WARWICKSHIRE, ENGLAND—Bray claimed that the sword was a “fidget” – something to keep his hands busy. He had bought it online as a fidget toy. On 8 June 2024, officers were made aware through CCTV operators of a man – Anthony Bray – walking down Queens Road, Nuneaton with something in his hand. Bray approached officers with the item in his hand visible, at which point he was arrested as he was carrying a bladed article.
Officers tried to explain to Bray that, despite its intended purpose, it was in fact a sharply pointed item which could be used as a weapon and might put others in fear of it being used against them.
In addition to the four months in prison, Bray is required to pay a victims’ surcharge of £154.
Sgt Spellman of the Patrol Investigations Unit said “We take a zero tolerance to bladed articles in public, and Bray has fallen afoul of this.
What’s missing from every report about this I could find, and what is so crucial to understanding this story, however is that Anthony Bray is a repeat offender with a long rap sheet and numerous prison sentences, several of which were for burglary including serial burglary. In 2011, Bray was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison after getting “three strikes” for burgling residences. But his run-ins with the law go back to 1989 and he was in court numerous times throughout the 90s as well.
The last wrinkle to this story is the very real problem with knife violence in the UK. Warwickshire is in the Midlands where knife violence is higher than any other region, higher even than in London. There were 5,234 knife offenses in the region in 2023 alone including a number of murders. Perhaps it is through this lens that we should view the arrest and prison sentence of Anthony Bray.
So you think that individualistic ethics become collectivist the more people are engaged in a particular ethical or unethical behavior?
Many studies have looked into this, culture etc. For example how people conducted themselves in say Nazi Germany or during the Rwandan genocide.
Simply trying to understand how so many folk can commit such atrocities.
Knife crime is viewed differently in areas with high amounts of it. It's more shocking in an area it doesn't exist. In an area where folk growing up knowing or seeing people being stabbed, it's seen very differently.
I don't think juries should necessarily take it into consideration, but understanding situations, it's quite relevant. If you've stepped into both poor and rich areas, you'll understand the differences.
So it sounds like individualist ethics then, just with the cultural surround taken into account in how the numbers affect that individual’s perception of the crime? Something like that?
I thought you were saying the ethical value of the individual act was a function of purely the number of times it was happening in an area.
Kinda like how “we have record amounts of crack smoking so let’s punish crack smoking harder” is an example of what I mean by “individualist ethics becoming collectivist ethics on account of specific numerical thresholds”.
Fair point, and no on the last point. Legalise weed, tackle gangs and help addicts get the help they need. Punishment doesn't always work on crime. Without some element of reform.
Of course knife crime is pretty high here and if anything, police are a little weak on it and it has got out of control because jails are too full.
In some parts of the UK, it is genuinely scary to walk around and even looking at some young folk wrong is the best way to end up in an ambulance.