Naming and shaming vandals

Over at the Daily Mail, a sorry tale - a shopkeeper who named and shamed the vandal who smashed his window by writing his name on the chipboard temporarily over the broken glass has been told by police to stop infringing the yob's 'civil liberties'.

As I've written before, this is a debate about balance, not absolutes.  The rights of the rest of us not to be victims of crime must be weighed in that balance, and given more weight than they are at present. 

People who commit such mindless acts of violence should be named and shamed.

If the police and courts won’t do it, we ought to be able to do it ourselves.

Those who suggest that this is an intrusion of privacy or civil liberties need to wake up.  The liberties of the law-abiding majority need to be put before those of vandals and thugs.

By Alex Deane

Comments

[Claire]

Well yes, but here's the thing. What if, just imagine, what if, he was wrong, and Ben Hill didn't do it?

That is why we have the police and the courts, to ascertain whether someone was actually guilty. Which is why it's not ok to take the law into your own hands.

And even the legal system can get it wrong. Which is why we don't have the death penalty.

This is one of those unfortunate facts of like, unfortunately.

It isn't clear how naming and shaming speaks to the shop-keepers "right" to not be a victim of crime anyway. It doesn't fix his window, and it doesn't protect him from people whose name he doesn't know.

We don't actually have such a right in any case, which is why crimes are called crimes.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=513160025]

I would imagine that this sort of action is born largely out of frustration with the legal system. It is true that it is not acceptable to take the law into your own hands, but only so long as the law is enforced by the authorities. Time was - and we are going back some generations here - when everybody did take the law into their own hands and moreover was expected and encouraged to do so. Then along came a police force and court system that could be trusted to enforce law and order on the streets, so the need for and desire for self-enforcement both vanished.

But if the legal system does not enforce law and order what are law-abiding people to do?

More pertinent to this particular case, there is an apparent disconnect between how the police and legal system treat different crimes. The police have visited the shopkeeper, but have they apprehended the culprit?

[mrtyke.wordpress.com]

I do not see the problem. If Ben Hill caused the damage deliberately then he deserves to be named, shamed, have his photograph on posters all over the area and shunned by the rest of society for being the animal that he would therefore be. If he didn't do it then he can sue the shopkeeper for libel.

[Alex Deane]

The guy responsible was CONVICTED - after that process we are (fallibilities of law notwithstanding) entitled to presume that someone did the thing of which they are accused.

The question is, having had that proof positive of guilt, is the victim entitled to shame the perpetrator? We say, yes.

[Ted Treen]

I thought the police were more concerned with curtailing civil liberties - oh, hold on; these are a perpetrator's civil liberties they're trying to uphold.

No surprise there then.

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