Tough On Crime?

Is it too late, at 45, to learn a martial art form? I'm not sure that it would be wise, given how the old body is beginning to show real signs of ageing, but I feel a growing urge to do so, living in Glasgow.

Saturday night, my "white belt" in judo - which I got at the age of 21, after attending one class - was insufficient to give me the courage to do my social duty, which was to stop a fight: if indeed you could call it a fight, because it was more like attempted murder.

I was in a taxi, on my way home, after a get together with some friends. It was nearly five in the morning, and I was the worse for wear and tear, fit only for my bed. We were approaching the bowling green at Kelvingrove when the taxi driver spotted the fight. Like me, the taxi driver was not the "physical sort". He was about five foot six inches at most, and skinnier than me; and - as he later on told me - he lived in mortal fear of something happening to him, though he counted his blessings that nothing had in the year since he had left his native Poland.

So, neither of us did our social duty, in that we didn't attempt to stop the fight. We didn't want to be the next victim.

We didn't see the start of the fight. By the time the taxi pulled up, the fight was already won, only the "victor" wasn't satisfied with that. He repeatedly kicked and punched the prone body of his now lifeless victim. He only finally stopped when he started overheating and had to pull off his jumper. Even after that he still stamped on his victim several times. Then he did what I can only describe as a strutting sort of dance and sauntered off.

The best I could do was phone the police and give them a description of the attacker; accurate as I was able to be, the man was pretty non-descript. He wore blue jeans and a cream t-shirt and was carrying (after the event) a striped jumper. By the time I had issued the description to the police, the attacker had run off, down Sauchiehall Street. A police car hadn't even been dispatched.

As for the victim, he was still alive. Someone managed to flag down a passing ambulance so that his waiting time was less than would be normal. His life may even have been saved... or it may not have been. I don't know. I might buy a newspaper today, to see if it's been reported. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he had died. He was in an awful state. If his body looked anything like his face, I think he'd have internal haemorrhaging. You couldn't really say the guy had a "face" any more.

I am haunted by the bloody, bruised mass that used to be the victim's face. If I had been stronger, a more proficient fighter, bolder I could have saved the victim from this ignominious end. If I had stuck it with the judo, I could have laid out the attacker with one blow, and then held him prone on the pavement with my foot on his windpipe (as I watched a CID officer do once) until the police arrived.

But even then, if I could have done that, what would have happened? The attacker might have served a couple of years in prison, and then he'd be out on the streets again. No doubt, after another drinking session and the right provocation, he would do it all again. Maybe next time he'd actually kill someone. And maybe next time he'd also get away with it, because members of the public - like me - are usually too frightened to intervene.

We have a government that once claimed to be "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime". I see no evidence of either. I'd really like to see a government actually get tough on the causes of crime. I'd like to see our government adopt our own version of the Islamic sharia law and maybe spice it up with some Hindu instant karma.

Let's just round up all the criminal psychopaths and give them frontal lobotomies - destroys violent urges in an instant. This way, they are no danger to society, and we needn't spend huge sums keeping them locked up. In fact, we could get them to do all the shit jobs, like attending toilets, emptying bins and picking up dog poo from the street. This would possibly make up for the damage they've done to other people's lives. This would be them "paying their debt to society" in a much more useful way than just languishing in prison.

Of course, there is a more humane solution to the problem, but it is complex and would be very costly to implement and in some instances it might infringe on some people's "human rights".

Here are some suggestions:

For starters, when we are finally issued with our ID cards, each citizen could also be given an isometric test, and anyone with psychopathic tendencies could have their ID card marked as such. All pubs, clubs and off licenses would have card reading machines at the door and those with psychopathic tendencies would be barred from entering.

Anyone convicted of a violent offence - even a minor one - should be compulsorily sent to an intensive anger management course.

It is well documented that violent people generally were treated violently as children. So the cycle has to be broken. Corporal punishment, physical violence, threats of violence and excessive, ongoing shouting and screaming in the home should be banned by law. Offenders should be forced to undertake anger management courses or - if they refuse - to have their children taken away and cared for by non-violent foster parents (and we could certainly build up a bank of would-be foster parents by banning IVF treatment)

There should be an extensive advertising campaign to try to educate people about the ill-effects of violent and abusive behaviour to children in the home and hot-lines set up, so that neighbours can report abusive parents.

The social services and other relevant agencies should have significantly increased budgets to employ the necessary personnel to deal with these reports.

Every nursery, primary and secondary school should employ full time doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and social workers to monitor school pupils for possible abuse at home.

Schools should also employ extra part-time staff to monitor and supervise school pupils during breaks and lunch to help stamp out bullying

The teacher: pupil ratio at school should be lowered to 1:10, so that pupils can be adequately taught, monitored and guided. Teacher's salaries should be significantly increased, so that the profession attracts only the best applicants.

These are just some of my thoughts. Of course, to fund such improvements in our society we have to be willing to bear an increased burden of taxation: at least, in the short term. In the long term, with less people in jail, less people hospitalised and less people permanently incapacitated and on benefit, we might actually see our tax bills drop.

Of course, we might just be able to avoid taxing ordinary people if we laid the tax burden firmly in the hands of the "super rich", who have been enjoying a decadent life that has all the hallmarks of the end of the Roman Empire. Saturday's Guardian has an interesting report on the Movida club in London where these parasites congregate, paying up to seven thousand pounds for a bottle of champagne. The proprietor of the Movida is now marketing a cocktail called The Flawless, which will cost 35,000 UK pounds sterling a glass. The Guardian reports that among the first to order the drink was 28 year old Max Reigns, a property developer and manager. He intends to give it to his girlfriend for Christmas. When asked if he couldn't think of a better use for 35,000 pounds, he replied: "It's about the same as a holiday, isn't it?"

I think Max has really argued very succinctly for an increase in the wealth tax, which currently stands at a derisory 40%. There should be a new band of 60% which kicks in at 100,000 pounds a year; a further band of 75% that kicks in at 250,000 a year and finally, if you earn over one million a year, it should be taxed at 90%.

This is the way it should have become, back in 1997, when Britain voted in its first Labour government in 18 years. Our government should have overturned the tax cutting policies of the Conservatives and made our society more equitable once again. No-one - least of all me - is advocating communism here, but it is an absolute obscenity that anyone can afford to spend an amount that represent two years salary for most people on an alcoholic beverage.

I think of that poor nameless guy on the pavement with his smashed up face and pulverised body; and I have no problem with the idea of taxing the super-rich to pay for proper provisions to combat the violence that is endemic in our society today. It would be good if there actually was a political party that had true vision, that really was "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime". I'm sure they would win a landslide majority in the next election.