Swifter, Higher, Stronger.

I am a grizzled veteran of the first round of workforce modernisation in the Police Service. I was there holding a bag and watching the ACPO ranks playing “I’m Spartacus” “Yes Mr .Straw, please let us pilot the new piece of radical thinking.” It was rushed, botched and it did incalculable and lasting harm. To name but a few consequences

• My own speciality, being a detective is only just beginning to recover from the kicking given to us first time round. There is still a national shortage of trained and experienced detectives at BCU level.
• Some Forces are having to quietly rebuild middle management structures that were flattened because the consultants said we didn’t need all those Inspectors and Chief Inspectors. Turns out that we did after all.
• Same with Traffic and ARV and dogs. The consultants counted the beans and decided we didn’t need as many as we had. Turned out we needed them as well.
• We were quietly stripped of discretion and decisions on charging without the consequences being properly thought out.

As I understand it, there is more, much much more, coming down the line. Just take a stroll through the website of the National Police Improvement Agency

Now what do we think the NPIA are doing to improve the Police? Hmmm I guarantee its not what you thought it was. They are busy designing and implementing a road map.

Their road map has a final destination called Transformation. This is apparently “a step-change in policing affecting workforce, structures and practices, including pay and rewards, rank structures, entry, outsourcing, rostering, demand management etc”.

Lets just pause for a minute and break down what that punchy little paragraph might mean.

A step change in policing - A big major, whopping, everyone will notice, hard to go back from change. You’d better get it right this time. You messed up last time. Unless you are really, really sure then leave us alone.

Affecting pay and rewards – That’s right, there’s more tinkering with the pay, terms and conditions afoot. With all the trust and good faith in our employers engendered by the last pay negotiation, my best guess is that this will not a good thing for the staff side.

Rank Structures – No idea any clues would be welcome. Are we to have Corporals?

Outsourcing – Rent-a-Cop? Consultants? Call Centres in Bangalore?

Rostering - Shifts buggered about again?

Demand Management – Stat collecting. NCRS on steroids. GPS’ing you and your patrol car.

I know it’s happening anyway. Nothing I can do to stop it but please NPIA, think about it all long and hard. Pilot it at the smallest possible scale and evaluate it honestly. Trialling Police reforms is one area where the responsible thing to do when an idea turns out to be cack, is to admit it is cack rather than fudge the figures and collect the back pat. This is big major society changing stuff not an excuse to build a killer CV. Please, please, pretty please don’t shaft the cops this time.

“No really, my super new plan for policing will work this time. Trust me”

An NPIA Spokesman Yesterday

The Damage Done

Maybe its because I was a goth first time round that the murder of Sophie Lancaster had such resonance with me. I used to know a lot of people like her and her boyfriend 25 years ago in London. A lot of words have already been written about the dead eyed rat boys that killed her and the useless, grinning, complicit, oxygen thieving parents who bore them but failed to raise them . I have nothing to add on that.

Buried in the back story however are some prime examples of the general uselessness of many Social Work Youth Projects. In fact not just useless, worse than that, encouraging, enabling and sponsoring the worst in young people.

I speak firstly of KG’s Centre For Young People in Bacup. I am sure it was set up with all manner of lofty aims and ideals. It ended up being a drop out centre for the wasted youth of the area. MCing and DJing classes. Great. Just what the area needs, another crop of wannabe gangsters. Vichy youth workers too scared to challenge the outrageous behaviour of the “customer stakeholders.” They failed us all.

Lets add to the pyre whichever lunatic youth workers surrendered all vestiges of adult responsibility and common sense and thought that it was a good idea to make a rap video called “Hands up for Bacup” featuring one of the murderers and three oppo’s wandering round town armed with offensive weapons. The mentality that considers validating, let alone glorifying and glamorising such behaviour needs keeping as far away from children as possible. They also failed us all.

“Well it keeps them out of mischief”

Nightjack’s fourth rule of Policing:

There is NO situation so bad, so dire, so beyond recall or redemption that it cannot be made WORSE by adding a Youth Social Worker to the mix.

Down To Zero

You may remember the IG post about a returning citizen child abuser and it certainly struck a few chords with me. During my rich and varied career, I spent just over a year on a High Risk Offender Team, managing dangerous offenders who had been released into the community. There were hundreds of them and on any given day between four and six of us. I hope you get the picture. Most days there was a MAPPA (Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements) meeting to go to. My mission was to introduce a little Eeyore into the pie eyed optimism that all too often characterised these meetings.

