Bring back the stocks

It is Tuesday and I am stopping briefly for coffee. I have to let off steam, I have been brewing all day yesterday. While eating my porridge at breakfast I browsed the newspaper. On the front page there's a story of arrogant people filling up a skip belonging to somebody else. These visitors to town were emptying out the flat of their brother who had been killed in a tragic accident early in the week. They hired a skip but other people kept putting rubbish in it (Perhaps local students or landlords also cleaning out flats) and abused them when they asked them not to! This is in my book, robbery. The people had to pay out for another skip. Also on the front page vandals set fire to tents and other property at the Thyme Festival in Alexandra in Central Otago. It happened last year also. Another story covered the bashing of two young English workers in Wanaka by a group of around 12 teenagers. Inside the paper there were other examples of arrogant, ignorant sometimes alcohol induced behaviour. These stories involved drunk driving, vandalism and violence. What do you do to stop such behaviour?

One of the problems is that among the crowd such people mix in this sort of behaviour is positively reinforced. "Ha ha... I got away with using another person's skip. Good fun!" "I lit the tent on fire again... what a blast!"  I have heard it in our drop-in centre and Space2B ... "Ha ... ha... I have a bad habit of hitting policemen... silly bastards." and the group giggles in admiration. Even if such people are caught by the authorities and brought before the courts, that is almost a badge of honour amongst their peers! I see guys and girls come into drop-in centre and boast, "I went to court today! Just got fined!" or "Just got community service... yeah right?" Amongst their peers they are heroes! What is needed is for them to be exposed to a wider group of society who will tell them what dirt bags they are.
Bring back the stocks... well something like them.
In olden days they had stocks. Bad guys were put in stocks in the middle of town and the passing people could throw rotten fruit at them or abuse them and tell them what they think of their actions. I say, "Bring back the stocks!" ... or some modern equivalent of them. These guys need to be told that their actions are not laudable. To be told that just by the court system is not working. Why not make them sit in the middle of town with a written description of their crime in front of them, so that they can see that most people think they are not heroes, but crap?

I know I sound like a right-wing fascist but sometimes amongst some of the people I mix with I despair. So many are on a downward spiral, and maybe some tough love is needed to get them on the right track? I mentioned before a young woman I know who is a drug and alcohol addict who uses and abuses people and the system to survive and steals to feed her lifestyle. She is in hell and heading downhill fast. The courts just piddle around with little bits of sentences. She thinks there is nothing much wrong with her lifestyle. Would it hurt her to be made to sit in town with a description of what she does for all to read? Nothing else seems to work. The judges words fall on deaf ears. The love and care of others is just abused. Perhaps she needs made to go cold turkey and shocked out of the rut she has got herself into?

I am semi-serious about this approach and maybe expressing frustration and just stirring. But something like this could have merit. Some way of communicating unmistakably that this behaviour is NOT OK needs to be invented.