By Diana Holbourn
Becky and Other Students Discuss World Problems, How Some Have Been Unintentionally Made Worse, and How Some Have Been Diminished
Book three of the Becky Bexley series. Chapter 1 continued.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
Then the conversation got serious again, as the one who'd been talking before said, "I read a book by a policeman who said solicitors often use tricks when they speak to the criminals they're representing in police stations after they've been arrested, to help them persuade the police they don't deserve to be charged with crimes, or to get them shorter sentences if they are and they end up in court. He said that ever since a law was passed in 1984, everyone who gets arrested's entitled to have a solicitor with them when the police interview them, who speaks to them in private before the interview as well as being there with them for it.
"He said that one thing a lot of them do is to in effect help the criminals they're representing make up stories that make them seem innocent during their private meetings, partly by putting ideas into their heads about how they can make the stories they've already made up seem more convincing, and helping them think of new ones, by coming up with innocent explanations for their behaviour and asking them if those things are what really happened. For instance, if a criminal's accused of driving a stolen car, their solicitor might ask them if they were in reality driving a car they'd just borrowed from someone who must have stolen it without their knowledge. The criminal will likely think that's a brilliant excuse and say yes, deciding to use it from then on.
"Or a solicitor might ask someone arrested for assault if they only committed the crime in self-defence, because the other person attacked them or behaved in a threatening way towards them first. Naturally, a criminal will likely jump at the chance to improve their story, and say yes, and claim that that's what really happened from then on.
"Police have to tell a solicitor about all the evidence they've got against the person they're going to represent before the solicitor has a private meeting with them, which means the solicitor can think up ways to make excuses for it with the criminal before they're interviewed by the police.
"The policeman who wrote the book I read where he explained this kind of thing even said that some solicitors give free gifts to the criminals they're representing, like trainers or cigarettes, taken out of the legal aid budget that tax payers pay for, - since all criminals arrested by the police are entitled to legal aid, I think. They give them gifts to entice them to ask for them by name again the next time they get arrested and are asked if they'd like to speak to a solicitor, so the solicitor will make more money from the government by getting their business.
"And the policeman said another thing some of them do is to try to intimidate younger less experienced police officers by stopping interviews to accuse them of things like being oppressive, and threatening to make an official complaint against them, being especially likely to butt in if their client's beginning to say something that incriminates themselves.
"A lot of them defend criminals as best as they can, knowing full well they're guilty. It seems it's not about justice for a lot of people like that, but the policeman who wrote the book where he talks about it thinks it's about making money from the system and the pleasure of taking on the challenge of trying to get the people they're defending off. Most solicitors probably live in low-crime areas, so they don't have to worry too much about becoming victims of people like that themselves, who are out on a burglary spree or whatever.
"I read the opinion of a policeman who said short prison sentences don't work. He said that chances are that a criminal put in a local prison will be locked up with a lot of his friends from the area, and he'll have television and other things to entertain him, and probably drugs too, since drugs being smuggled into prison's a big problem. And he might enjoy a break from someone he's in a relationship with if they're not getting on well. He said only long prison sentences feel like a real punishment to a lot of criminals, so they have a bit more chance of being a deterrent to them committing more crime.
"I read a book where a lot of policemen expressed their opinions. One said he'd read that it costs fifty thousand pounds a year to keep someone in prison, but he said he didn't believe it. He said he thought the statistic was probably put out by organisations that campaign against prisons, for whatever reason, and they probably included the cost of building prisons in the figures, like averaging the cost out over a few decades and adding part of it to the cost of each person's keep or something. But he said he thinks the figure's misleading, since it's not as if new prisons are built every year, so building them isn't an ongoing cost. He said other figures he'd seen put the cost at about twenty thousand pounds a year per prisoner.
"But he said that even if it did cost a lot more than that to keep a person inside for a year, it would probably still be less than the costs the current system of letting a lot of criminals out after they've had short sentences when they're almost bound to commit more crimes puts on the tax payer, like the costs of repeatedly arresting the same person, investigating their crimes and taking them to court several times a year, and the cost of having to pay people to supervise the community sentences they're often given, which they often don't even turn up to do. And they don't get their benefits like Job Seekers' Allowance while they're in prison, so that must add up to quite a bit of money saved over the course of a year.
"And then there's the cost to victims of having to replace things that have been stolen or broken, and maybe the cost of having to take time off work because they've been injured, and so on. And if people were put away for a long time, more money might well be saved in the long term, because it would prevent them from spawning children who'd likely be brought up badly and get into crime themselves because of the influence of their criminal dads and other criminals in the area who keep getting off with community or suspended sentences, sometimes even when they've been violent, it seems.
