All for one and one for all?

I am considering carefully whether to stand again for Police Commissioner. I am well aware that Tony Hogg, the victor in the previous police elections, has had problems delivering on his promises. Should I stand as a matter of principle? Perhaps it is a matter of duty if that makes sense to you.

Anyway, one decision I have managed to make and that is that I shall start blogging more frequently. And this morning I noted a couple of things that got me thinking. One was the strange and almost perverse decision of the Russians to ban "sexual deviants" from driving cars. This begs the question in my mind if not in yours: What do ISIS and Russia have in common? Answer, a crudely judgmental attitude to their minorities.

I have heard ISIS described as Manichean, meaning it is dualistic. There is only good or evil in the ISIS worldview, no shades of grey. Slightly inappropriate as the Manichaens were quasi-Christian, none the less they have a point. And perhaps the Russians are the same. Everything has to be black or white. You are either for us or you are against us.

Certainly both ISIS and the Russians have brutish attitudes to the minorities in their midst. ISIS kills them and Russia merely crushes them. So sad.

But consider your own attitudes to members of minorities. How do you view a Muslim woman who chooses to dress in such a way as to completely veil her face? How do you view a transgender man who chooses to walk through the streets dressed in woman's clothing? How do you view gypsies who set up a camp without permission? How do you view Polish migrants who come to the South West to work as flower pickers? How do you view gays, Jews, Mormons, whomever? If you are a man do you place an equal value on women? If you are young do you place an equal value on the old?

We should all examine our consciences regularly and conduct an exercise in love. I mean that. We should regard the other as we regard ourselves. Better indeed than we regard ourselves because so many of us think of ourselves as less than we should be. Unless we can place an equal value on everyone we are found wanting. Remember Pastor Niemöller.

Social Deprivation in the South West

These days it's fashionable to call social deprivation "Social Exclusion". A more old fashioned name is poverty. Does poverty lead to crime? Clearly not. Often the poor have far better ethical standards than the rich in regard to sheer generosity of spirit toward their fellow man. There are good people everywhere. Why do good people turn bad?
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, wrote in The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
No poverty does not lead to crime. But poverty is one of the causes of crime. Poverty puts pressure on people. All sorts of pressures. Social pressures totally unrelated to crime. Parts of the South West have high teenage pregnancy rates. Why? The rates of teenage conception are as high as they were a decade ago. Increased numbers of abortions are what's brought the figures down. And those teenage conceptions in sixteen and seventeen year old are eight times as likely to occur in low income families.
Crime, similarly, is more prevalent in areas of social deprivation. High unemployment levels lead directly to poverty. This to is an issue which any Police and Crime Commissioner worth his or her salt will address. The Police Commissioner should and indeed must care about the causes of crime. And speak loudly in that regard.