Time for some payback
From Monday 1 December, in England offenders serving community service orders like scrubbing off graffiti or tidying the roadside will do it wearing orange jackets with "Community Payback" in large capital letters on their back. The government says the idea is to make punishment more visible and remind us that lawbreakers face consequences.
They'll be in orange to distiguish them from the more common yellow jackets. We've been given exclusive access to a work party clearing the towpath by the River Thames near Hampton Court Palace in South West London.
On Friday Shelagh joined three offenders: Wayne, 21; Sunny, 20; and 24-year-old Rob Fairbairn. They are the first to wear the jackets, and told Shelagh what they thought of the idea. You can listen below.
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I wear a high visibility orange coat as I cycle to the station.
This usually only results in tourists asking me about train times.
Will they now keep away because I might be an anti-social lawbreaker ?
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Payback is another word - er - revenge isn't it?
Hmmmmm! I am trying really hard to stop those feelings and now they are written on peoples backs?
bonfire of the bill - time for some payback - johns crack raid = Bribe - off into hell - sorry backache jack ford - aim nepotism
I think I disapprove - my better side does anyway.
"Community Employee" woiuld do just as well
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Not gone far enough for me.
They should have thief, drunk driver etc on the back. Then perhaps these idiots would think twice about doing the crime in the first place.
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I guess that the offenders are now whining about human rights, poor darlings. They lost their right when committing an offence.
Tough. If they can't hack wearing a highly coloured vest then dont commit crime. SIMPLE.
All actions have consequences. THINK. (Although most offenders won't and try to get away with it)
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Freddie, agreed, i think more info on the back could deter people ever more once the punishment gets known to everyone. Although, i suspect the government is doing this to show they're doing SOMETHING about crime when in reality, plenty of criminals get away with stuff or just get incredibly lenient sentences.
It has the potential to backfire though, with thousands of these people on the streets, people might get angry that these lawbreakers aren't in prison and instead they're sweeping the floor - could show how weak the government is on crime, and it is weak and very lenient.
Prison's are a joke. Listen to that guy talk about free tv, no rent, free food etc. JOKE! Make it difficult so that they don't want to go back. No TV, just hours of boredom and then tedious work.
Once you get convicted of a crime, you shouldn't be allowed to scream about your human rights. Liberalism has allowed for criminals to get the upper hand over the victims. Very sad.
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More work for the lawyers then as I suppose they reprobates will find a loophole abot the human rights bieng violated .
we should follow the USA and introduce chain gangs
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I would have gone for pink myself. A bit of humiliation always helps. It would also prevent confusion with those who already wear orange hi-vis jackets for their genuine jobs.
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I won't work all the lads will get annoyed with being BRANDED as most of these other comments imply but they will justsay oh well I ain't wearing that and does the judge say you gotta wear it while doing community service? NO he doesn't so why should they have to wear it I wouldn't and all these people writing comments about human rights Im sure most of you smoked a little bit weed before or a line of charlie so shall we get you a vest that says STONEHEAD or COKEHEAD and make you walk down the street, you would all complain about human rights!
Anyway I'd rather go inside its a doddle in there you can your sentance sitting on the toilet
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Time for all the 'hand wringers' to come out and defend the poor little deprived waifs who will be hounded by the public.
Suggest they volunteer to supervise these individuals whilst doing their community service to ensure they don't receive too much abuse from the victimised public. Perhaps they could wear pink vests with 'Liberal Baby Sitters' on the back?
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Under this ridiculous non-accountable political system (sure, we can vote, but when all the choices are essentially the same, what difference does it make?) we have political policing particularly of things like environmental and anti-military activists.
I know a few of each of those who have been given community service for their part in peaceful, non-violent protests - such as locking themselves to plant machinery or to the door of an office block etc.
These are people who choose to spend their free time protesting effectively (as in, not just writing letters or waving banners) about environmental and humanitarian disasters. Issues which are completely destroying communities worldwide - right now - and will in time, completely destroy plenty of communities in Britain too.
So it's ironic that those who find themselves in the dock for daring to stand up against the state and corporations in defence of the worldwide community of all people, will now find themselves "paying back" into the community which they have already done a darn sight more than most of the apathetic masses to try and uphold!
Some justice that is!
People who risk arrest and criminal charges for nothing more than acting out of love to protect all life on Earth deserve medals for their bravery - not punishment!
"Community payback" my backside! Wealthy industrial countries like ours already owe the rest of the world an enormous payback for the havoc our actions and ill-gotten privileges in life are wreaking on them.
When an entire nation is basically founded on the amount of global injustice that Britain is, it's utterly meaningless to humiliate the petty criminals at the bottom of the pile, while those at the top (who of course proposed this scheme) literally get away with mass murder.
Somebody who nicks a few CDs from a shop gets community service in a silly orange vest. Meanwhile, politicians who engineer the theft of an entire country's resources and the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people get a gold-plated pension and a permanent slot on the after-dinner-speaker circuit.
Well, there isn't a fluorescent vest bright enough or a stencilled message demeaning enough for the likes of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George W. Bush.
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On the video I have just listened to the three men questioned about the slips did not seem to mind, so why should other people. As one said it is better than ending up in Jail.
Come on Mu-sly chill, it is only a jacket; years ago it was the stocks, so which would you think is preferable? I see nothing wrong with it and cannot imagine what caused your rant.
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SWIMMING POOLS.
Steve Parry erecting temparery pools on industrial estates is just another ex swimmer and the ASA wasting more money.
These kids have had 11 years to learn to swim and the present system has failed them.
If a 11 year old can "swim" 24m then they can swim a mile. What these children are being taught by our governing body IS NOT SWIMMING.
This is another example of the desperate SPIN that the ASA go to to try and convince us of their worth. They are a disgrace!
Frank Kennedy
Swimmingteacher.com
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