In Putney a rapist who committed a series of attacks involving a woman whom he threatened with a knife, went to jail for eighteen years. Police say he copied his ideas from the bondage magazine, The Trap, which he had been reading. Crimes of violence and sexual offences affecting all categories of the population rose consistently across England and Wales up until 1988. Total recorded crime reached a record high in 1989.
Prison, Drugs, Gambling, Drink
Our prison population has reached a record with an average of 55,000 people 'inside' on any one day. Of these, 23.7 per cent are young offenders, compared with 0.5 per cent in Belgium, 15.3 per cent in the Netherlands; 1.4 per cent in Italy and 12.2 per cent in France. Our number of young people in jail is on average twice as high as our European neighbours. Simultaneously, there has been an escalation in the use of hard drugs, heroin, crack and ecstasy. According to a Mori Poll published in 1990 - 'Young People's Health and Lifestyles', commissioned by the Health Education Authority - seven per cent of nine-to-fifteen-year-olds admit to having tried drugs. One thousand new drug addicts were added to the Home Office Register last year. Department of Health research suggests that the levels of addiction have risen from around 3000 in the so-called drugs-crazed 1960s to about 100,000 today. The National Housing and Town Planning Council published data in 1987 about young people and gambling. They surveyed 9,655 young people under the age of sixteen. Fifty-seven per cent admitted to visiting amusement arcades or playing on gambling machines. Of those, 21 per cent started playing machines before they were nine years of age, 8 per cent usually spent more than ÂŁ3 during one visit to an arcade; 7 per cent had stolen to play gambling machines; 6 per cent had gone truant to play gambling machines. Young people often see nothing wrong with gambling and the 'something for nothing' attitude it encourages often becomes as addictive as alcohol and drugs. Of 33,459 children questioned in another survey, 'substantial numbers of children started drinking alcohol while they were still at primary school'. Fifty per cent of the eleven-year-old boys questioned and thirty-three per cent of the girls said they had at least one alcoholic drink in the previous week.