"The policeman who made those comments said he reckons the reason a lot of politicians don't like to have more people sent to prison or to have them sent there for longer is because a lot of them are lawyers, who might have made a lot of money from defending criminals time and time again before they went into politics, so they think doing that's a nice little earner for people like them, that they wouldn't want to stop. I don't know about that. But if they lived in areas where they were at risk of being the victims of a lot of crime themselves, they'd probably change their minds.
"A few policemen who commented in this book said the judges and magistrates who do things like let violent criminals off with suspended sentences and things like that, and the politicians who make the laws about how long or short sentences should be, can't have any idea of what it's like to live among people like that, since they'll almost all have grown up in privilege, going to posh schools with posh friends, and not having anything to do with the kinds of people they're sentencing or making laws about, so they don't know much at all about what it feels like to be a victim of crime, or what kind of people these criminals really are.
"Another policeman who contributed to the book said he's seen burglars with as many as fifty previous convictions for crimes be let off by the courts, just told to do drug rehabilitation courses or community sentences; and then they go out of court laughing, because they've pretty much got away with what they've done, and they're free to do more of it, which they often do pretty soon afterwards.
"One policeman said criminals seem to be able to hoodwink magistrates time and time again by telling them they only burgled houses to support their drug habit, and they've just given it up and have got into a good relationship, perhaps with a woman who's pregnant with their child that they want to take care of, and they've got themselves a job interview and want to go straight. Then they're pretty much let off, and they go straight back to their old ways. No one checks to see if they really have got a job interview.
"One policeman said magistrates seem to assume that drug addicts only burgle houses because they have to do that to get money for their drugs, so they'd stop if they weren't on drugs. Or they feel sorry for them because they're on drugs, because they assume they must have started taking them because they wanted to dull the pain they were experiencing because of their stressful lives; so it makes them want to be sympathetic to them, instead of thinking the streets need to be safer for the law-abiding people who have to live near them. Some criminals are probably good at putting on a victim act.
"But the policeman said he thinks criminals burgle houses because they like doing it, since it beats working; and they take drugs because it's fun. They might have got into burgling before they started taking drugs. And a lot of them do worse things, like mugging people and beating up old ladies to get their pension money so they can buy drugs with it; but they can still find themselves being let off a prison sentence. He said a lot of them really aren't nice people, and like to do other nasty things too, seemingly just for fun, like assaulting people, as well as more minor things like playing their music really loud late at night and swearing and being abusive to anyone who asks them to turn it down.
"And some of the policemen who commented in this book said people at the Crown Prosecution service often decide not to prosecute criminals with the serious offences the police think they ought to be charged with, such as attempted murder, but with less serious ones, supposedly so juries will be more likely to find them guilty of them, instead of risking them refusing to convict them because they don't think they deserve a long sentence or something; but they probably really do it not because they really want the criminals at least locked up for a while, but because they want to meet their government targets for the number of crimes they decide to have people taken to court for that people are found guilty of, so they'll look better. But it means dangerous criminals often get charged with less serious crimes than they should be charged with, so they get lighter sentences, so they're free again to commit more crimes sooner.
"The Crown Prosecution Service are the ones who decide whether a serious case will even go to court, and the police have often complained about them dropping cases, or charging criminals with less serious crimes than the police think they should be charged with. And meanwhile, victims and other people who called the police and gave information that got the criminals arrested get scared when they find out the criminals likely won't be sentenced to a long prison term, because the criminals will soon be living near them again, likely wanting revenge.
"It seems as if a lot of judges and magistrates and the lawyers working for the Crown Prosecution Service assume crimes are one-off offences committed by people who never normally do anything like it in life, so there won't be any danger in giving them puny sentences that don't involve going to prison. But a lot of them offend again and again. And maybe a lot of them start committing worse offences when they pretty much get away with the ones they've committed before, since they're confident of getting away with only minor sentences again.
"I heard that a lot of criminals like shoplifters nowadays just boldly walk into shops and places like that, pick things up like big crates of lager, and walk out, knowing full well they'll be recognised, and caught after a while, but not caring, because they're confident that magistrates will just let them off with a warning time and time again, because magistrates often do that, because they prefer not to send people to prison because the prisons are so overcrowded. So the criminals just think of being caught as a mild inconvenience. And that's one reason why the crime rate's so high in some places - because criminals like burglars and shoplifters often aren't sent to prison, so they're free to commit more crimes, thinking any sentences they get in future probably won't be much of a big deal.
"Maybe magistrates and judges should have to spend a week work shadowing the police, being sent out with them to catch burglars and speak to victims and so on, so they'd get a better idea of what the criminals are really like, instead of just seeing them when they're on their best behaviour in court, after they've invented a story to make themselves look better than they are. And then they could get a better idea of the impact that kind of crime really has on victims.
