I class Public theft as when one member of the public steals off another. This is increased dramatically in the UK over the past 10 years; from burglaries, moped muggings, to vehicle theft, these are crimes that impact the victim significantly. It causes a lot of stress and time, generally costs the victim lots of money and they can be subdued to violence as well from these criminals in the process. Generally too, when vehichles are stolen they commit other crimes in them or sell to fund other criminal activities. And no, just because the vehicle or whatever is insured doesn’t mean the victim doesn’t lose out on money.

The victims have normally saved up the money or allocated it to buy that certain thing/s which had been stolen.There is no reason why someone should steal off another member of the public, especially in the UK where no one is that deprived that they need to steal. It’s purely out of greed and simply there are no real deterrents. The punishments are not strong enough. 

Keeping in mind our prisons are already overfilled and that the police don’t have the resources to tackle crime as much; we should have a much different approach on Public theft. 

If caught stealing off another member of the public and proven guilty, rather than giving a petty sentence in most cases, it should be a hand or both hands to be taken off and the criminal should not be allowed to claim disability allowance. If they chose to steal knowing the consequences don’t give them any disability allowance, and make them hope their family or friends will help them get by. Or they go on the straight and narrow and do a job which doesn’t require both hands.. We have become too lenient for our own good.

Punishments like these were abolished years ago due to too many people being wrongly convicted and facing sometimes death penalties. However, In this day and age with cctv, forensic science and many other things the police can use to prove the criminal is guilty of the offences, this old punishment should be brought back in.

This would significantly lower crime as so much less people would want to risk commiting the crime, nor would offenders would be able to reoffend in this new solution. Thirdly it would free up the prisons a lot as there wouldn’t be a need to send them to jail. 

This solution may sound harsh to some; but the fact is we have an increasing level of this type of crime (and other crimes for that matter) which is being commited but the current punishments are outdated, no sense of punishment normally and don’t suit for both the volume of the crime being commited, the lack of resources and for how full the prisons already are.

The Government should put this into practice to stop this increasing problem we have and look to toughening other crimes in a similar manor.