These are extraordinary times. Blair, a perpetrator of the epic crime of the 21st century, shares a ‘prayer breakfast’ with President Obama, the yes-we-can-man now launching more war. ‘We pray,’ said Blair, ‘that in acting we do God’s work and follow God’s will.’ To decent people such pronouncements about Blair’s ‘faith’ represent a contortion of morality and intellect that is a profanation on the basic teachings of Christianity. Those who aided and abetted his great crime and now wish the rest of us to forget their part – or, like Alistair Campbell, his ‘communications director’, offer their bloody notoriety for the vicarious pleasure of some – might read the first indictment proposed by the Blair War Crimes Foundation: ‘Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, four million refugees, countless maiming and traumas’.
These are indeed extraordinary times. John Pilger, article New Statesman, ‘Fake Faith & Epic Crimes’; viz also website
What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany’s at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No, I go for the chandelier; it’s priceless. As I’m taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It’s her father’s business; she’s Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning the cops come, and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada – I don’t trust her. Besides, I like the cold. Thirty years later, I get a postcard: I have a son, and he’s the chief of police. This is where the story gets interesting. I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris, by the Trocadéro. She’s been waiting for me all these years, she’s never taken another lover. I don’t care. I don’t show up. I go to Berlin. That’s where I stashed the chandelier. The Office US s5e9: Frame Toby, Dwight, NBC 2008
What makes a criminal? Lack usually. Lost Horizon 1937 ***** starring Ronald Colman & Jane Wyatt & H B Warner & Sam Jaffe & John Howard & Edward Everett Horton & Thomas Mitchell & Margo & Isabel Jewell & David Clyde & David Torrence et al, director Frank Capra, Chang
What sort of a world do you think it is eh outside your rules and regulations? Listen, bollocks, I’ll tell ya. Everyone in this business starts off on the rob. Every big firm in this country started out by some grabbing bastard hustling and lying and thieving. ’Cause that’s the only way to get up there. But it doesn’t matter. And do you know why? ’Cause when you get up there there’s more robbin’ goes on in Park Land and priggin’ Mayfair and tax havens and computers and the like that in site huts and wellies and farting little offices like this. Ian Bleasdale, Play for Today: The Muscle Market ***** starring Bernard Hill & Pete Postlethwaite et al, Danny to taxmen, BBC 1981
I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last. Charlotte Bronte, John Eyre, Helen to Jane
The collapse of the Soviet Union is the single most important cause of the exponential growth in organised crime that we have seen around the world in the last two decades. Misha Glenny, McMafia
There are two basic types of criminal syndicate: the commodity traders and the protection racketeers. The former kind is divided into three principle groups: producers, wholesale traders and retailers. ibid.
All manner of innocents were ensnared by the engineers of the new illicit economy. Crime sucked the lifeblood from the new South Africa like a deadly leech, leaving it debilitated and racked by fear and insecurity. ibid.
Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you. George Orwell, 1984
On December 1st 1935 Mrs William Starkwell, the wife of a New Jersey handyman, gives birth to her first and only child. It is a boy and they name it Virgil. He is an exceptionally cute baby with a sweet disposition. Before he is 25 years old he will be wanted by police in six states for assault armed robbery and illegal possession of a wart. Take the Money and Run 1969 starring Woody Allen & Janet Margolin & Marcel Hillaire & Jacquelyn Hyde & Lonny Chapman & Jan Merlin & James Anderson & Howard Sotm & Mark Gordon & Micil Murphy et al, director Woody Allen
Spending most of his time on the streets, Virgil takes to crime at an early age. He is an immediate failure. ibid.
Virgil steals to pay for Cello lessons. ibid.
Virgil submits to the vaccine test. It is a success. Except for one temporary side effect. For several hours he is turned into a rabbi. ibid.
How did it happen? ibid. him to her
Virgil complains and he is severely tortured: for several days he is locked in a sweat-box with an insurance salesman. ibid.
