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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Unixronin

December 2012

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April 6th, 2006

unixronin: (Say what?)
Thursday, April 6th, 2006 09:13 am

Yup, that's the new UK Home Office policy on, I quote, "more than 60" crimes including burglary, arson, vandalism, "taking a car without its owner's consent" (read: grand theft auto, in the US), and statutory rape:  If the offender doesn't have a criminal record, give him a caution and send him home.  The caution goes on your record, but does not require jail time, a court appearance, or even a fine.  The same "caution only" handling may also be applied, at police discretion, to offences including burglary of a shop or office, assault causing bodily harm, murder threats, and possession of Class A prohibited drugs.

The reasoning behind this?  Apparently the Home Office doesn't believe in prisons and feels there's too many people in jail.  They're also letting people out of prison much earlier due to overcrowding, as the Mail reports:

It emerged last month that some violent or sex offenders, given mandatory life sentences under a "two-strike" rule, have been freed after as little as 15 months.

And shoplifting, among other lesser crimes, is now apparently a fixed penalty, like a parking ticket.

Cautioning was used heavily in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly for juvenile offenders under 18.

Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard cracked down on cautions in 1994 because young thugs and thieves were getting repeated cautions but no punishment.

But cautioning for adult offenders is now on the rise.  [Criminologist Dr David Green, of the Civitas think-tank] said: "The Home Office is missing its target to achieve a set number of offenders brought to justice. But it seems they regard a caution as an offender brought to justice.

"This is a nod and a wink to police forces - deal with your cases by cautions and we will hit our target."

I keep hearing things like this coming out of the UK in recent years.  Each one convinces me more that the UK is going to hell in a handbasket.

unixronin: Sun Ultrasparc III CPU (Ultrasparc III)
Thursday, April 6th, 2006 09:43 pm

Progress has been made on the recalcitrant HP DeskJet 2500CM, by the expedient of opening up the controller module and removing all the DIMMs, RAM and personality alike, then re-inserting and reseating them one by one.  The power switch is still flaky, and it's still refusing to feed paper from any place except Tray 3, but at least now it seems to be printing stably and consistently without crashing.  Cleaning all the feed rollers may help the paper feed issue, if I can find out the procedure.  I'm guessing the power switch probably needs replacement.

I've located a complete set of service manuals on CD for the printer, which I should have shortly.  This should help with diagnosing the remaining issues.  If I'm lucky, cleaning will solve the rest; if not, I may have to replace some paper sensors.

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