It's recently been suggested that state schools which exclude or off-roll (officially withdraw in a no-fault kind of way) children, allegedly to increase their rankings in league tables, have those children's exam results included with their own in order to deter doing so to increase their status. My first thought here was to wonder whether the efforts of home edding families whose children are off-rolled would sometimes artificially increase those rankings, although I accept that this only accounts for a few cases. On the whole I would expect excluded or off-rolled children to lower the averages.

At the same time, I recall a time when a car stereo was taken without our consent which we could not ourselves use due to a lost code. It made me happy that somewhere out there someone might be getting the use out of our radio-CD player when it had previously just sat there wasting space on the dashboard. Likewise, the ability to inject IV drugs is a somewhat skilful activity which I couldn't manage myself, even badly, in spite of having considerable knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and the psychological manipulation involved in scamming people is also beyond me, unless herbalism is a way of doing that subconsciously. There is in fact a whole range of useful and transferable but currently officially unassessed skills which people learn when they get involved in crime.

We currently have universities of crime in the form of such illustrious institutions as Pentonville and Parkhurst, but there is also a lot of informal community-based learning which it strikes me could be organised and put together into a syllabus of some kind. It's unlikely that those wishing to benefit from such an education would be keen on attending exams, so it could make more sense to assess these on the basis of matching the individuals to their deeds. Law enforcement agencies such as the police, probation service and courts could rank the quality of the activity on an academic scale, which could then be linked back to their former schools and used to improve their ratings. Particularly nihilistic perpetrators might even be deterred from offending by the thought that it's no longer "cool", but a mark of academic achievement.

There would also be a kind of supply and demand relationship with criminology in a similar manner to the relationship between theology and psychiatry.
-- nineteenthly, May 09 2019

Those who score highly might be candidates for enrollment in special outreach programs operating in other countries, to help provide some positive inflow of currency from abroad, was that where you were headed, or have I stepped beyond what you were thinking?
-- Skewed, May 09 2019


I think that the transferability of criminal skills is limited in inverse proportion to the whitecollarity of the crime (and at max whitecollarity, is indistinguishable from capitalism). Theft of a car stereo is about knowledge - ability to identify opportunity for taking and for fencing - rather than about skills. Anyone can smash a car window. Advanced criminal activity is a form of networking.
-- calum, May 09 2019


Almost sounds like you know whereof you speak [callum] :)

On reflection I think I'd tend to agree.
-- Skewed, May 09 2019


Sounds about right, [Skewed].

One snag is that the most brilliant assets to our community won't get assessed because they won't get caught.
-- nineteenthly, May 10 2019


//Theft of a car stereo is about knowledge//

It is also an indicator of lack of ambition. Why take the stereo when you can take the whole car! And, to echo your point on whitecollarity, callum, why take the car when you can rob the entire economy!
-- DrBob, May 10 2019


//Why take the stereo when you can take the whole car!//

Reminds me of a story I heard once (probably apocryphal), guy came back to find his car gone & his cheap stereo sitting on a couple of bricks were it had been.
-- Skewed, May 10 2019


Having gained their GCSE, would criminals then progress through A-levels to University (presumably the Vice-Chancellor would be Professor Moriarty)?
-- 8th of 7, May 10 2019



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