Jaw-dropping insanity from the UK

Doubtless this news is already all over the internet, but I can't resist noting it here anyway. The Daily Mail reports that police in England have been instructed to let burglars and perpetrators of other "minor" crimes (such as arson and sex with children) off with a caution, as a means of alleviating the shortage of prison space. It also turns out that violent or sexual offenders given "mandatory life sentences" have been released after as little as 15 months' imprisonment. (And in England you are strongly discouraged from defending yourself against criminal attack. Meanwhile, though, if you publicly say anything moderately critical about certain minority groups, the English police can still somehow find the resources to interrogate you at length—even if there is no crime you can be charged with.) Britain is a deeply, perhaps terminally sick society. One has to keep reminding oneself of this, if one grew up regarding it as the "mother of democracies", as I did. In North America we have so far come down with only comparatively minor symptoms of the same social plague, and there evidence of an "immune system" that is still functioning at some level.

(Via the "Reflecting Light" blog, linked in my sidebar.)