"I once read a book by someone who used to be a customs officer at an airport about his work, and he said he got fed up of the nearby magistrates giving people puny penalties for smuggling horrible kinds of porn into the country that he and other officers had found on them, so he one day invited one of them round to view some of it, because he was convinced they were out of touch and didn't really know what it was like. The one who came round was an old woman. She was shocked and appalled, right from the start, when she watched the videos of it, and from then on, the people in possession of it in the area got more sensible kinds of penalties."
The students said they thought that was interesting, and that they thought things needed to be changed.
Just then they heard a loud yawn from behind them as a few other students walked past. One of the ones at the table joked, "Ah, that must be someone who was at the lecture I was at yesterday. She must have taken longer to recover than I did."
That turned the mood more light-hearted for a while. The one who'd been telling the others before about how they'd joked about someone on a forum making up daft Christmas scams said, "Remember I was talking about that man on a forum I called Old Grump, because he was always being rude to people? I'll tell you another story about him. He swore at me one day, so I made up another joke story about him trying to scam people, and put it on the board. I said,
"'Old Grump, I command you to be silent! Since you have provoked me, I will now tell of more of your con-man tricks. A career as a con-man isn't good, you know.
"'Here's one of Old Grump's scams. It was a special Valentine's Day scam, which made it even worse than scams that aren't special day scams, ... possibly:
"'He sold something he claimed was extremely valuable, so it cost a lot of money. It's a future mate compatibility finder. This is how he advertised it:
"'"It's just a little device you carry with you when you go out on a date, and it shows you how compatible you are with the person you're going out with. It has a way of sensing how similar your word sounds are to those of your partner's. So for instance, if you've both said the word television 40-50 times, it will be able to pick up the fact that your word patterns sound the same, and it will change colour, to the colour it goes when it's telling you you're compatible with the person you're going out with. Basically, if you talk about the same things, it will indicate that you're compatible and that you'll live happily ever after."'
"'Another new gadget Old Grump's invented is the username finder. It's for people who can't decide what to call themselves on Internet forums. It costs quite a bit, but Old Grump claims it's worth it, because you type in a number of letters or words, or one word, and it'll rearrange them into anagrams so you can choose from one of them.
"'For instance, if someone whose name was Josephine didn't want to use her real name on a forum, she could put it into the username finder, and it would come out with the anagram "Join Sheep", so she could use that.'"
The students chuckled.
But then the conversation turned serious again, as one said, "I heard about a police station that was equipped with its own CCTV camera monitoring centre, so people in the police station could look at what was going on all around their part of the town. It sounds great, and it enabled them to catch criminals much more easily, because they could spot known serial criminals on there and find out what they were up to, and look at anything suspicious that was going on or see where criminals escaping after committing a crime were going. The police could jump in their cars to go and get them, and someone inside the police station could direct them on their radio while they were driving, updating them on the criminals' latest movements. They knew a lot of the criminals by name and were familiar with their appearance; and the CCTV camera monitoring people were familiar with the area they were directing the police around, so it was easy for them to give clear directions.
"I don't know if all police stations were equipped with their own CCTV monitoring centres at one point, or just some; but then in some cost-cutting exercise, the system was changed, so police stations didn't have their own any more, or at least some big ones might still have done - I'm not sure; but I think far fewer must have done at least. I don't know all that much about it; but from what I do know, individual monitoring rooms were replaced with a more centralised system, where police from then on had to rely on reports from people working in a monitoring centre some way away, who weren't familiar with the areas they were directing the police around so it was harder, and weren't familiar with the local criminals. And there were a lot more cameras in them, but overall there were fewer people monitoring them than there were when each police station had its own monitoring centre and someone would be looking at the cameras in their locality all the time. So it became harder to catch criminals, because not so many places could be monitored as quickly.
"And police would often visit the centre and spend a couple of hours looking back over the camera footage to see if they could spot criminals committing crimes that had been reported the previous day in their neighbourhoods; but since they were paid three times as much as the people monitoring the CCTV cameras, it was questionable as to just how much money was really being saved.
"So it seems the police could be a lot more efficient if every station had its own CCTV camera monitoring centre again.
"I got curious to read more about how cutting costs has unintended consequences, so I had a look for some information on the Internet. I found quite a lot.
"A lot of businesses have had to do things that cut their costs a lot, for one reason or another.
