I have been mulling over crime and justice for a long time. I know about the “Broken Window theory” and also know that it actually does bear fruit as seen in New York. Some studies recently proved that something as simple as grafitti on a postbox could affect levels of crime.

I hear regularly that “speeding is not a crime” OR “Everybody is doing it so how can it be bad?”. A culture of lawlessness is being created because of a lack of respect for the law. It is my belief that this lack of respect from the law can be destroyed by better management of crime control. I also theorise that certain laws have less “criminality”than others. This is evidenced by the current legal system.

Speeding and traffic offenses are very low on the criminality scale. There is rarely imprisonment for breaking these laws. The punishment is usually a fine, a monetary loss, which many drivers actually budget for. Stealing a loaf of bread can lead to more severe punishment than speeding at 60 km’s over the legal speed limit.

I find it odd that robbing a bank is likely to get you a harsher sentence than raping a child. It is beyond my understanding that Judges have given child rapists sentences as little as three years because the child was “not harmed”

The first part of this process will be defining the criminality of the crime and then discuss punishment punishment and rehabilitation of offenders. I think crimes need to be classified into three categories.

Community Service and Training

The first category would include first offence minor crimes, traffic offenses and misdemeanours. Minor crimes would include first offences only, repeat offenders would be upgraded to intermediate crimes. The kind of thing I am thinking here is petty crime, Shoplifting, Littering, Speeding, Drunken driving, Smoking in areas where it is not allowed.

It is my belief that at this point we are not dealing with hardened criminals and that prison is not the solution to the problem. Prisons are training grounds for these petty offenders and give them the skills and knowledge to become repeat offenders. At this point guidance and rehabilitation is required. It is my belief that all first time petty offenders should be subjected to community service and rehabilitation training.

A compulsory training structure needs to be created where these offenders will be taught how their offenses affect those around them (rehabilitation). Combined with community service (punishment) where the offenders will do tasks that could be related to their offense (ie: Drunken drivers cleaning hospital floors and walls, doing bedpan duty or Litterbugs cleaning up the streets and rural areas)

This would also make more space in prison for the real criminals. It is my belief that the minimum 3 month sentences that are handed our for petty crimes will be eliminated.

It is my belief that a monetary fine has no real affect as punishment, Spending hours in a classroom and days in community service will definitely sway the petty offender to being more considerate of his fellow man, specifically if he or she is aware that the next step will lead to incarceration.

Should any offender fail to attend classes and or community service, They are automatically sentenced to the next category at a minimum sentence of six months.

Rehabilitation

With no exceptions repeat offenders should serve time in a rehabilitation center. The next level of criminality would also be included here. This would be crimes at the level of House breaking, Theft without fire arms, Car theft etc.

The minimum rehabilitation would be six months, this would apply to petty offences or first time offenders in this grade of criminality. A maximum sentence of 5 years would apply. Incarceration would be not be in the traditional sense. These offenders would spend nights in a formal house of detention and spend days working in the community under supervision.

Trained individuals should be “indentured” at places that can use their skills. Doctors at hospitals, Lawyers at legal aid clinics, Mechanics servicing vehicles for government departments. Untrained individuals would be “apprenticed to trained people so that skills can be passed on. It is my belief that people with the ability to earn are less likely to reoffend.

While these individuals are working in public they should be tracked with bracelets and always wear a uniform. Any escapee will be automatically upgraded to the next category. Reoffenders may be sentenced to second term of rehabilitation. The practice of three strikes and you are out should be enshrined in law.

Major offenses and three strikes

Three strikes should lead to a minimum term of 5 years which would also be the minimum sentence for crimes against people. Corruption, Misuse of trust, Armed robbery, rape murder and similar crimes would have minimum sentences. Rape 20 years, Murder 25 years, no exceptions.

This category of offender is considered high risk and should be treated as such. These prisoners would be under armed guard and when working be chained together. Every prisoner would be allocated to a team and these teams would do hard labour. Jobs such as resurfacing and repairing potholes, Clearing invader bush along the roads.

In this category rehabilitation is not an issue, Punishment is desired by the people and these people will pay their debt to society. Any prisoner in this category also loses his right to Vote.