Without wishing to ignore the occasional pockets of clear eyed realism from the other professionals, I lost hope after the following MAPPA exchange.

NJ “So this is what we know, he’s started failing drugs tests for amphet and cocaine. He is travelling outside the local area with known drug dealers. There is good information that he is carrying an axe. We all now know that last week he bought some body armour. He has also started skipping appointments.”

Drug Treatment Worker “Well I think there is still a chance that he will respond to the programme. I think we should continue as before.”

Social Worker “Yes he was making good progress until a few weeks ago”

NJ “Hold the boat folks, he’s back on drugs, cruising with dealers and he is wearing a flack jacket. Does anybody seriously think he’s coming back any time soon.”

Drug Treatment Worker “I think you’re being a bit negative officer”

When you start being called “officer“, that’s when you know that the argument is no longer about the facts and someone has you pigeon-holed as the Gestapo.

They didn’t pull his parole.

“Of course I’m being a good boy. Dibble’s just got it in for me.”

Only 24 Hours To Crack The Case (Part 3)

David was a local politician. He was quite a successful man with a seat on the council and a career in corporate consultancy and training. David had a long(ish) term same sex partner, but that wasn’t really enough for him. He had discovered the “interweb” and it would be fair to say that the “interweb” had also discovered him. Something very dark and sinister was triggered within David and that something was feeding itself voraciously. The interweb had all the food that the something needed.

Hello, I’m your new best friend

Meanwhile, far away (but close at light speed) Larry lived with his wife in another county, same country. They were also on the interweb. For them two in a bed was not quite enough and they used the information superhighway to find many people willing to bump up the numbers. Larry had met David on line and now, today, sitting at home looking at the latest text message on his mobile phone, Larry is a very worried man, a very worried man indeed. Larry is in fact so worried that he bundles up his embarrassment at discussing the hows and the whys of David. Larry gets in his car and does the right thing. He makes his way to the local Police station front desk and demands an audience with “whoever is in charge”. Larry has a story to tell and although he starts off sounding a bit green biro and looking a lot crimson faced, by the end, the DC hearing Larry’s tale is calling the duty Det Insp.

What happened was this, on MSN David has made an indecent proposal to Larry. “Lets meet in the nearby big city, I have a plan to abduct, torture and rape a male or female child and I need your help. Let’s meet at the big department store. Lets meet today” It was a good and workable plan, infact it is so good that I won’t go into details. Suffice to say that even whilst Larry is at the Police station, David is texting him again saying “Here I am, where are you?” Cell siting would show later that David really had travelled to nearby big city and really was near the big department store.

Fast forward to a HiTech Crime Unit and they now know what is on David’s computer hard drive. The usual and expected child abuse pictures are there but there is also a lot of text stories about abducting and abusing children. There are also searches he has done in Google suggesting a strong sexual interest in hurting kids. An expert opinion based on David’s computer use is “opportunistic sexual sadist. Will offend against children and will plan to offend against children.” The telephone billing supports Larry’s account.

By the time CPS have mulled it over, a somewhat unsurprising decision has been made about not proceeding with conspiracy to abduct and David is only facing charges over possession of the child abuse pictures. He gets non-custodial on a very late and begrudging guilty plea. No prison for David. If it were my choice he is one of that group of people so dangerous that they should never be free ever again. His political career is over but he is still out there and I have heard nothing to suggest that abducting torturing and raping a child is off his menu. I believe he will do what he dreams of doing sometime in the future.

What Is A Prison For?

I got involved in quite a long exchange of posts on the Magistrates Blog. The subject was imprisonment in general. We started off with Merseyside’s Top Cop taking a pop at the Judiciary over mandatory sentences but it soon devolved into more general opinions. For what it’s worth, and in the hope of moving the debate a little, this is what I believe

I am a police detective, no particular axe to grind with the Criminal Justice System. I do think that senior Police Officers are always on a hiding to nothing when they take on the judiciary in public. There are more discrete and effective channels for that sort of discourse than radio interview and web-cast. The point has been made that even a mandatory sentence must have some wriggle room for special circumstances. So be it, I suppose.