"I read that one reason is that some businesses have made the mistake of buying in lots more goods than they needed at the time to make the things they were manufacturing, because there was a good deal for them on, and they assumed there would always be as much demand for their products as there was at the time, so they were buying a lot of the goods for later. But then for one reason or another, there was a slump in demand for their products, so they had loads of goods they didn't need, that had cost them a lot of money. And since not so much money was coming in any more because not so many people were buying their products, they needed to cut costs so they could afford to stay in business, or so they wouldn't have to put the prices of their products up and end up selling even less of them because even fewer people would want to buy them then.
"But some of them cut their costs in a panic, it seems, not spending a lot of time trying to work out where the costs could be cut that would cause the least damage.
"They did it by laying off some workers and temporarily shutting down some of their facilities, and they did other things that saved them money at the time; but all those things meant it was harder for them to get their businesses properly up-and-running again quickly when demand for their products rose again.
"So it can be best for a business not to spend loads of money on goods that won't be needed for some time, even if there is a good deal on for them. Then again, if they don't, they could find themselves with a problem later if there comes to be a shortage of those goods, for some reason.
"It can be best if they can find some way of forecasting what demand for their products is likely to be in the future, although unexpected things can happen that mean forecasts turn out to be inaccurate, such as new technologies being developed by other companies that make their own products obsolete, when people start preferring to buy the new technologies than their products. You know, like when digital cameras replaced cameras with film in them that needed to be developed in a shop.
"Another problem can happen if businesses cut costs by getting rid of some workers without thinking about how necessary they are to the business. It might save a lot of money right then and there because they don't have to pay their wages any more; but a couple of months later, bosses might realise their business isn't functioning efficiently, because some things aren't being done any more that really need to be done.
"Or businesses can stop putting some people's wages up, thinking it won't matter because they're senior people who are already being paid a lot; but then some of them can get dissatisfied and leave their jobs and go and work for competitor companies that pay higher wages.
"Sometimes it might help to explain to them the reasons for the pay freeze, to get them on side; but that probably doesn't work all the time.
"There are ways to cut costs that don't have unintended consequences, like if there are people tasked with looking into things a business is doing that are genuinely wasteful, such as if they're sending workers on expensive training days where it turns out they're not actually learning much. But the question of where to cut costs ought to be thought about pretty carefully.
"Of course, cutbacks can have much worse consequences when they're done to important organisations like the police and the health service by the government.
"It seems there's been a problem with cutbacks to funding for the health service, as well as cuts in the budgets local authorities use for social care services, where people go into the homes of mostly old people who can't do as much for themselves as they used to, to help them with things like washing and dressing themselves, and preparing food for them. When the funding's cut so carers can't go in to help some people as often as they need it, it means there'll be added expense for other services that might also be facing funding cuts, such as the health service, because more people will have to stay in hospital after they're treated for illnesses and injuries, because doctors know they won't get enough help at home for them to be able to cope. And that can actually mean other people have to wait longer to come into hospital for operations, because there aren't the beds available for them.
"And cutbacks in funding for care services mean there'll be more of a burden on emergency departments in hospitals, for reasons such as that when people who can't manage to do things so well any more try to do more things for themselves, because they're not being done for them, it can lead to them falling and hurting themselves, or doing other things that end up injuring them.
"It must be a bit difficult for the government, I suppose, because there are rising numbers of old people needing care, and taxes might have to go up a fair bit to make the best service possible available, and that'll make them unpopular. But then, media reports of cutbacks or under-funding in the NHs and social care services will make them unpopular too.
"It has happened that in some ways, cutbacks in the NHS have actually led to better use of the money, like where money's been saved by doctors prescribing a lot more cheaper drugs that have the same effects as more expensive brand-named ones, or not prescribing drugs for minor complaints but recommending that people buy remedies from pharmacies instead, and where the NHS has tried to employ more permanent staff, so not so many are temporary staff provided by agencies, who cost more, because the agencies have to be paid as well as the staff.
"But under-funding of the NHS has also led to problems, such as shortages of staff and equipment, repairs to buildings being put off, some equipment not being replaced with newer better versions, and longer waiting times for operations for some people. It's often not actual cutbacks that have caused the problems, but that the amount of funding hasn't kept pace with the higher demand for services there is nowadays because of the increasing demand for them, because there's a rise in old people because of the increase in life expectancy, who naturally tend to develop more and more health problems as they age, often earlier than they could have done otherwise, if they've been living unhealthy lifestyles. And some of the increase in costs is also because new expensive drugs and technologies can do some great things, but they can cost a heck of a lot.
"It seems from what I've read that there are certain sectors of the NHS that some governments thought were less important than the others so they thought of making cutbacks there, thinking there would be no problems, such as with things that are done to try to prevent people developing illnesses, such as services to help people stop smoking and drinking so much alcohol. But if they're not so available, some people might carry on their old lifestyles, and end up ill with diseases like cancer, needing way more expensive care than they would have done if they'd got the services. And some people might commit crime when they're drunk when they wouldn't have done otherwise.
