Why is crime so high in England?

[Beanz]

Whoa this thread has veered completely off course. The War on Poverty is not the same thing here as in the US. For many years the UK has led the way in trying to alleviate poverty in other countries and only recently begun to address the issue at home. Tony Blair was an insincere cheesy grinned Scottish charlatan masquerading as a genuine Labour party leader who ended up both running and ruining large parts of this country, but even he, or more accurately some bright sparks below him, managed to implement some polices that have gone on to improve the lot of working people in the UK.

The minimum wage and working tax credits have enabled many unemployed people to leave what the Americans call welfare, and we call the dole, and start working to support themselves and their families. I would like to call BULLSHIT on the idea that "welfare" is responsible for damaging the traditional family unit and that somehow the same is true over here in the UK. What the hell is "the Black community" ? Here in the UK where we have never had segregation and like most of the world mixed marriages have continued to erase the comfortable lines that are the last refuge of separatists and those with an agenda, I hope I am right in assuming that black and white people are not so unique that a government policy would affect them differently.


Liberalism is spat out across the pond by many like a dirty word, but here in the UK the connotations are vastly different. Even traditional boundaries of left and right wing politics are not the same.
The Opening Post


One of my American friends got off the train in London. A 3 guys jumped high and stole his laptop. He said crime was really high there. I was there in 1982 and had no problems at all. It seemed like a really nice place. What happen?
The first reply

Crime is against the law in England.... situations like you described shouldn't happen


Crime is not SO HIGH in England. It is in fact falling. The fear of crime is rising. I am finding it hard to believe the idea that London is so dangerous that you in any more likely to be in grave danger of being jumped and robbed as soon as you get off the train, than any other major capital city in the world. I go regularly with my disabled Mrs and the opposite has usually been true with people offering to help with luggage etc.


the reply


Crime is everywhere and nobody has tried to argue that it does not exist in England, but Gun Crime is much, much , much lower than somewhere like the US. It is an inarguable fact.

Most people would rather work than claim benefits. There are a lot of myths around benefits


The idea of families where generations have never worked

In households with two or more generations of working age, there were only 0.3 per cent where neither generation had ever worked. In a third of these, the member of the younger generation had been out of work for less than a year.


Couples are not better off splitting up

Research in 2009 for the Department for Work and Pensions looked at whether different benefit systems had any impact on people’s decisions about whether to stay together or not. They concluded that ‘on balance, the reviewed literature shows that there is no consistent and robust evidence to support claims that the welfare system has a significant impact upon family structure’.


Benefit fraud is high and going up

The claim that benefit fraud is increasing is similarly false. Because there have been changes in how fraud has been calculated over time, we have to look at combined fraud and ‘customer error’ for JSA and income support. This declined from 9.4 per cent to 4.8 per cent of spending from 1997/98 to 2004/05, and has since stayed roughly flat

[El Kabong]

You can call bullshit on it all you like but facts are facts and LBJ's "War on Poverty" & "The Great Society" have had the best of intentions with the worst results possible....but that actually helps the Democrats because the more people that are in poverty, the more people will vote for "Santa Claus" (someone who offers them, "free" stuff)

[TitoFan]

It is not the welfare program itself that is the culprit. That would be too simplistic a view. It is the way it is being administered. When the welfare program was first drawn up, it was meant for those people truly in need. Who by forces beyond their control, were unable to meet their financial obligations through wages earned. But like any government-instituted system, if badly administered it will be abused. And that's what we're having nowadays. It is being abused way beyond the original intent. We have perfectly healthy and capable people who would rather live off welfare than holding down a job. And the way the system is currently designed makes it rather attractive for some of those people to abuse the system. If the choice in front of you is: a) work at some minimum-wage job and barely make ends meet, or b) go on welfare... not work a day in your life... and make the same or more than by working... well guess what. A lot of people will choose "b". And that is abuse. It is up to the government, elected by the people, to fix and correctly administer this system before it further hurts the nation's economy, and just as critical..... before it continues to erode the work ethic of the nation's young population.

[El Kabong]

Here's the deal, many government bureaucracies were created to end poverty, however, if they actually ended poverty then that would be the end of those bureaucracies & the end of their funding ergo the people "in charge" of ending poverty are basically making certain poverty still exists. All these bureaucracies are doing is buying votes via entitlements....what the fuck do the bureaucrats care if they're wasting money, its keeping them employed in a cushy government job

[TitoFan]

That too.... job security. These programs lack the needed oversight to ensure the mission is being accomplished. They also lack the accountability you find in private industry. In private industry, you have goals and objectives, and you get the funds and other resources to do the job. If you don't, you've failed and you get to be held accountable. This should hold for all branches and offices of the government, including the welfare program.

[Beanz]

This thread is about crime in ENGLAND not the welfare system in America. In England Crime is not caused by welfare, a lot of it is caused by a minority of drug dependent individuals who rob to feed their habit, Working lads who think after 8 pints that they are the new Mike Tyson and need to prove it and young people without a job and nobody to look up to or guide them who fill there day being anti social twats.

[Beanz]

If you want to discuss welfare etc and it's impact on society you could do worse than heading on over to Dia bando's excellent http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfor...7-society.htmlthread and making your point there.

[TitoFan]

This thread is about crime in ENGLAND not the welfare system in America.

Thread drift.




But no... I cannot truly weigh in on crime in England as I've only been there once and that was a long time ago. However... regardless of the crime rate, and how it's defined, one thing is for certain and that is that there are a heck of a lot less shooting sprees in England (probably none) than in the U.S. Obviously, the 180-degree difference in the availability of firearms must be the biggest factor.