I have a domain that is currently of no use to anyone. It is lying idle and reminds me of my Brother in Law. Why did I bother to register it and build the crap that is currently on it?

As I am by nature a very curious individual I have come up with an idea. I am going to create a survey with a few goals in mind. The survey will ask 20 questions that will have answers varying from  “Why? ” to full dissertations by very intelligent and even stupid people.

I have a few questions in mind but am trying to find what you are curious about. If you could as a single question of a few hundred possibly a few thousand people what would it be? As part of my journey I will be talking to passersby, the curious and just innocent bystanders. I want a standard list of questions that I can ask and put the answers on a site.

Here is your opportunity to help create this list of questions, What do you want to know?

Here are a few of the questions or ideas that I am formulating?

What is your name? (Surnames not required)

Where were you born? (Town)

Where do you live now? (Town)

How old are you? (20’s, 30’s, 40’s etc)

Have you registered to Vote?

Why and what message do you have for other citizens of South Africa?

What do you love most about SA?

What do you think the biggest concern is of South Africans?

What is your biggest concern?

Which six South Africans would you invite to dinner and why?

If you were dictator for a day, what would you change?

What is your favorite sport?

Who do you think would be the best person for the job of SA president? You don’t need to pick a politician.

What are your opinions on AA, BEE and quotas in sport?

Earliest childhood memory?

What are your thoughts regarding the Zimbabwe issue?

What religion do you subscribe to and why?

Do you support any charitable works, If so tell us about them?

Have you achieved you goals and ambitions that you had as a child?

Do you have a fixed set of tangible goals in writing and a plan to achieve them?

I have been tweeting for a while now, My first tweet was in September sometime. I am about to do my 100th tweet, sometime in the next day or two. Some would call it a milestone  I know that it points to my procrastination.

I have some good convos, have found some intersting folks but seriously the majority of tweets are a waste of effort. I followed Guy Kawasaki and eventually unfollowed him because he bores me. I unfollowed a number of people for various reasons and am not sure why I bother following others.

Here are the things that I gain from twitter.

1. More people reading my blog because they are following me.

2. Information that I read because the people I follow link to it.

3. Communication with “friends” I have made on Twitter.

But I spend way too much time reading pages and pages of inconsequential stuff for a few gems and nuggets. I am not sure if the ratio of effort spent justifies benefit received.

Heres why I am not going to dump Twitter. I figure its a good way to communicate with those that are interested in what I am up to. What I am not going to do is post links to every site I visit, post inconsequential stuff like what I am having for lunch, or how badly I need a coffee infusion..

I will tweet the things that are important to me, like milestones on my journey, Updating folks on my latest blog posts, If I find something awesome on the net I will link to it. I will never link to a link I posted to something else because seriously thats just offpissing. (It’s the reason I unfollowed Guy Kawasaki and the 15 alltop links he posts daily)

Twitter does have potential, Potential to swallow up hours of your life when you could be doing something productive.

I tweet at twitter.com/guymclaren If you want to keep informed about My Journey around South Africa and subscribing to the RSS feed on pedals.co.za is not enough, follow me. If you want to get my thoughts on politics, the web, or any of the other crap I write about just subscribe to my feed here.

I have been thinking, and yes I know its dangerous and my head might explode. I remember when the National Party was in power. I lived back in the bad old days when I was advantaged and did not know it. I lived back when people could tell the difference between the Nationale Party and the Herstigte Nationale Party.

I don’t know if the then NP had court fights with the HNP because their name was almost the same. Surely the people that were stupid would mix up those two names. I mean there is only one letter that differs in the acronym.

The ANC is currently trying to prevent COPE from using congress of the people because well people will mistake that for the ANC because in 1955 the ANC had a jolly called you got it the congress of the people. I must be totally unpolitical because I had never heard the term Congress of the People, I know that 53 years ago the ANC had that jolly because I heard it on the news the other day.

I know there are people that were alive back then that attended the jolly and remember it. I went to a jolly in the 80’s we referred to as the big pissup. We drank more at the big pissup than any other company had ever done that had a conference at that hotel in Dullstroom.  So should we complain every time some one says big pissup because that was the name of our jolly back in 87 or 88?