"As for cutbacks in funding to the police, I've read that they've led to tens of thousands of dangerous criminals not being hunted down who would be if there were more police to do the work, and a lot of crimes not being investigated that could be if only there were more police to do it.
"And when there aren't enough police, they can sometimes classify emergency calls about serious crimes as having a lower level of importance than they should, to take pressure off the police to get there as quickly as possible.
"The problem's partly caused by government cutbacks in other services, not just in the police, and also partly by other changes. The police are having to deal with a whole lot of people with mental health problems nowadays, doing things that really ought to be the responsibility of social services; so it seems they're busier than they used to be. But the budgets of social services departments can be pretty tight, so they can't manage to do everything they'd like to.
"And there used to be quite a few big long-stay psychiatric hospitals in the country; but in the 1990s, a lot of them were closed down, partly because it was thought that it would be nicer if people there were cared for in the community, and it was thought that that would be easier than it was nearer the beginning of the century, since drugs had been developed that could keep people's symptoms under control. Whether everyone who needs them takes them is another matter; it seems a lot of people stop taking them for periods of time, because they don't like the side effects, or don't understand how ill they really are, and maybe for other reasons too. So that can cause problems that end up being dealt with by the police.
"It was also hoped that replacing long-term care in big psychiatric hospitals that were expensive to run with small supported housing complexes and care facilities in the community would cut costs; but it's turned out to not always be the case, at least where services haven't been run well enough, which has led to more severe problems later. For example, a lot of people with schizophrenia who are often unsupervised, for instance because they've found it hard to cope and have gravitated to living on the streets, have physical illnesses they don't seek treatment for till they're at crisis point, some related to attempts to improve their quality of life with illegal drugs and alcohol; and then they'll need more treatment than they would have done if their conditions could have been treated earlier. Or they'll go off their medication and have crises that mean they need to be admitted to short-stay psychiatric hospitals to receive emergency care; and that can keep happening over and over again.
"A lot of those big hospitals could probably have been improved a fair bit so patients had more dignity and better care, like there sometimes being more good-quality psychologists around, and more activities to help people enjoy life more. And there were worrying reports of abuse and neglect going on in some of those places. But it seems from what I've read that well-run ones would still benefit the most severely mentally ill people.
"It seems a lot of people who used to live in places like that are happier now they've moved out, because they can have the privacy of their own flats, and they've made more friends, and can get help when they need it, although that isn't true for everyone; some are pretty socially isolated and don't have a good quality of life. And a lot of families are being put under a lot of pressure now because they're trying to look after relatives with severe mental illnesses who'd have been in hospitals before. But a lot of people who used to live in places like that were at least taught skills that helped them cope better in the community after they left, such as how to cope with daily living tasks like cooking, and how to regulate their behaviour to some extent so as to fit in better with other people."
One of the students said, "I've known a few people with schizophrenia who lived in supported housing, where they had their own flats, but there was a warden they could go for help to if they wanted it. I liked them. One of them had an onset of schizophrenia symptoms and went into a psychiatric hospital for a while and then came out again when I knew him. But I wasn't there when his schizophrenia got bad; all the people with schizophrenia I've known were lucid when I was around them. Maybe their schizophrenia was being well-controlled by medication at the time.
"I remember talking to one of them once when I was feeling stressed, and she was telling me something, and for some reason, I quickly forgot what she said. I asked her a question, and she sounded a bit irritated when she answered me, and then I remembered she'd told me the answer just a minute earlier, so she must have thought I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying. But really, I think it was just stress doing weird things to my memory; I think it's a known fact that stress can impair people's short-term memories a bit."
Another one of the group said, "There's a forum I post on sometimes where someone said she had a short break from it, and her mental health improved, probably because it meant she had a break from people arguing with her. But she can't seem to stay away from the place for long! In fact, I think she hangs around it and posts more on it than most other people do!
"There's another forum I like better, even though there are a lot more arguments there, - or maybe it's actually because of that. Well, it's probably mostly to do with the fact that I've had quite a bit of fun there.
"I remember there was one day when someone new introduced themselves. One or two people there were often rude to new people, for some reason, so it could put them off the place. I didn't think it was fair of them to do that. But when this person introduced themselves, someone said something rude but it was just in fun, and it started a play-argument between one or two people and me. Then after a while, I suddenly remembered it was supposed to be someone's thread for introducing themselves, and that we ought to be welcoming him. But I still felt like having fun, so I joked,
"'Oh how rude of me; I haven't welcomed the person who started this thread. Welcome, sir. I have to say I found your mini-essay on the lifestyle of the lesser-spotted horse fly most interesting. I can tell you'll be a valuable contributor to this board, so I hope you stay around.'
