The law and noisy neighbours

I was having a conversation with someone recently about the law ... The Police to be more precise ... and he was trying to tell me something about the 'funnel of crime' which current policing methods cannot cope or keep up with.

I listened to him for several minutes before realising that I was on the receiving end of some verbal diarrhoea which made no sense whatsoever.  Being by nature fairly tolerant of such people, I allowed him to continue with few interruptions, occasionally but not very often, asking a question.

I eventually, after about twenty five minutes, found out what had prompted his dis-jointed tirade when he finally said "... and that's why the police never come around when I call them to complain about those buggers next door when the decide to party all night"!

On reflection some of his point, although not very articulate, were fairly accurate.

• The prison service is under funded and there is not enough prison space available for the rising number of criminals
• In order to reduce the prison population, sentences are being reduced or prisoners are let out of prison early
• Vastly exaggerated Human Rights are afforded to prisoners which in turn increase the costs of locking them up or prevent them being locked up at all
• The cost of policing the streets is going up but arrest and prosecution rates are going down

The Funnel he mentioned seemed a little less confusing after I had got my head around those points (the only few I managed to pick out from his ramblings).

His concern, and the reason why no one arrived to quieten his rowdy neighbours, is that we (the public) should be putting our money and resources into the 'thin' end of the funnel and NOT the 'wide' end. 

like this

                                              ________ Prison

                     ______ court / ________ Prison

Police_____/______ court _________ Prison

                    \______ court \ ________ Prison

                                              \ _______ Prison

and not like this

Police ______

Police ______\  court _____

Police _______ court _____\ ______ Prison

Police _______ court _____/

Police ______/

If you think about it, it makes sense to increase the number of prisons and length of sentences rather than invest any more in a system that let's the criminals get off the hook too easily.

An who gives a stuff about getting con's rehabilitated?  It doesn't work!  They do the time, do the courses and go out and do the rest of us!

Anyway, that (I think) was his point!  If it wasn't, then it's certainly mine.