I don’t quite understand how the ANC thinks anyone will mistake the Congress of the People for African National Congress, Yes I know they both use the word Congress, but as I understand it, and I must admit I have not checked a wiki or a dictionary so this is my own definition, a congress is a gathering of people, and congresses are held regularly all over the world.

Is the ANC trying to trademark an English word? or do they really think people are that stupid that they will associate a jolly held 55 years ago for a political party?

Enough said. By the way if you have not registered to vote, Shame on you! Go to your nearest IEC office and register before it’s too late. Your country needs you!

The ANC is trying its best to stop the new party COPE from forming. They are also disrupting meetings held by other parties.

Facts are that the current court case against COPE is just more bullying. You can help by copying and pasting the letter below to the addresses attached.

This is not about who you are going to vote for, It is about giving the freedom to everyone to choose their own party, It is about leveling the playing field so that all have equal access.

Copy and send to, Also forward to as many people as you can. Stop the ANC bullying.
mazibukos@elections.org.za
mraswiswi@justice.gov.za

MEO: SIBONGILE MAZIBUKO

158 LOVEDAY STREET
CIVIC CENTRE 2ND FLOOR COUNCIL CHAMBER
BRAAMFONTEIN                                                                                                                                                                  19th November 2008

Re: Congress of the People.

Dear Sirs,

This is a brief confirmation to ensure that your organisation is aware that recently many meetings have been held across the nation of South Africa in the capacity of congresses of the people of South Africa in order to examine new policies that will be of benefit and an advantage to the ordinary citizen as a result of the deficiencies and arrogance, embezzlement, racism and sheer corruption now common place in the current ruling regime.

These congresses are a normal function of society, and are similar to congresses of the people held continuously every year for the past decades by many other political parties and organisations.

Kindly confirm receipt of this letter and email.

Yours sincerely,

Add your name here
Contact phone

I don’t know who took this photo. I would happily credit them, I received it in an email this morning and felt it needed sharing.

Coming or going

Strictly speaking the cycle tour to be undertaken will not be as you would expect. The cycle tour AKA Pedal for Charity to be undertaken by myself will be undertaken on a recumbent tricycle with a monocoque body. The human powered vehicle that will be powered with pedals and a chain is called a velomobile.

Cycle tour with a velomobile to attract attention.

The velomobile cycle tour will attract attention to community projects that are in need of happening. Guy who will be powering the pedals has a dream or if you prefer a vision of empowering forgotten communities with sustainable projects. It is Guy’s vision to create feeding schemes at schools that will be self sustaining.

The method Guy has in mind with these community projects is to assist Schools and teachers with gardening projects, libraries and sporting facilities to allow future poverty relief. Guy firmly believes that eradication of poverty can only happen with development of skills and self esteem.

Recumbent tricycle, a vehicle for the cycle tour

In order to raise funds for his BIG project Guy has decided to Tour South Africa in a velomobile. The velomobile is a recumbent tricycle with a monocoque body shell to protect Guy from the elements. This cycle tour will be self sufficient in as far as Guy will carry all his equipment and any requirements from day to day on the velomobile. Guy is approaching cycling clubs and motorbike clubs to ride along the various roads which he will be travelling.

The ride along cyclists and bikers are to afford Guy an element of security and company on the cycle tour. These volunteers will be very much appreciated and will also serve as witnesses to the fact that the sole method of propulsion is human.

The cycle tour needs your help. You can help in any of the following ways.  You can help by publicising and blogging about the cycle tour. You can help us find some of the stuff we need or even donate some money at the site. You can also talk to your friend that cycle or bike and get them to volunteer to ride a ways with Guy.  They may want to ride a few km’s or a few hundred km’s near their home towns.

Designers are invited to help create a design for the T shirts that we will be selling to raise funds. Go to the cycle tour website and find the Tshirt design page and submit your design please.

Thus far I need to thank a few people that have already helped or offered to help. If you are in the Lowveld listen to Radio Laeveld on Thursday at 1:30. I am being interviewed.

The people I want to thank are.

1. James Miles at Metal land for kindly donating an aluminium welding kit and added rods to allow us to construct the chassis.