"He hadn't mentioned such a thing at all really.
"And there was another time when I was missing someone who used to be on the forum but disappeared, for some reason, and I wrote a tongue-in-cheek poem about how nice it would be if he was back and how much I liked him, and put it on the board. But later I realised it sounded a bit soppy, and I joked,
"'That poem somehow ended up sounding much soppier than I intended. You see how I'm right about what I've said before about how poetry's a scourge on society? People probably shouldn't be allowed to read or write it under the age of about 65, not until they're old enough to handle it properly. And even then, they should have to have a licence before they can, which can be taken away if any poetry they write doesn't pass the correct quality controls.'
"On another day, someone told another person on there to shut up, and someone else said they seconded it. I said for a laugh, 'Really? Yes, maybe we could turn it into a song. If we could all hear each other talk, perhaps we could learn to sing it in a round.'
"And there was another time when the subject got onto the topic of pathological liars, for some reason, and someone said he'd known a few, and said the only reason he could think of why they might do it is because they're bored of the truth, or afraid of it.
"Then he said something like, 'I don't have a problem talking in a straightforward way myself. For instance, I'm 20, but I can still be on the level with and talk to 5, 14 ... whatever year olds.'
"I thought I remembered him saying he was a bit older than that, so I wondered if he was lying himself, and joked,
"'Weren't you about 23 last year? Do you have some kind of rare syndrome where you get younger every year now, perhaps in stages of three years at a time, so maybe in five years' time, you'll only be 5 years old yourself? Or are you "afraid" of the fact you're getting a bit older?'
"He said he really was just 20.
"There was another time when someone who lived in Florida who I often argued with said he'd heard on the TV that there was a dating site with a special offer on, and I should go and find out about it. I'd never expressed any interest in such a thing, so I think he was just thinking it would do me good or something. I joked, 'Florida television doesn't whizz around the world superimposing itself on everybody else's screens, blocking out anything else the channels nearer them were putting on, you know. The offer might not be on near me.'
"Mind you, I had a glorious dream once that I could watch loads of different episodes of my favourite TV programme, because there were some unusual atmospheric conditions that meant people could get television channels from further away than they'd normally be able to, since they were playing episodes from different parts of the series that the one near me was broadcasting. You know, it was like when AM radio was more of a thing, and sometimes we used to be able to get loads of stations we wouldn't normally be able to hear at night, and we'd sometimes hear that it was because of 'unusual atmospheric conditions', - whatever those were. I used to think it was cool.
"Anyway, on this forum I've been talking about, there was another day when I made a joke about someone who I used to make fun of for a laugh sometimes because he was always saying insulting things to people, including me. I said,
"'I've discovered you've got a son, who you named Anna Bertha Cecilia Diana Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louise Maud Nora Ophelia Prudence Quince Rebecca Sarah Teresa Ulysis Venus Winifred Xenophon Yeti Zeno Pepper.
"'Poor boy! Why did you do that?
"'And I discovered that when he went to school, you wouldn't let him shorten it, but he had to repeat the lot whenever someone asked what his name was, and you made the teacher reading the register say his full name every morning. He got a bit embarrassed, and asked you if you would change it, so you did. You renamed him:
"'Cupboard Cheesecake Rodolpho Pierre Filibert Taylor Thursday October Pancake Number 16 Bus Shelter.
"'Poor thing! What did you do that for?'"
The students giggled, and one of them joked, "You nutter! You'd better be careful, or the police will come for you in the middle of the night one day and haul you away to one of the psychiatric hospitals that are still left in this country!"
Then the conversation turned serious again, as the one who'd been talking before about the advantages and disadvantages of the policy of 'care in the community' said, smiling for a few seconds at first, "I don't think her condition's that bad ... yet. Anyway, there's more I wanted to say about the effects of this care in the community policy and other things. There are worse effects than what I've already told you about. It seems that a big problem has been that a lot of people who had to leave the psychiatric hospitals couldn't cope and ended up on the streets, where it seems they could sometimes cause a public nuisance and get into drugs and crime, sometimes violent crime and arson, often while they were drunk or high on drugs, and end up in prison. So there are people in prison now who would have been long-term residents of psychiatric hospitals in the old days, where they wouldn't have got into crime.
"And it seems police aren't always well-trained to deal with severely mentally ill people who get into crime, which can cause problems both for the policemen who have to deal with the problems, and for the perpetrators of the crimes.
