Victims Of Mobile Phone Robbery example essay topic

1,053 words
In this question there are several points to consider. Firstly there is the opening sentence. Does it mean that we are either not catching villains, or when they are being caught, the judiciary are not imposing custodial sentences and therefore they are back on the streets committing more and more crime. When dissected and taken apart the gripping headline that appeared in the Daily Express means nothing of the sort.

It is merely an eye catcher that will draw people's attention to the article. What the article is actually saying is that although the crime figures in some Police forces in England and Wales has only risen slightly the detection or clear up rate has actually fallen, this is due in some part to the home office guidelines as to what Police can now regard as a 'clear up'. Robbery is and always will continue to be a problem, although as Richard Garside of the crime prevention charity N ACRO said "There is a good deal of confusion and misunderstanding among the public about violent crime, particularly as nearly half of violent offences do not result in injury" (Resource file section 1) Although Garside is right in what he says the definition of force when it is applied in the case of robbery is that, "The threat of force need only to be the victim being in fear of being subjected to such force. It can also be the force used, to forcibly remove or snatch a bag in a street robbery" (Butterworths P 109).

The article also says that crimes such as Burglary have in fact fallen by 9% in 2000-2001, and that motor vehicle has also gone down to the lowest figure in thirteen years. What appears to have sparked this and other similar news items is the rise in mobile phone thefts. There are now very few youngsters without the obligatory fashion accessory. Therefore it is easy pickings for the opportunist thief, or in most cases gangs of thieves. Because of the age of the victims, in most cases at least the chance of the perpetrators making good their escape is a foregone conclusion. The escalating price of the mobile telephone is rising rapidly with the advancement of technology.

With it the manufacturers reluctance to install devices to incapacitate the phone, it makes it a very re-saleable item. In twenty-three per cent of incidents victims were using their mobile phone or had it on display when it was targeted. The victims of mobile phone robbery tend to be younger than victims of other types of robbery - forty-eight percent of victims are under 18 years old. Mobile phone robbery is in the main, a male on male activity - the majority of offenders are male; and most of the victims are male Two thirds of robberies are committed by offenders working in groups The peak age for offenders is 16. Mobile phone robbery is more prevalent in city centres One third of all robberies involve a mobile phone only. Victims under 18 were mainly targeted between the early afternoon at the time schools come out and early evening as youngsters are making their way home.

Those aged 18 and over were targeted between 10 pm and 6 am, more phone robberies than other robberies occurred during the early hours of the morning (web uk / stolen goods 3. htm). The other point that must also be considered, when looking at the article in resource one, is that the Home office guidelines, on the recording of crime, by Police forces across the country has changed. Domestic violence now has to be recorded as a violent crime, even when the victim, in most cases one or the other partner withdraws the allegation, the crime must still be investigated to it's conclusion. In the most serious cases when there is a long history of violence that will result in the Police taking out their own prosecutions in court. This is not to mention all of the other types of violent crime that are raised as issues to-day (Steven box p 245 Reader) such as Murder, Rape, Arson, Assaults, Wounding, Vandalism and Burglary and as mentioned earlier Robbery As he says if they were all counted together then they would make up a good part of our crime problem. There would appear to be a trend in the type of people committing crime if the statistics are to be believed.

The majority of the prison population are male, most are aged under thirty years old with a definite leaning towards the age group between eighteen and twenty one years old. Most of those are educational under achievers. At the other end of the education spectrum there are only 0.05 0 f the prison population that have got a degree. And there is a disproportionate number of blacks in prison, they make up 30%.

Most people in prison are come from towns and lastly most are unemployed. (Box 246 Reader). This of course is the picture, that both the government, and the media and all of those good people, that are concerned in purging this country of its evil minority would tell us, "Deserve what they get". Are their moral values any different to ours or are they much more vocal in their condemnation of offenders. Box goes on to mention the white Collar Crimes. The ones associated to people such as Ernest Saunders, the man who should have appeared in the 'Lancet' as he made medical history by recovering from Senile Dementia.

Most people forget that his crime although not violent still had it's victims. Could Nick Leeson also be classed as a villain. It was the act of a villain and yet somehow he had a film made about his crime. As Box says (P 247 Reader) we tend to rationalism crimes that are committed by the upper and middle and try in our own minds to in some way justify their behaviour. As he says "Having rescued the powerful from abnormality we might do the same for the powerless" (P 247 Reader).