Jailbirds

In life, we are told, we get out only as much as we put in. We are fed life-affirming aphorisms in a steady drip, drip, drip, to keep us on the right and righteous path. You can be anything you want to be, if you put in the effort. Reach for the sky. Keep your nose clean. Work hard, play hard. To the victor, the spoils. And on it goes; do as you’re told, the world needs people who do as they’re told and of course, virtue is its own reward. Don’t you love that last one? No, you can’t have a pay rise, but keep up the good work for the sheer thrill of doing good work.

But of course it’s true; the human world thrives on the labours of those who go the extra mile. The volunteers, the perfectionists, those who do indeed find virtue in becoming so good at what they do that their financial remuneration is outstripped by the sheer satisfaction of being the best, in all walks of life. For those who can’t be the best there is still the warm glow of providing for your family, of standing on your own two feet. Or, of course, in our wonderful welfare universe, there is always the opportunity to stand on the feet of others.

Another old saying is that it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease and central to yesterday’s Queen’s speech was oiling a squeak that gets worse with every passing decade. That some people need to be removed from society can be without doubt. Serial violent offenders who will not or cannot reform obviously need to be prevented from pursuing their destructive patterns of behaviour. But what of the others; is jail time a suitable punishment for people who haven’t paid parking fines... or intemperate tweeters?

Is the answer soft prison, or as is being suggested part-time prison? Or turn-around prison where those who have resisted education thus far are force fed skills and knowledge that will get them work? Or iPad prison, which for some will be much the same as usual, whiling away the days watching YouTube and Snapchatting penis pictures to their future victims. Penal reform is a tough one because while nobody seriously disputes the value of rehabilitation it is yet another area where the reward isn’t for endeavour but for displaying contempt.

Work hard at school, go on to college, get qualified, get a job, graft, improve and then spend your life getting by; you’re on your own, mate. But play truant, misbehave, stay in bed, get high and go on the rob to feed your selfish cravings and society diverts ever greater resources in your direction. Resources that could be used to educate the next generation, tend to the sick and pension off the workers end up being consumed by a relatively small population who couldn’t or wouldn’t play by the rules. Again.

Once outside the prison system, the life chances of ex-convicts are poor in the extreme, so it’s little wonder so many become recidivists; they just bounce endlessly between welfare and Wormwood Scrubs. This is what Australia was once for but that avenue is now closed to us. Sadly, the taking classes are also more prolific breeders than the paying classes, so unless real solutions are found this is a problem which can only get worse. Do we pour more good resources after bad, or get more radical with the deterrent?

Yesterday in Parliament...

Punishment is absolutely necessary – prison shouldn’t be a never-ending round of second chances – but in a world where blatant dishonesty pays so well (look no further than pocket-lining politicians for an example) some may feel a few months of incarceration is a small price to pay and soft punishments a slap in the face for the taxpayer. At the heart of penal reform should be the question of exactly what type of behaviour we wish to encourage.

Not at the dinner table...

They say you should never discuss politics and religion at the dinner table. But when it all comes down to it, what else is there? Simple matters such as the price of eggs or whether you prefer pink or blue can be broken down into plain indisputable facts or simple preferences, about both of which it is difficult to sustain a good old shouting match. But veer onto things that do actually matter and you get a stern ticking off from the hostess. (Not the host, note; he’s champing at the bit just like you, but he doesn’t get to leave at the end.)

Maybe the real reason is that if we are allowed free rein we’ll pretty much stumble onto an awful truth. Politics and religion are one and the same. There, I've said it; but think about it. Power and wealth, big imposing buildings, self-important people organised into hierarchies and spouting doctrine against which we must not dissent on pain of death… it’s all there. Voltaire is credited with saying that if God did not exist it would be necessary for man to invent him, which is to say man invented ‘Him’.

There seems to be a remnant herd impulse in the human animal; a need to follow something. Into the vacuum left by the recession of religion flows ideology and if that ideology isn’t ‘religious’ enough it has to up its game or else give way to another flavour of theocracy. Oh, hello Islam… I wondered when you’d be dropping by, but no thanks, we’re not talking about you, specifically tonight. Not round MY dinner table. (When I say ‘dinner table’ I mean, of course, Twitter.)

One hot topic round the table of late is the never-far-from-view, almost-taboo subject of capital punishment, or if you are against it, the more emotive ‘death penalty’. It’s emotive because, really, that’s the only hard objection to it. To those who believe in the absolute sanctity of human life the idea of taking ‘a life for a life’ is monstrous and those who advocate it are beyond redemption.  It is convenient to forget that this is exactly what we do in war and in a much more indiscriminate fashion than we would ever sanction for judicial purposes.

