pickledseal
cowboy
After more bodies keep being found, and the usual debate evolves on here about capital punishment (sorry but *yawn*), I thought I would take it in another direction...
George Bernard Shaw was once quoted as saying that the original Jack the Ripper did what scores of socialists had failed to do... put the poverty and living conditions of the East End on to the front page.
In a similar way, his 21st century Ipswich counterpart or even counterparts I guess, may lead the press to discover that poverty is a real issue - even in rural, sleepy Suffolk.
Pretty much every English town has this violent underworld of desperate and vulnerable people just out of sight - it takes something sensational to bring this undiscovered country to the attention of the rest of us...
Another brief thought.
In Edinburgh a few years ago, the city authorities tried a pilot project of ending police harassment of prostitutes, allowing them to work openly in well lit streets, with CCTV cameras filming the number plates of men who picked them up.
As a result, violent attacks on prostitutes fell through the roof and murders dropped to zero.
When the project ended, and the prostitutes again headed for darker alleys.... violent attacks on them increased by 1000%.
What if something like the Edinburgh project had been in force in Ipswich? I think its reasonable to claim that all the woman now dead would still be alive, and all those Ripper wannabes would be out of work for good.
Prostitution is no way to encourage people make a living, but this seems like a good example of a case where heavy-handed government intervention makes a bad problem much worse. Violence against prostitutes could be greatly reduced, not from more police work, but less.
It's a profession that is not going to go away - so maybe some regulation, or de-regulation, may just help everyone out.
Prioirty is obviously to catch these evil mudering types, but in the aftermath, it may be worth a consideration!
George Bernard Shaw was once quoted as saying that the original Jack the Ripper did what scores of socialists had failed to do... put the poverty and living conditions of the East End on to the front page.
In a similar way, his 21st century Ipswich counterpart or even counterparts I guess, may lead the press to discover that poverty is a real issue - even in rural, sleepy Suffolk.
Pretty much every English town has this violent underworld of desperate and vulnerable people just out of sight - it takes something sensational to bring this undiscovered country to the attention of the rest of us...
Another brief thought.
In Edinburgh a few years ago, the city authorities tried a pilot project of ending police harassment of prostitutes, allowing them to work openly in well lit streets, with CCTV cameras filming the number plates of men who picked them up.
As a result, violent attacks on prostitutes fell through the roof and murders dropped to zero.
When the project ended, and the prostitutes again headed for darker alleys.... violent attacks on them increased by 1000%.
What if something like the Edinburgh project had been in force in Ipswich? I think its reasonable to claim that all the woman now dead would still be alive, and all those Ripper wannabes would be out of work for good.
Prostitution is no way to encourage people make a living, but this seems like a good example of a case where heavy-handed government intervention makes a bad problem much worse. Violence against prostitutes could be greatly reduced, not from more police work, but less.
It's a profession that is not going to go away - so maybe some regulation, or de-regulation, may just help everyone out.
Prioirty is obviously to catch these evil mudering types, but in the aftermath, it may be worth a consideration!
