I'm currently working a contract in the IT department of Social Services. We have just been discussing the merits of better ways to punish thieves, muggers, and low life in general. A finger chopped off per offence, and bringing back the stocks were the best ideas put forwards.
The guys then got onto the subject of how motorists are persecuted with fines etc, and one of the guys came up with a suggestion that I quite liked.
If you were caught speeding, or jumping a red light, you should be stopped at the scene (would obviously only work if there were more traffic police and not greed cameras) and made to hand your keys over, and be deprived the use of your car for 24 hours.
What other alternative punishments would the backroomers like to see?
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Car impounding is very common in Middle East countries (but in some you never get it back!)
How about making convicted offenders stand by the highway for 8 hours with a placard round their necks saying "I am a convicted drunk driver..etc"?
One of the great benefits (and there were a surprising number)of the Marcos dictator regime in the Philippines was the maintenance of street discipline. Traffic offenders would be locked in a pen by the roadside for people to stare at, or they would be carted off to police HQ and made to clip the lawns with a pair of kitchen scissors.
My local cop-shop also has a board outside on which it posts colour pictures of various types of miscreant with their names clearly displayed. My local bank manager still hardly dare show his face at the counter ever since he got done for "failing to beat the red light" as the offence is known here........ (just the term gives you some idea about driving standards where I live!).
But I agree that a mere fine is hardly more than a slap on the wrist and some form of embarrassment and abasement needs to be meted out to roadusers whose misbehaviour may well result in death or injury.
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Hmmm, don't like the idea of intentionally - and incrementally - disabling someone by removing parts of their body! Its a great way to make a useless individual even more worthless to society. No doubt we?d all be supporting them in some form or other via unemployment benefit, and I for one don?t want to pay them (via my tax) to have a ?disability top up? because they?re now no longer fit for work.
We?d probably get the situation where those in society who have no intention of working, seeing the loss of a finger or two as a great way of boosting their ?entitlement?.
Unfortunately mutilation as a form of punishment doesn?t seem to be really effective ? witness Islamic countries carrying out whole hand amputations for theft etc.
As for the stocks; that I feel won?t work either. It would have to be policed (therefore costly) to ensure the local yobs didn?t severely harm the victim. You can just imagine some idiot having fun with a bit of petrol or fireworks?. Plus, people wouldn?t forget a local person who had been ?stocked?. So despite serving the punishment, having their face on public display for so many hours / days, will remain with the local community, long after time had been served.
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Jazzmag. A condition of the removal of parts of the body for crime would be no increase in benefits!
All the negatives in your final paragraph seem to be positives to me.
In any case, it was supposed to be a thread about alternative punishments to motoring offences.
Maybe those who "fail to beat the red light" should be made to stand at the lights they offended at and clean the windscreens of stopped cars for the day?
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Obviously, the only suitable punishment is transportation.
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Personally I think the fixed penalty fine system leaves a lot to be desired - although the fines are all the same it takes no account of whether a person is likely to be bothered by it. Take Mr X in is shiny fast car getting done for done for tailgateing £100 pound fine? "Think you very much officer - worth every penny"
I think the best way of punishing people is enforced community service a couple of days of your life is worth the same to everyone regarless of how much money you've got, plus the rest of us get the added advantages of clean underpasses, freshly painted schools, no dog mess in the park etc.
A day cleaning up after the local pooches has got to have a greater impact on the wealth rep then a fine!
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It's a pity there's no incentive to drive well - only an incentive not to drive badly/too fast. In other words plenty of stick, but not much in the way of carrot.
With the ever-increasing amount of surveillance on our roads, how about a scheme for rewarding good driving? It could even allow drivers to accumulate PLUS points, to be offset against MINUS points when one inadvertently exceeds the speed limit.
People could even nominate drivers for exemplary behaviour. So, for example, a BMW driver (see another thread) could propose someone who actually did let them out of a side turning, or who deliberately kept a reasonable distance behind them.....
Now back to the real world......
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No opinion on speeders - but for convicted drink drivers - who i have zero respect for, for personal reasons, I think that we should program a block similar to a car size and weight that travels towards the offender - and sometimes the controller for the block will stop in plenty of time, sometimes it'll just nudge the offender, and others it makes a mess! Drastic maybe - but the offender was willing to carry out the same kind of risk for other road users when they were driving so why not put them infront of the risk too.
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