As with many UK residents, I feel the sentences handed down to people involved in the UK riots (or incredibly tenuously involved) are hugely disproportionate to those given to MPs and bankers responsible for stealing or defrauding much larger amounts.
Been talking to Alice about setting up a small Ruby app similar to Speed Of Animals that would have three columns, comparing all of them to one metric (MPs, say).
- Banking cost to economy — Arrests — Sentences given. Underneath a list of all related arrests.
- MPs expenses cost to economy — Arrests — Sentences given. Underneath a list of all related arrests.
- Rioting cost to economy — Arrests — Sentences given. Underneath a list of all related arrests.
There's too many complications it feels like here - a lot of the data is semi-qualitative, or hard to decode in a meaningful way. Also, MPs can legitimately claim some expenses, and the half a million pounds payback (oh, if you defraud someone and pay it back you get off! and by the way have your seat in the Lords back) complicates matters.
Nevertheless, the ideas there if anyone wants it. I have a domain name if anyone can make good use of it (looting.us). Relevant data sources:
- Looting arrests
- MPs expenses - MPs arrested
- A possible layout framework
- JS parsing library
Thanks as always to Alice for links and data sources!