"And people with severe mental illnesses are also a fair bit more likely to be victims of crime, probably partly because they can be seen by some as easy targets, and also partly because any who end up living on the streets will likely be more vulnerable to it, because they'll be visible at all times of the night and day.
"But nowadays, the police are being asked to deal with a lot of mental health issues that aren't anything to do with crime as well, such as finding mentally ill people who've gone missing, dealing with calls about disturbing behaviour from mentally ill family members that's scary but not criminal, and talking them out of committing suicide. In fact, I read that more than eight out of ten calls to the police nowadays have nothing to do with crime! So the reasons why the police are often more busy than they can cope with aren't all to do with government cutbacks to police funding. Part of the problem is all the extra work they have to do to support a lot of people with mental illnesses now they live in the community.
"One reason the police are so involved with that nowadays is because big government cuts were made to local authority budgets a while ago, so they had to stop providing quite a few services they'd once provided; and a consequence of that was that social services could no longer do all the things they used to do, including providing some of the support services for mentally ill people they used to, it seems. The police ended up providing them instead.
"Another reason why the police have a heavier workload than they used to is because of the introduction of a policy of neighbourhood policing, where some police are designated to do things to try to prevent crime, like walking round the streets in a particular area for some time so as to become really familiar with it, and spending time getting to know people there and the situations they're in, so they're more likely to be able to help before problems become emergencies, and might hear more about crimes that are being planned or that have recently been committed. They can also do talks in schools, and go into meetings with people from local organisations like neighbourhood watch schemes, and groups of people who want to come up with ideas to prevent crime, which may or may not be worth their time.
"While that might help in some ways, it's meant that a lot of people ask the police who are walking around for help with problems that they might have phoned social services or other organisations for help with if there didn't happen to be a policeman walking around nearby who seemed to be a good person to ask for help from. And then when people get to think the police will help with the problems of people with mental illnesses, they're more likely to make 999 calls to the police to ask them to come round and help with them. And a lot of the situations are complicated, so they take a lot of time to deal with.
"But I've read that mobile phones have increased 999 calls a lot as well, since people don't even have to haul themselves up from their seats to go and make 999 calls, so they're more likely to make them for problems that aren't actually serious. And they can call over and over again without any effort."
One student said, "I've read there are callers with mental illnesses like severe anxiety or just problems with loneliness, or who feel isolated and desperate for attention, or who aren't confident they can deal with problems themselves and it makes them anxious, who phone 999 several times a month, or in extreme cases, even more than once a day. It seems some people can find phoning the ambulance kind of addictive. Some are addicted to other things too like drugs or alcohol.
"Ambulance crews become familiar with them and don't like it when they keep calling, because they have to go to them, and all the while they could be dealing with genuine emergencies. But they don't like not going, just in case they refuse to go one day and it happens to be the one time when there is something seriously wrong with the person.
"But ways have been found to cut right down on calls like that. When people who keep phoning the ambulance have been offered counselling or befriending, and told to ring someone who can help them with that who'll chat to them, instead of phoning 999, a lot of them will.
"I read about a senior paramedic in Blackpool who came up with the idea of telling people who called the ambulance a lot because they were very lonely or had mental health problems to phone her for a chat instead. First of all, she got other NHS workers in the area to help her compile a list of the people with those kinds of problems who called the ambulance a lot. There ended up being twenty-three people on the list, who'd between them visited A&E departments over 700 times in the past three months, mostly by ambulance, when they didn't really need to go there. She invited each one of them for a coffee and a chat, and talked through their problems with them, helping them cope better, and introducing them to community activities where they'd find company and things they liked to do.
"And she told them to phone her for a chat at times when their emotional problems would have made them want to phone the ambulance before.
"It reduced their 999 calls, trips to the A&E department and hospital admissions by about 90 %. And over time, they started coping with life much better, and called her less and less.
"The success of the idea made the health workers decide to introduce the scheme in a wider area of Blackpool, and about 300 patients were put on the list over about three years, being put in touch with people who'd be willing to chat to them and try to help them improve their lives when they needed it. The scheme carried on being successful, and saved the NHS over two million pounds.
"Since then, it's been adopted in more and more of the country. And sometimes, frequent callers have got physical illnesses that have made life difficult in practical ways, such as if they're making it harder and harder to cope with everyday living tasks like cooking and showering and so on; so ambulance crews can try to arrange for people like that to get more help in the home from other services."
Another student said, "That's nice to know. I haven't heard about people with those kinds of problems calling 999 a lot and getting that kind of help before. But I have read about people who phone 999 for silly reasons. I read there was a woman who called 999 because she'd bought a kebab that had turned out to be cold, and the shop wouldn't replace it. And a man phoned them to say a coin had got stuck in a washing machine at his local launderette and he wanted the police to get it out for him. And someone phoned them at about 4:00 in the morning and asked where the best place to get a bacon sandwich was at that time of the night!