But we are more hypocritical than that. Our big brains give us a consciousness which we mistake for a soul and in so doing place ourselves on a higher plane than other herding animals, which we then deliberately breed and slaughter for food, inventing religious consent for our actions. Those animals we don’t eat we summarily eradicate if we believe they pose a threat to our safety, whether that threat is ever realised or not. All things bright and beautiful?

People die of their own stupidity and that of others every day. People die of ignorance and simple neglect in their millions around the globe. But very few people maliciously and individually set out to take other lives, either as the prime motive or as a consequence of other desired ends. Of those who are intent on causing misery, unacceptably vast resources are poured into catching, convicting and keeping them and attempting rehabilitation, which investment is often - more often than is acceptable - repaid by re-offending.

Yes you can set rigid burdens of proof and yes you can offer opportunities for reform, what civilised society wouldn't? But when the cost of caging an animal hell-bent on savage intent falls increasingly heavy you are really paying not for justice, but to salve your own conscience and adopt the mantle of the righteous. It isn’t about revenge, although vengeance is a perfectly acceptable and normal instinct. We lock people up after all and some suffer greatly as a result - it’s about whether it is right to take a life to save others.

Religion bangs on about the sanctity of human life - so do politicians when it suits them – but such sanctity exists not as a natural law, merely as a human construct. Indeed, when it suits or has suited them many religions and most political regimes have sanctioned execution, often on a grand scale, for the supposed ‘greater good’ and killing in self-defence may be a cause of regret but is rarely grounds for censure. Such killing, often under a hot-blooded and therefore irrational temperament is nevertheless excused, while a calculated decision by calm men to remove from society a great danger is met with horror and revulsion.

 Some of the objections to judicial execution are practical – the wrong man, the possibility of creating martyrs, the impossibility of appeal – but all of these can be guarded against. Very occasionally, a mistake may be made, but there is rarely smoke without fire and we should be pragmatic about that. Nothing is perfect. But most of the objections have a visceral, rather than an intellectual, basis. The instinctive, but irrational thought “What would that say about ME?” based on belief and not on truth.

And once again – as in all matters of faith - the believers are quick to anger, quick to blame and point the outraged finger of revulsion at those of us rational enough to be pragmatic about the meaning of life. Being savaged by a believer is much like being savaged by a socialist. They have no argument other than their faith and so revert to personal insult very early on, usually an attack on the state of development of one’s social and intellectual capabilities and their worth to humanity, oh the irony. Their final sally is normally to shake their head and profess to pity us.

We need to talk about pest control

In other words there is no real argument against the use of the death penalty other than that it offends some primitive and nebulous sense of worth, of godliness, which brings us back to Voltaire. Having a blind adherence to principles we conveniently ignore when it comes to other species, indeed to other nationalities when convenient, strikes me not as the behaviour of a higher intelligence but rather as one that is still hitched to our ancient, evolutionary origins in the herd. Isn’t it about time we were better than that?

Crime and Punishment

Medieval Islamo-Fascists rising up and murdering innocent people because they can’t take a joke. The premeditated murder of two women police officers in Manchester by a known, armed thug. And Nick Clegg’s clumsily timed apology. These are all symptoms of a worldwide failure to address tough problems. 

Predictably, in the aftermath there are debates about routinely arming the British Police, bringing back death as a punishment and, possibly the strongest felt of all, sacking Nick Clegg. 

It is often said that the mark of a civilised society is tolerance and forgiveness. Jesus is regularly quoted as recommending turning the other cheek, as if the fictional words of a hallucinating Arab cannot be bettered two thousand years on. (But what would Jesus do about Nick Clegg?) 

A better mark of a civilised society is one where order prevails, opportunity abounds and living standards are high. And a line is drawn in the sand beyond which aberrant behaviour is no longer tolerated or excused. Turn the other cheek to a rabid Islamist and he’ll take that as a mark of victory. 

Similarly the gun crime culture seen in most of our major cities is a sign that our society’s checks and balances are not enough. That shoring up the breaches is insufficient protection against the barbarians outside. Britain and its interests are under violent siege, because the Jihadis and the gangstas will not be stopped by words. Mere words, as is evident, just make them worse; 'cos you is dissing dem, innit? 

The death penalty does NOT make us as bad as them. The death penalty is NOT state-sanctioned murder. It is a reasoned, last resort to a problem that words and jail sentences will not prevent. The deliberate, planned taking of innocent lives in the interests of crime or religion is the work of primitive hind-brain driven savages. The strategic, judicial use of execution is an advanced civilisation’s way of lancing the boil.

Dead man walking

Talking of which leads us neatly on to the pimple that is Nick Clegg. Hollow words make up the bulk of Lib Dem rhetoric. Powerless out of office; useless in office. It makes no difference what happens to Clegg. Nobody will notice. Nick Who?