2. Wernher from Stewarts and Lloyds in Nelspruit for working on getting me the aluminium I need for the Chassis.

3. Vince from Moral Fibre who has offered to print Tshirts at cost. We are still looking for someone to either donate 500 T Shirts or pay for them and toward those costs that Vince has.

4. Shawn Jooste who has offered to help us with some fund raising ideas, and some marketing ideas.

5. Marianna Boguslavsky for her input on our presentation.

6. Regan for her offer to help us find bicycle components. PS if you have any of the components we need lying around, just look on the cycle tour website and see the list, we would really appreciate them.

7. EXMI for taking up the cause an writing about it so often.

8. Dave Cruse from the Jock and Java in Nelspruit for pledging such large sums of money if I achieve the targets I need.

And anyone else that has offered support in any way at all, If I haven’t mentioned you specifically its because I am an idiot.

Over on Pedals.co.za, The pedal for charity site we are having a Tshirt design competition. I am looking for a Tshirt that will tell the tale of a man, a velobile and lots of distance. In order to raise funds we have decided that a T-shirt you can buy is a good idea.

Vince of Moral Fibre has offered to print the T’s at cost. So now we need a design and factually I know as design goes I am fairly limited in my abilities. I am more tech oriented than design so need some help. The designer that wins will get lots of Kudos and even some exposure.

Look at how much nice stuff I am saying about Vince Hoffman already and I don’t even have a T-Shirt yet

A single vote has no effect whatsoever on the results, It is thus a good idea for ANC supporters not to vote, Your single vote won’t make one little bit of difference. But here is the thing if you don’t vote don’t whine about who is in power,

Don’t stand in the bank queue whinging about the service since “these people” have been in power. Don’t tell me how the country is going to hell in a handbasket if you have not registered to vote. But lets take this a step further, You registered and voted for a party that has no chance of making a difference.

Let me explain this is short sentences. The only reason some parties exist is because it is the only way the party leader will get a job.  You see if they achieve the minimum number of votes required they have a job for the next 5 years.

Voting for no hopers just dilutes the vote that an opposition with teeth would have. I think voting on colour lines is foolish. Lets understand one thing, all politicians are lying scum, some just lie a  little less than others. I am thinking that a vote for the DP or the other mini parties is probably about as good as not voting.

A Vote for the ANC will lead to a South Africa I don’t want to live in.  I like the new party thats name has not yet been registered because  I like the idea that they want to change the system to allow us to vote for our local rep.

That would be bringing the power back to the people and would stop the kind of crap recently seen where the ANC fired and hired local people for being loyal or disloyal to the party.

Thus far we have achieved much. We have plans, we have a design, We have a rough route, which will change as we ride. We have even received a couple of pledges for financial support. This week I need to raise a few thousand rand to allow me to get out and do some serious fund raising.

Facts are that I need to get to Gauteng to speak to the money people. There are just not enough businesses in Nelspruit large enough to splash out the kind of money we need.  I have raised thus far pledges of R 23000, which puts us just under 25% of the way to our current target.

Just so you know we need R 120 000 to get this project rolling.  This will cover from building the velomobile to the first month on the road.  What I need from you is to visit pedals.co.za and donate any amount, R50.00 R 100.00,  R 1000.00.

Something else I need is a list of Motorbike and bicycle clubs that I can approach to ride along at all points of the trip. I need volunteers that will ride with me for 10 k’s, 20 k’s, 100 k’s.  You see I am not seriously concerned about loneliness, but a little company on the road will be really appreciated.

I spoke to Jolandie Rust last night. She is planning to be the first woman to ride right around Africa on a bicycle. I think she is even crazier than I am at this point. It sounds like some German pharmaceutical company will be going along on her ride handing out mosquito nets.

Send out some good vibes for the lady so that she gets that sponsorship deal. Send me some money so that my project can get going.

Just so that you know what the trike velomobile is going to look like, here are some drawings I did. Oh yes if you are good at 3D kind of graphics and want to translate this into 3D for me, I will tell everyone what a great artist you are. just mail me “guy at pedals.co.za”

The chassis and suspension

For those of you in foreign climes that want to give me some money, email me and I will tell you how.

Monocoque body plans

Regards

Guy