Why I have little respect for the law
I mentioned before in passing the fact that the Home Office (I’m not sure whether it’s now the responsibility of minijust or not) spends a lot of money on adverts telling us, in so many words, that crime is all the victim’s fault. I see the adverts everywhere: on lamposts; at bus stops; in tube stations and in the trains themselves.
Now, I’ve found the motherlode. Just looking at the adverts raises my blood pressure enough that it’s actually shortening my life!
Here are a couple of examples (you can find the originals as PDFs at the link above):
‘Showing off your phone is showing off to thieves.’ Perhaps. But it’s very difficult to place a call when it’s still in your pocket. If using a mobile phone is inviting theft, then why own one at all? It’s valueless advice. Here’s my suggested wording improvement:
Own stuff? It’s your own fault if it gets nicked.
If we really can’t use our mobile phones in public without them getting stolen, the problem lies elsewhere. Maybe the police are too busy investigating stabbings and chasing terrorist bogeymen to pay attention to thefts, but if there really is no appetite for policing acquisitive crime, we should be told, not blamed.
I think I should make a Freedom of Information request to find out how much they’ve wasted on this advertising campaign.
2007-08-18 10:46 UTC. Comments: 4.
Ben Griffiths
Wrote at 2007-08-18 21:52 UTC using Safari 419.3 on Mac OS X:
Heh. Not nearly enough to cause even mild hypertension. Instead, start with this: http://www.how2become.co.uk/police.htmBeta-blockers at hand? Good. A quick skim of the reviews on these books is bound to raise your blood pressure to Glaswegian levels: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Police-Initial-Recruitment-Test-Preparation/sim/0953864642/1/ref=pd_sexpl_esi/202-5984798-4596611
And, just to give you the stroke you’ve been inevitably building up to: http://www.policeuk.com/application/pirt_m1.html
That’s the test that they’ve just lowered the entry requirements from 60% to 50%.
Still alive?
Daniel Lucraft
Wrote at 2007-08-27 09:23 UTC using Firefox 2.0.0.6 on Linux:
If you like that you’ll love this:http://subjunctive.net/photoblog/2003/watchful-eyes.jpg
It is apparently real.
Paul Battley
Wrote at 2007-08-27 09:37 UTC using Firefox 2.0.0.6 on Mac OS X:
Daniel, you’re right about that. Actually, I linked to that picture in an earlier post, along with a newer example of the genre.Alwin Garside
Wrote at 2007-09-09 13:47 UTC using Firefox 2.0.0.6 on Linux:
Not even here in Brazil, where thousands of people are assaulted and robbed of their cell phones daily, and the police simply doesn’t have the resources to do something about it, they thought of placing posters like that. :P(Well actually here it’s allready common wisdom to not show your cell phone around unnessacery, the sort of thing that your parents tell you when you go out. ;)