Caution - the British have gone insane!

I am having difficulty not believing that this is some kind of joke. Is April 5 the April Fool's Day in Britain? This London Daily Mail report says that the British Home Office, which apparently has authority over all of Britain's police forces, has issued guidelines to police officers to let criminals caught in the act off with a "Caution". This would include 60 different crimes, including burglary, arson, threatening to kill, actual bodily harm, the possession of Class A drugs such as heroin or cocaine, common assault, threatening behavior, sex with an underage girl or boy, and taking a car without its owner's consent (grand theft auto).

A "Caution"

counts as a criminal record but means the offender does not face a court appearance which would be likely to end in a fine, a community punishment or jail.

The British are already releasing repeat sex offenders who received life sentences from prison in as little as 15 months. The Home Office has organized crime (heh heh) into 4 categories, cleverly named 1, 2, 3, and 4, with 4 being the most serious crimes. I suppose a 4 would be mass murder, cannibalism, giving up 4 goals to Zidane and the like. Anyone caught committing a mere Category 3 crime, or less, who then confesses to the police - "Yasss, I pinched the bloody Bentley. So what?" - would receive a "Caution" if the police cannot establish that he had previously stolen a Bentley and received a prior "Caution".

This means that, in Britain, one may dope up on heroin and cocaine, stuff the remaining stash in one's jeans pockets, stagger next door, break down the neighbor's front door, gather up his china, be confronted by the irate neighbor, threaten to kill him, then commence to beating the shit out of him to help drive that point home, slap his wife around a bit, have sex with his 14 year-old daughter, follow that up by sodomizing his 15 year-old son, set his house on fire, then throw his china in the trunk of his Jaguar and drive off with it, get stopped by the police, confess everything, give up the heroin, cocaine, china and the Jaguar, receive your "Caution" and be back home in time to catch the BBC's Fawlty Towers rerun on the telly. Jolly good, oi say.

I don't wish to trifle with semantics here, but if this is not insanity, perhaps someone might please provide for me a better definition.

TAGS: Britain, crime, caution