17th century justice, 21st century methods
Well stripe me orange. While out walking the dog just now, I actually saw a team of guys out in high-visibility jackets with ‘COMMUNITY PAYBACK‘* printed on them. That New Labour has nasty, vindictive little ideas running through it like shit through a goose should be news to nobody. The fact that they’ve managed to find the practical wherewithal to actually put one into action – and one of Hazel Blears’ to boot – comes as a bit of a shock.
Apparently these jackets exist ’so you can see that they’re paying back your community for their crimes’. But surely, if non-custodial sentences for crimes are enforced properly, that’s implicit without the need for bright orange signs? These jackets are merely and only a manifestation of revenge-by-proxy that New Labour divines the British public (or at least the right-wing paper reading faction) yearns for.
So what happens now? I’ve identified several small time lawbreakers that live in my community. These jackets are clearly meant to mark these people as ‘others’, not like you and me. What should my reaction be if I meet them without their jackets? Shun them? What if I meet one in the park walking his dog? Turn my back? What if I were a local businessman and one turned up for an interview for a job? Should he be shown the door?
Just what purpose does my new knowledge serve?
* The website slogan is ‘JUSTICE SEEN, JUSTICE DONE’. Somebody should tell these marketing pricks they haven’t been commissioned by Judge sodding Dredd.
Posted on August 11th, 2009 at 9:38am under Eye Catching Initiatives, New Labour
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• 17 Comments |
They’re all at it unfortunately:
http://www.joannecash.co.uk/campaigns/2008/03/boris-johnson-c.html
Why not just go the whole hog and bring out the stocks?
I think the orange complements the tar and feathers beautifully.
OMG. That is a terrible idea.
“What should my reaction be”
You should be sick in your own mouth.
Seen a ‘chain gang’ wearing these bibs in my area. They were paraded across a main shopping district to their work location for all to see. It made me feel ashamed to be a UK citizen…
Indeed, moden day branding, ye olde pitchforks and lighted torches. NL clones leading the mob….
Very apt website this
http://www.1lesscar.org.uk/about.htm#payback
As I’ve said before, this is something that needs to be subverted. And for once I don’t care that some cynical retailer makes a profit on it. Make a bunch of replica jackets, set up a little bit of viral marketing and turn the things into the latest piece of street fashion. It should actually be easy enough to do and it would completely undercut the message they are supposed to be sending.
They could be offered to bankers, say, with the slogan COMMUNITY CASHBACK.
+1.
My replica bib would be worn to the pub from 11am on a weekday onwards.
I would suggest one reason they have ‘COMMUNITY PAYBACK‘ on them is because in a year or so there will also be unemployed people being forced to do low/non paid work so they need to differentiate between those on court ordered labour and DWP ordered labour. To at least allow ministers to claim the unemployed are not treated as criminals, they have a different slogan on their jacket!
Mel Brooks had the best take on this: Imagine Blears asking the perps to sing.
A T-shirt with the slogan – ‘Political Payback’ and a picture of Mandelson getting doused in custard!
Not the seventeenth century, but the late nineteenth:-
“From two o’clock till half past two on that day I had to stand on the centre platform at Clapham Junction in convict dress and handcuffed, for the world to look at…. Of all possible objects I was the most grotesque. When people saw me they laughed. Each train as it came in swelled the audience. Nothing could exceed their amusement…. For half an hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering mob.”
It is said that one onlooker, upon recognizing the prisoner as Oscar Wilde, stepped up to him and spat in his face. The incident affected Wilde dramatically for years afterwards when he wept at the same hour every day.
I presume this will over overseen by some guy chewing tobacco while wearing mirrored sunglasses and holding a rifle?
I don’t know about you, but I have a strange urge to watch ‘Oh brother, where art thou?’ again.
Cool Hand Luke would be a more appropriate choice.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2528476.0.75_of_inmates_reoffend_within_2_years.php
75% of all offenders who serve 6 months or less re-offend within 2 years….So its clearly the jackets or sentencing of more than 6 months then…Can we say Hobson’s choice these days without offending someone ? :O)