Zen Garden > The Social and Economic Cost of Serious Repeat Offenders.

Society has seen senseless, violent assaults enacted against elderly people, pre-meditated gang attacks on unsuspecting people, all manner of sexual violence and unprovoked attacks where weapons are used. No - this is not Baghdad or Beirut where you expect to be on the lookout 24 hours a day. This is downtown suburbia.

There have been numerous examples over many years where evil-doers have inflicted themselves on innocent people then managed to get away with their disgusting crimes virtually scott-free. And they do it over and over again. We are now all painfully aware of the term "recidivist." It's easier to say than "repeat criminal offender."

Western society has seen senseless, violent assaults enacted against elderly people, pre-meditated gang attacks on unsuspecting people, all manner of sexual violence and unprovoked attacks where weapons are used. Most of these attackers are treated with "kid-gloves" in the Courts. It makes you wonder why the police even bother to investigate these matters. Surely the time they spend bringing the perpetrators before the Courts is not warranted by the end results.

The message is clear. If you are a thug or a vicious bash-artist, a sexual predator or just a downright coward then your inalienable rights will be protected by our learned Judges and Magistrates. The main targets are the elderly, the very young, the infirm or anybody unable to protect themselves - in other words - the vulnerable. All manner of weaponry, extreme violence and hunting in packs is the order of the day - or should I say night? Courts tend to treat all of the above acts of assault as some sort of a blood-sport.

A graph of crime in England and Wales (Home Office Statistics, England 1992) shows a virtually static level of crimes from 1897 to 1931 at around 300 crimes per one hundred thousand people. From 1931 to 1955 there is a slight increase. From the mid sixties the crime rate soared. In 1992 it reached a staggering level of 10,400 crimes per one hundred thousand people. Now, it would be off the Richter Scale.

The death penalty was done away with in England by the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act of 1965. Is there a correlation? I think so.

In New York, under the leadership of Mayor Rudi Giuliani, the city's police commanders were held accountable for criminal activity in their neighborhoods. The CompStat system was an outstanding success at "stopping crime trends before they became crime waves." It was found that stomping down on minor infractions of the law also had a marked effect on more serious crime.

In most other "free-thinking" societies it is highly probable that perpetrators will receive little or no penalty if arrested. Appearances in Court are an opportunity for ridiculous and made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment excuses to be believed. In most instances repeat offenders are able to commit dozens and dozens of crimes and assaults before they are even caught.

One such Western Australian recidivist amassed 261 counts over a twelve-year period and that was only the crimes that he was arrested for. In total, this recidivist was incarcerated for just 26 months. His crimes included serious assault, breaking and entering, burglary, car theft, reckless driving, stealing and numerous other offences. He was a walking one man crime wave.

It has been estimated that for every arrest, a recidivist commits another nine crimes that he/she is not arrested for. Therefore, in the above example, this man more than likely committed 2,610 crimes over that period. Can you see the amount of misery and the cost to the community of just this one person?

What if there are 500 the same as him? This amount would be highly likely in a city of just 1 million people, higher in more populated cities. Using the above example, this equates to 1,305,000 crimes in twelve years or 108,750 crimes per year. That's 9,062 crimes per month. That's 2,091 crimes per week or 298 crimes per day or 12 crimes per hour - about one every five minutes. No wonder police are run off their feet - literally.

A 1995 study by Broadhurst and Loh concluded that a caucasian male arrested just once had a 52% re-arrest probability. His indigenous counterpart had an 88% probability. After a second arrest the probabilities were 68% and 92%, respectively. A third arrest gave re-arrest rates of 78% and 94%. After 10 arrests the figures blew out to 94% and 99%.

Here are some stunning (excuse the pun) excuses that have been used in Western Australia:

1. It wasn't my fist that put him in a coma, it was the ground when he hit his head on it!
2. She told me she was 16, how was I to know she was only 12?
3. The reason I put the baby in the clothes dryer was to dry her clothes out after she spilled a drink on herself (yes, that is a real excuse used in Perth, Western Australia in July 2006!).

We were told by the social workers, criminal advocates and academics that none of these measures would work. They were correct.

Our Judges and Magistrates have ensured by their anomolous and pathetic decisions that all legislation introduced to protect the majority of our citizens, that is, the honest and law abiding ones, has failed miserably.

The social workers, criminal advocates, psychologists, psychiatrists, apologists and academics who forewarned us that stern legislation would not work understood something that none of the rest of us did. They understood the underlying psyche of our Judges and Magistrates. Basically, this psyche is that those who bash us and rob us and violate us are the victims themselves. They do these things because they are striking back against their poor upbringing, lack of education and this thing called “marginalisation” - a new buzz-word from academia.

So, long live the recidivists, thugs and cowards who roam our streets like a pride of lions. They are the real winners in this enlightened age where what we have always believed were criminals are actually just severely misunderstood individuals. Their stories are to be believed over and above those people who they lash out against and whose lives they destroy.

The vast majority of us just don’t understand them or the system that has been designed to help them. We should stop whinging and complaining and hoping that anything will change. We must fit into the system and treat cowardly criminals with respect, understanding and love. After all, we have only had around forty years of this new system and it is bound to work soon.

In the meantime, we might as well close down all the Courts because they achieve nothing more than re-inforcing an already entrenched belief that the perpetrators are the victims and the victims are the perpetrators.

Oh, and by the way, don’t forget to pay that parking fine you got last week. If you do you might find yourself coming before a Magistrate where the full weight of the law will be brought down right on top of your head. You might even end up in gaol yourself if you don't have the money to pay.

Gary Simpson is a 7th Dan karate master who teaches self defense, motivation, self help and wealth building to students around the world through home study courses. You may reprint this article as you include this author credit and an active link to his web site. Finance - Self Help - Motivation - Self Defense - Personal Growth MotivationSelfEsteem.com