"And people have called 999 because they were running late for flights they were booked on and wanted a speedy ride to the airport. And there was someone who wanted a lift from the police because he'd missed his bus.
"There was one man who kept on calling 999 and asking them to bring him some pizza, after he first rang them to complain that he'd been thrown out of a pub, presumably for being drunk and disorderly. The police eventually went round and gave him a good talking to.
"And there was a driver who asked for a police escort to get home as quickly as possible because they were late for dinner. And someone phoned up for help because they'd lost their bus pass. And quite a few people phone up to ask for lifts home after nights out where they've spent so much of their money on booze and other things they haven't got enough left to pay for a taxi.
"And some people phone up to complain that a taxi they ordered hasn't turned up.
"There was a man who'd applied to join the police who phoned 999 to find out how his application was going. And a woman called the police to ask for help moving her sofa that had got stuck in the hall after she'd tried to move it from the lounge to another room.
"It's as if some people think 999 is a general help and advice service.
"Apparently, one caller phoned 999 just to ask what the time was. And one phoned up complaining that they'd been given three saveloys in a chip shop when they'd only asked for one. And someone phoned them asking where to buy brussels sprouts!
"Someone phoned them because they thought a company had sent them the wrong clothes. Someone phoned for tips on the best way to cook a turkey. Someone even called them to ask about some dates of football matches and who was playing who when. And one person phoned to say there was a ghost in their house.
"Apparently there's a 101 number that people can call if they really want help from the police but it isn't an emergency. And they can get help on police websites, including using live chat options.
"I think there are often a lot more non-emergency calls than emergency ones.
"Anyone who calls 999 for situations that aren't emergencies could be putting other people's lives at risk, because it can mean call handlers take longer to get to genuine emergency calls. And they could especially be putting lives at risk if they claim they've got a serious problem when they haven't really so an ambulance might come out to them only to find it's a hoax call, since it might take longer before the emergency services can get to genuine emergencies."
One of the students said, "I wonder how many people are high on drugs or alcohol when they do things like that.
"Talking of that kind of thing, I was on a forum where someone said it had been found that three quarters of people arrested for crime in Australia over a certain period of time had cannabis in their systems. That makes cannabis sound really bad. But I said, 'how many of those are being arrested for the crime of cannabis possession itself? And the age group most likely to commit crime (about 15 to 24) is also the age group most likely to smoke pot. So the statistic doesn't necessarily mean it's the cannabis making people more likely to commit crime.'
"Then I made a couple of jokes. Yeah, maybe it was in poor taste. But I always thought cannabis made people more laid-back - or at least some strains of it do. So I joked,
"'Of course, the question with this one is: Isn't cannabis supposed to make you all laid-back, so you'll feel less like committing crime? ... Perhaps if you're that desperate to get that not-feeling-like-committing-crime laid-back feeling, but you haven't got enough money to get it via cannabis, you have to wait till you haven't had some for a bit longer so you're feeling even less laid-back than you already are, and then go and do a mugging or something, just so you can get money to buy more cannabis and get that too-laid-back-to-commit-crime feeling yet again.'
"And I joked that since it's been found that a quarter of people involved in car accidents have been found to have cannabis in their systems, surely that must mean that about three quarters of people involved in them don't have it in their systems, so it's actually more risky to drive while not being under the influence of cannabis than it is to drive with it in your system. I finished by saying, 'Isn't it interesting what you can do with statistics!'
"Obviously in reality, it's not a good idea to drive under the influence of it, since it can impair some of the functions that are really needed for driving, such as by slowing reaction times, making it easier to stop paying attention, making it harder for people to keep their vehicles going in a straight line in their traffic lane, and making it harder to correct errors when something goes wrong. How badly those things are impaired must depend on how much cannabis a person's taken.
"I think a lot of cannabis users know they won't be as good at driving when they've had some, so they compensate for it by driving more slowly and not taking so many risks, such as by not overtaking people as often as they normally would, and not driving so close behind them as they usually do. But it seems it would be best if people just didn't drive when they're high on cannabis at all, because their driving will likely still be poorer than normal.
"But it seems from what I've read that it's when people have got a combination of cannabis and alcohol in their systems that their risk of crashing goes up the most.
"Another thing I read was that after cannabis was legalised in some American states, there was a rise in car accidents. But it wasn't clear how much of that had to do with more people using it, or using cannabis in combination with alcohol, and how much was to do with other things, such as lots more cars being on the roads, because quite a lot of people were coming in from states where cannabis was illegal to buy it legally."
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