Product Description

Crime is a political football - both left and right are terrified of seeming "soft" on the issue, but for all their efforts, or apparent efforts, crime rates continue to rise. Clearly something needs to be done. But what? Peter Hitchens argues that the time has come to re-examine the criminal justice system root and branch - to cope with rising levels of violent crime, and to restore public faith in society's ability to defend itself. Whatever you think of the solutions Hitchens suggests to this problem, you can be sure that they will excite controversy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52573 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
Hitchens makes it clear from the start that he is a member of the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade, and declares that Britain will never become safe again until politicians adopt the same stance. As a columnist for the Mail on Sunday, his views express much of what Middle England has thought for a long time and they continue the theme begun in his earlier book, The Abolition of Britain. The liberal Left will challenge virtually all of Hitchens's interpretations, not to mention his suggestions on how to put things right. He advocates zero tolerance against not just the crooks in society but also the antisocial and the inconsiderate. Police must be put back on the beat, the 'massaging' of crime figures has to end, and the right of proper self-protection must be restored to the individual, he says. Present policies, which he regards with scorn as far too softly-softly, have only encouraged the explosion in crime and removed freedom from law-abiding citizens. 'England is rapidly becoming a place where the good are afraid of the bad and the bad are not afraid of anything,' he writes. And he believes the police have become 'a distant bureaucracy whose main purpose is to function as a crime-reporting agency for government statisticians and insurance companies'. There is much more hard-hitting stuff along those lines. But this is no mere polemical outburst - Hitchens looks at the wider social context too and offers some solutions that many would consider to be common sense. As a first step, he advocates jettisoning the idea that criminals are themselves victims and that they need help rather than punishment. Whether you agree with ideas such as this or not, they focus on a real problem in society and raise many talking points. (Kirkus UK)

From the Author
Politicians have failed to combat the decline in justice and order which now reaches into the lives of almost everyone in modern Britain. Despite much talk of 'tough' legislation and increasing police numbers, governments of both major parties have failed to make the slightest real impact on the problem.

But worse than this they are increasingly turning to repressive and liberty-threatening laws and measures. The English people have never been so surveyed, filmed, filed, recorded and snooped upon. It is as if the entire population is being punished for the crimes of a few.

I fear that this process will end with the extinction of important liberties, while probably still failing to restore peace and order to our streets. It is time for a re-evaluation of conventional wisdom about crime, since the left-liberalism of the late 20th century has plainly failed.

I argue that a return to the concept of punishment, combined with the restoration of preventive policing - on foot - is the only effective answer to the problem which will also preserve the liberties of the citizen. These things need to be accompanied by a moral restoration and a reversal of much of the cultural revolution described in 'The Abolition of Britain' to which, in a way, this is the companion volume.

About the Author
PETER HITCHENS is one of Britain's most famous journalists and polemicists. His last book, The Abolition of Britain, was a hugely popular call for the renovation of the Union of Great Britain, in the face of the centralising challenge of Europe's institutions.

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking stuff for the new century.
I loathe Peter Hitchens.

I loathe his arrogance, his smugness and his patronising manner.

To my astonishment, I found this book to be quite superb.

Hitchens brings his mind to bear on the collapse of British society and the huge increase in crime that has occurred since WW2.

I was really surprised to find that I agree with almost all of his analyses and potential solutions. The book charts the rise of the 'liberal left elite' and the imposition of their social, political and moral standards on what is essentially conservative country, England. The book does not address the issues in Scotland, since it is a different jurisdiction and data is not fully compatible with those available for England & Wales. (Of course, the overwhelming majority of Hitchens' thoughts are applicable to both Scotland and Northern Ireland.)

If you wonder how we came to live in the crime-ridden and discourteous society that we now 'enjoy', then this book will answer many of your questions.

If you are of the left, and more interested in 'rights' than civil society and order, you might find this book hard to swallow. Nonetheless, I would recommend that you sit down and read it. If nothing else, you'll find out how you are going wrong.

A long overdue corrective to liberal smugness
I live in an area of inner London which has a very high crime rate, and the best recommendation I could give this book is that it describes an England that I recognise intimately from my everyday life. Its description of crime in our big cities and the impotence and indifference towards its besieged inhabitants by the authorities rings absolutely true, from the scream of police car sirens on their way to crimes that have already been committed and the complete absence of policemen and women on foot from the streets for weeks at a time, to the creeping political correctness in the Met that undermines good and effective policing with sinister irrelevance. Contrary to our Guardian-reading friend below, who seems not to have actually bothered reading the book, Hitchens does not suggest bringing back hanging as the starting point for lower crime rates. His first suggestion is a return to preventive policing (as opposed to "fire-brigade" or reactive policing) on foot, which was abandoned in the late 60s when policemen were put into cars. He traces the process whereby this happened in illuminating detail. Liberal prison regimes and their persistent failure either to punish (very un-PC) or rehabilitate the growing prison population are likewise analysed with a useful historical perspective as to how they got that way. Other areas that receive attention are the jury system, drug laws, the death penalty, gun control and the Macpherson report. The civil liberties repercussions of the liberal elite's policies are also pointed out - their attempt to regain control of a situation that is out of hand does not involve a return to the successful principles set out by Sir Robert Peel when he established the Metropolitan Police, but the abolition of double jeopardy, the restriction of trial by jury and the loss of the right to silence amongst others. If you are looking for a book that dissents from the official line that the government and its chums are tackling crime and continual new "initiatives" are making a real difference, then buy this book. If you'd rather believe that the rocketing crime statistics are the product of the crazed imaginations of red-faced Daily Mail readers, then you really should buy this book. And get out more.

Excellent and thought-provoking
This book will be cordially-loathed by the left-wing, self-styled elite - and very much welcomed by ordinary people who want to feel safe in their homes and on the streets. Much of what is to be found here mirrors experience that many of us today have of the police - I was told by the police when I reported my car stolen that they would issue me with a crime- reference number for the insurance claim but they would not investigate its disappearance. Hitchens raises some very pertinent questions, and rakes over some very interesting historical and contemporary information to make what seems an unanswerable case. This book should be required reading for every police constable, every politician and a vade-mecum for the Home Secretary.