Offender Mentality
Posted by Lex Fear on August 28, 2007
Previously on Abandon All Fear, I’ve written many articles on (usually middle-class) victim mentality:
Mind The Gap
Justice or Mercy?
Response to ‘Following the Israeli-Lebanon Crisis’
The Created Image: God’s First Command
An Immigration Problem Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Comparing Christian Value Systems
Blogwars
Thick as Legal Thieves
Big Brothers Charter
Are you Aiding Criminal Activity?
Real Cost of Immigration?
Right-Minded Individuals
How to be a Victim
The Process Driven Life
We’re All Terrorist Suspects Now
The Water in North London
They Know Not What They Do
I’ve always considered the fact that a victim can also be a perpetrator, and how much the MSM and bloggers miss this fact. I have also been accused here occasionally, of attacking victims and hypocrisy. This is odd since I’ve mostly tried to present offenders as either victims themselves or point out (moral) offences committed by self-proclaimed victims. Furthermore, I am a born-again Christian, something I’ve made no attempt to hide. Where the law of victim and offender is concerned I subscribe to the words of Jesus before the rights of the individual:
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” – Luke ca. 130AD
Hardly hypocritical when you consider I am acting within the remit of my faith and understanding of theology.
What caught my eye back in June was an article from Reuters which basically says out loud what I’ve mostly been hinting at since the inception of this blog:
“Almost two-thirds of Britons regularly commit petty crimes, according to a report, challenging the notion that the country is made up of a law-abiding, respectable majority.
A survey by researchers at Keele University found that 61 percent of people they questioned had committed one of a variety of crimes…
…”Although the middle classes are engaging in this type of behaviour, they are also eager to blame when they find themselves victims of such behaviour,” said the report, published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College, London.
“Consumers are sheep and wolves — easy prey and preying on others. Offending and victimisation are as closely and intricately linked at the core of society as at its margins.” – Most Britons Admit to Petty Crimes
Considering record numbers of Britons are leaving the UK (apparently because of foreigners, but not fellow ‘law-abiding citizens’), given the information above, shouldn’t countries like Spain be worried of the criminal classes that are invading their lands?
Perhaps if we spent as much time on our own offences, as we do on singling out immigrants, young people or ex-cons that have paid their debt to society, we would actually find the UK a peaceful and decent place to live in. Just like the rest of Western Europe.
Technorati Tags: victimisation, offender, crime, britain
Abandon All Fear 
Cecilieaux said
You need to develop this more. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but it sounds too intriguing to be left at this.
Also, is there a “not” missing in “(apparently because of foreigners, but fellow ‘law-abiding citizens’)”?
Alexander Fear said
Thanks C.
It’s sort of a compendium of my thoughts on victim status and mentality so far. I don’t know whether you were with the blog at the time I discussed Rachel North but it raised quite a lot of strong feelings from all sides.
I recieved a lot of abuse from select followers of Rachel North. Oddly it was for partially defending someone who had given Rachel abuse herself.
Of course, I’m not seeking to re-open the debate with this post but what inspired me was the Reuters article- something I had suspected for a long time.
Grammatical error duly noted, I think I lost the ‘not’ during a cut and paste sentence re-arrangement.
mattghg said
Just like the rest of Western Europe.
This is sarcasm, right?
Alexander Fear said
I was actually being serious!
Having lived in Switzerland for a time it’s probably one of the safest places to be yet every male citizen owns a gun believe it or not.
There seems to be a latent passive aggression under the surface of the average Brit, something I’ve discussed before (but not sure if it was on this blog or elsewhere).
Do I detect you are going to prove me wrong Matt?
mattghg said
Well no, not prove, I guess. And I’ve never lived in Switzerland. But I have lived in France, and my experience there was that people had a very lax attitude to the law, especially as regarded things like drink-driving, speeding, drug use and taxes. And I moved away a couple of months before every one of their city centres erupted in riots! (Remember those, late summer 2005? Talk about aggression!)
I don’t disagree with you about us Brits, and I’m not saying the situation is the same everywhere, just I think ‘Western Europe’ may be too big an area to make this kind of generalisation about, is all.
Alexander Fear said
OK I will concede on that point.
It’s true, the French are notorious for their disruptive protests, disrespect for government, and revolts. I dare say cities all across Europe have experienced rioting at some stage during their history, however rioting is not the norm.
I do stand by my analysis of latent passive aggression. What else drives an average middle-class British man to launch a violent road-rage assault, or go to great lengths to enact revenge on a neighbourly dispute got out of hand.
After some thought, I think some European countries do have an equal level of law-breaking. The difference would be in the types of laws being broken.
I would submit that in the greater EU law-breaking is generally against government control and coercion, whereas in the UK law-breaking tends to be enacted against other people.
This news story from February, seems to confirm my assertions:
http://tinyurl.com/3cbgt9
“Britain has one of the worst crime rates in Europe, a report said yesterday.
It is the most burgled country in Europe, has the highest level of assaults and above average rates of car theft, robbery and pickpocketing.”