Slashdot Mirror
England Starts Fingerprinting Drinkers
dptalia writes "In an effort to reduce alcohol related violence, England is rolling out mandatory fingerprinting of all pub patrons. If a pub owner refuses to comply with the new system, and fails to show 'considerable' reductions in alcohol-related crimes, they will lose their license. Supposedly the town that piloted this program had a 48% reduction in alcohol-related crime." From the article: "Offenders can be banned from one pub or all of them for a specified time - usually a period of months - by a committee of landlords and police called Pub Watch. Their offenses are recorded against their names in the fingerprint system. Bradburn noted the system had a 'psychological effect' on offenders."
Law! The cure to society's failures! That's what laws are for.
Laws built civilization, at reduced price.
Got a problem with something, just get together with some of your friends and write a law against it.
No need to address systemic issues. No need to worry about whether it's harmful to individuals. Human rights? But what about civilization? Laws are above you and me they're for the greater good.
Can I get a law. Cheers to that ol' chap Hammurabi. What greater gift to pass on to future generations than a bunch of laws? Better than trying to raise 'em up with values.
I am wondering how this will affect non-citizens of England, will U.S. or foreign visitors need to be fingerprinted as well and if so, that means that our fingerprints are in a foreign system, I am wondering how this info will be used, since the U.S. has demanded that the UK and all EU countries give the U.S. passenger data, will this info be used as a counter tactic to stop this practice.
Well, the UK has always had new crazy, privacy-destroying laws and powers. I find the English completely irrational considering how they go apeshit at the thought of a national ID card, but let things pass like continuous camera surveillance, excessive powers to any government instance, etc. Ripe for abuse. Maybe it's an Anglo-Saxon mindset?
Continental Europe is different - they're a bit more strict on privacy laws. There's always a big stink made when some stuff like this happens, like when euro passenger data is shared with the US, or like when SWIFT Belgium was/is passing loads of info on financial transactions to the US (again).
The US on the other has one thing going for it: constitutional protections, and associated with that, pretty good transparency. Whenever there's a new law project that might touch constitutional protections, there's usually some people that will notice, and there's quite a bit more public debate about it. To the point that Europeans probably know more about privacy-related laws in the US than in their own country.
I don't know about the cities in the 'States where it was implemented, but in Vancouver, BC, after a short period (less than 6 months) where business declined, patronage of bars and restaurants actually increased to higher than original levels. This is because the majority of people (~80%) in Vancouver don't smoke, and a lot of people were avoiding these places because of all the smoke in the air. I have to say, it's a real pleasure to have a beer in a pub and not go home smelling like an ashtray.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
Pretty similar to any other countrys internal politics. If I had told you that for the last 5 years, the majority of political debate in Norway has been about the new opera building, you probably wouldn't believe me. It's still true, and it's like this everywhere. Once you have an outside perspective, you are more able to see how silly people can become over a non-issue.
Thanks for the generalization. Southern USA is a bit different. They usually are Ku-klux Klan members.
Surprise! The US is not the only country with a constitution. Nor is it the first country with a constitution. Nor does the constitution seem to help USians much, as the various political fractions interpret the constitution as inventively as christians interpret the bible.
As for transparency; I thought US was the country where standard political practice was bill-amendments, so that by calling the new law "Child Protection Act", and amend some minor law about mandatory ID-cards to it, everybody would vote for it, since nobody has time to read all the amendments, and we must protect our children.
Look, just because you can read about it in your newspaper, doesn't mean that everyone else in the world reads the same newspaper. The silly little bickerings you have about privacy-laws in the US, interests us about the same as you would consider the debate about Oslos new opera building interesting. More to the point, people in civilized democracies (such as most of Europe) mostly ignores american politics, except that they dislike Bush, and thought Clinton was a jolly good fellow.
Secondly, in the eyes of most people in civilized democracies, US politics has mostly been dominated by rabid right-wing capitalists, dictated by powerful companies, since at least the 1960s. It's possible we will follow, but at least untill now, we have managed to keep the battle up for a little longer. And we have privacy laws, even laws that work!
You might find that the typical slashdotter might go apeshit over ID cards, but you misrepresent the feelings of the English. Every single poll that's ever been done in the UK about ID cards has shown the majority to be in favour.
As to CCTVs, yes the British like them because it makes them feel less at threat from crime on the street, and that there will be less vandalism. And with good reason. Crime in the UK has fallen 44% since 1995, violent crime down 43%, and vandalism down 19%.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb1206.
Have you been out in a British town on a Saturday night?
Yes, but I can only think that I've managed to find the only town in England (London) that doesn't turn into a battleground, as in 12 years of doing so I've seen exactly one fight, that was between just two people, and the antagonist legged it before anything even slightly serious happened.
Perhaps I'm just lucky, as I have certainly heard stories, seen the "police eye view" TV shows, etc, but based on my own experience there simply isn't a problem. YMMV, and clearly does.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
According to the media though, everytime I go into the city centre on a Saturday night and come home alive I should be thanking the God of my choice for a lucky escape.
And that is why you're one of the countries in the world with the highest percentage of your population in prison, surpassing many oppressive dictatorships. Despite that you still have some of the highest crime rates in the world too...
Doesn't look like it's working too well.
More drunk pedestrians are killed by sober drivers than sober pedestrians are killed by drunk drivers.