hellbent on inflicting the harshest possible penalties on pensioners who won’t pay their council tax.

Should have been

“He got six months for one offence and a four month supsended sentence for an offence that occured before the incident he got the six month sentence for.”

Additionally the longest sentence I can find for a council tax martyr is actually 32 days. Maths fans out there will note that this remains less than 6 months.

A market crash and decade-long depression would also be entirely legal – doesn’t mean whether one happens or not should be a matter of studied indifference to government.

Having to rank priorities, as opposed to just saying ‘everything is urgent’, sounds like a minor but possibly helpful aid in working out which local party to vote for. It’s not a replacement for local elections: those producing these list already won those.

If you disagree, you are free to vote for a party with a different set of priorities. But there is nothing in that list that sounds remotely like it would be outside the things a democratic mandate should allow a state agency to do.

He got six months for the first offence and a four month supsended sentence for an offence that occured before the incident he got a four month suspended sentence.

The longest sentence I can find for a Council Tax martyr is 34 days.

To my knowledge no-one has ever been jailed for smoking or being fat.

In order for the statement

“crimes against the dominant ideology of the day are punished more harshly then vicious assaults”

to be true, you would have to look me in the eye and tell me that its worse to be in jail for a short time than a long time AND that not going to jail at all is worse than going to jail.

And that’s before we get started on the wisdom of using a single case to make sweeping generalisations about the criminal justice system or your weird conflation of smoking/being fat and council tax evasion.

Realistically, what else could they do? If some people are seen to get away with not paying taxes, then lots of poeple won’t pay, and if they aren’t punished either, then no-one will pay.

How do you explain Joey Barton’s sentence then?

I genuinely cannot believe that you actually believe this.

Let’s accept your terms of reference and do a quick compare/contrast:

Maximum sentence for common assault: 6 Months
Maximum sentence for GBH: life
Maximum sentence for Council Tax evasion: 3 months
Maximum sentence for being a smoker: None. £50 fine for smoking in an enclosed public space.
Maximum sentence for being fat: None

Now, if you’re wondering why being fat and smoking do not carry custodial sentences, it’s down to an amusing legal quirk, namely NEITHER OF THEM ARE ILLEGAL. Jesus.

So given that a ‘vicious assault’ carries a potential life sentence and smoking carries no penalties if done at home or in the street and a £50 fine if done in a pub, do you not think that the statement:

“crimes against the dominant ideology of the day are punished more harshly then vicious assaults”

Is utter fucking gibberish?

I think that the NHS has a role to play in helping people improve their helath, but only those that want to do so. Therefore I don’t see why more councils considered ‘stopping smoking’ a priority then stopping ‘repeated domestic violence’. Smoking is after all a legal activity for consenting adults, so governments should focus on other areas first, as they only have limited resources.

MaidMarian:

I have some solutions for cutting crime, but most involve other ways then just throwing money at the problem. However, as you say, money is also important, which is why these council priorites got me so annoyed.

To cut crime, you first need to scrap and/or simplify a large number of laws. This is not so crime figures drop (though they would), but so that less people get caught up in the criminal world. At present, a consenting adult can get a criminal record simply for performing an activity (taking drugs), which doesn’t hurt anyone else per se (though it can). Once you have a criminal record, it becomes harder to get jobs, people shun you, and you find yourself more drawn into the realm of criminality, and become a habitual criminal damaging society. Re-offending rates are shockingly high, because it is difficult for people to re-integrate into society.

If drugs were decriminalised, less people would be sent to prison. This would give prisons and other related services a better chance in focusing on helping the remaining prisoners. For the remaining crimes, full sentences should be enforced, rather than letting people out early because of overcrowding. Violent/serial offenders should be sent to prison quicker as well, which would increase public trust in the justice system. For non-serious crimes, a criminal record should be time-limited to a few months, to encourage ex-prisoners to return to society.

As to doing something, one of the trademarks and reasons for continuing domestic violence is that it is hidden and victims are too embarassed/fear reprisals/social stigma to go public.

Changing society would entail empowering the victims and changing the behaviour of the perpetrators. Don’t believe a quick fix will do it