UK used to mean United Kingdom but ask anyone today and they’ll tell you it stands for Unbelievable Crimewave. Brass Eye s1e5: Crime, Channel 4 1997
‘Crimes we know nothing about are going up as well.’ ibid.
Bring back borstal. ibid.
Tonight: acid attacks on the increase. Calls for tougher action … Earlier this week Arthur Collins, the ex-boyfriend of TV personality Ferne McCann, was convicted of using acid to attack 14 people in a nightclub. Tonight: Acid Attacks: How Scared Should We Be? ITV 2017
This summer saw a string of shocking attacks … In the past year there have been nearly 450 attacks. ibid.
Frederick Mallefroy: After he was charged he jumped [Attempted GBH] bail; he’s one of thousands of criminals on the run. Exposure s1e5: On the Run, ITV 2011
There’s a lot of fugitives but not necessary a lot of people looking for them. ibid.
Last year almost 100,000 people either jumped bail or broke their licence conditions. ibid.
People on bail are a constant source of crime; last year one in ten offences was perpetrated by people on bail. ibid.
Tonight: bloodshed on our streets. We investigate a shocking cause in the rise of stabbings and shootings spreading across Britain. We meet the teenagers arming themselves in a terrifying world of drugs and violence. And the people responsible for bringing in a new generation. Tonight: Violent Britain: Drugs, Knives & Gangs, ITV 2018
The country is currently caught in a wave of serious violence. The headlines are shocking. ibid.
In 2017 across the country there was a more than 20% increase in knife crime and a more than 10% increase in gun crime. ibid.
In the year to March 2018 reported incidents of violent crime in England and Wales are up nearly a fifth. Crimewave 2018: Lawless Britain, Channel 5 2018
Across the country the public fear criminals are out of control with a rising tide of violence. Gangs are causing chaos and the criminals are brazen: their methods are increasingly vicious. ibid.
More than half of us reportedly worried about crime in our area. ibid.
Have years of austerity led to the police losing control of our streets? ibid.
Since 2010 the number of police officers has been cut by around 21,000. ibid.
A new scourge has emerged: moped crime. ibid.
In the year to March 2018, in England and Wales over 40,000 offences involving knives or sharp weapons were recorded by police. ibid.
England and Wales currently has its lowest number of police officers since the 1980s. ibid.
In the first four months of last year there was a reported average of two acid attacks every day. ibid.
Altaf Khanani built his empire laundering billions of dollars for the world’s biggest drug cartels and armed groups. His clients include Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Australian law enforcers teamed up with four other countries in an undercover operation to lure him out and take him down. The Billion Dollar Criminal, Al Jazeera 2018
He was a big player in a massive international laundering operation that was helping wash the profits of Australian organised crime. ibid.
The last 70 years have seen the most momentous changes in British criminal justice and policing, and throughout those decades television has played a highly significant role … a powerful agent for change. Crime & Punishment: A Timewatch Guide, BBC 2019
In 1955 Ruth Ellis shot her lover to death and stood trial for murder. The decision to execute this twenty-eight year old, a mother of two children, fuelled what was already a fierce debate over capital punishment. ibid.
National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment: ‘To kill a man because you’re angry with him for what he’s done is too close to the thing he’s done himself.’ ibid. Gerald Gardiner WC
It wasn’t until 1998 that it was finally removed from the statute book for all types of crime. ibid.
Bentley: In retrospect it was this case that really spelled the end for capital punishment. ibid.
Gay sex for women had never been criminalised. ibid.
40 years ago Parliament substantially revised the law surrounding rape. ibid.
This film proved shocking in the apparently heartless treatment of a woman who had gone to the police saying she’d been raped by three men. BBC filmmakers were allowed to follow officers of the Thames Valley police … ‘Officers in this case are bullying and cajoling this woman’ … The film caused outrage. ibid.
Little has changed for victims. ibid.