On the subject of racism, the abuse of the Japanese ref by our own supporters at Solihull was appalling. It was racist abuse, some childish, some less so, but all very offensive.
I like to have a go at refs as much as anyone, but that just wasn't right. And that ref was better than the usual standard, so didn't warrant any abuse!
At a higher league ground I suspect there would have been arrests. 'Casual' racism was commonplace when I first started going to matches in the early 80s, and Boston was probably behind much of the country because there was vitually no black/Asian population (I only remember one black kid in my 7 yrs at BGS), but you just can't say that sort of thing in 2011.
If any of the people involved use the Patter, I hope you're ashamed and that you engage brain before mouth in future.
To get back to this particular thread, Bob I hope your mum in law is getting over it - punishment for so-called 'petty' crime is not sufficient. The victims have to live with the consequences of the crime for the rest of their life, and that can ruin the lives of the victims and their families. No punishment can be enough for that, in my view, but you have to at least get the scumbags off the street until they can respect other people.
The stick Adam H has had on here is astonishing - fair play for making your point, Adam, and backing it up with stats. My degree was also in economics and I know you can compile stats to support virtually any viewpoint. You know as well as I do that statistics are almost always compiled with an agenda - I haven't read the study you refer to but the conclusion suggests a liberal agenda in this case; that doesn't match my own view, so I'd take these stats with a pinch of salt (not very scientific, I admit, but I'm not going to do my own study to support my own view!).