WHY MANDATORY SENTENCES ARE’N'T (UNLESS YOU HAVE A VERY BAD LAWYER)

I do see this; once a particular special circumstance or situation become known to reliably reduce sentences, the number of defendants claiming this particular circumstance increases. It may be something to do with the advice given by solicitors. It may be a general word of mouth thing. This ability to shape a defence to a special circumstance seems to be particularly “viral” in the related area of asylum claims where it is so utterly blatant as to be axiomatic.

My belief, based only on watching defences mutate in response to law and developments in evidence is that the same process happens in criminal cases as well. I note that a conscientious solicitor would want to advise a client so as to best mitigate the effects of any criminal prosecution. There are some very clever boys and girls out there who make a very good living from being able to make the case fit the evidence. That’s their job. When we are lucky, we are the one’s employing them. It shouldn’t be about luck.

It then seems to me that when it comes to basis of plea and mitigation, the overworked judges and magistrates are not in any position to check the truth of what they are presented with and CPS / solicitors / barristers fall back on the tired old “the Crown accepts / my client assures me / I am instructed that.”

I imagine the following exchanges are not unusual

“Gottle of geer, gottle of geer”

Defence Barrister: “Would your Scrumptiousness care to give an indication on sentence for a guilty plea? Obviously it is in the public interest to avoid a long and costly trial, but of course it is my client’s right to insist on one. I do however have in my ink stained hand this cunning and recently constructed basis of plea which represents my clients special circumstances in admitting this offence. ”

HHJ Cocklecarrot: “You’re a very cheeky boy for asking but you have a persuasive face and a pleasant way with you. OK you’ve twisted my arm, 3 years for a guilty plea on the facts admitted in your basis of plea.”

Later upstairs

CPS Representative : “Well I know you got Lenny in possession of the gun but he’s offering a plea. We can’t really prove that his special circumstances don’t apply. It might not be in the public interest to have a trial and he will get 3 years after all”

Grizzled Detective: “It’s all a stitch up. Why do I bother. He never mentioned those circumstances in interview, he just no commented me. However, I am sick to the back teeth of taking on the CPS at court. This is not a hill to die on. Lenny will come again.”

Later downstairs

Defence Solicitor: “Lenny, you’re a lucky lucky boy. The forces of law have you bang to rights but if you throw your hand in against the very persuasive evidence, its 3 years with big remission. Take it to the mat and its 5 years no time off”

Lenny: “Cheers, three with remission and remand time, that’s nearly a walk out. Nice one”

My tuppence worth is that as we seem to be slowly heading towards an American style justice system, why not just get entirely honest about the process and allow proper plea bargaining before trial between CPS and defence solicitors? I know its expedient but it couldn’t be any worse than what we have now could it?

WHAT’S THE POINT OF PRISON?

And also, after an unglamorous (but generally satisfying) day of solid police work, I have been known to reflect that Prison is not about deterrence or reform, it is about containment.

If it was about deterrence, prison life would be tougher and nastier and harder. It isn’t.

If it was about reform, that aspect of the work in prisons would be much better funded and professional. It is not.

Reform attempts are probably better left to non-custodial interventions . All the stats I can find on the web say that they are about as effective as prison, maybe a few points better. They are at least lots, lots cheaper.

Community Punishment?

Prison for volume property crime and persistent lower level violent offenders is about containment. It’s society’s way of saying “You’ve had your chances, you’ve blown your chances, time to give the rest of us a rest from you”. Prisons are built, equipped and financed for basic containment because that is what they are meant to do. Form fits function.

Unless you want to recreate AbuGhraib on a commercial basis or return to the old days of The Clink or The Bastille, its a choice of containment or reform / rehabilitation. I think at the moment, we are doing default containment because

a) Nobody has found the magic key to reliable rehabilitation yet. There may not in fact be one. If this is the case then rats to rehabilitation, go for containment. I cannot help thinking that after 100 yrs + of Social Science and Penology, if there was a way, we would know it and be using it by now. Still, never say never.

b) Even if it is out there, no-one’s putting enough money into the system to make it work.

As a police officer or a tax payer, I would far rather be putting criminals into any process that has a good chance of reforming them. However, if I can’t do that, I will settle for containment on a community respite basis. Doesn’t need to be savage, doesn’t need to be chain gang or rock breaking, it just needs to be somewhere to keep them out of the way for a bit to give the neighbours a rest.

Roman Holiday

I am off for a day or two, seeing the sights, doing a bit of ancient history with the family. Where I am going there ain’t no interweb. Not much mobile signal either.

I’ll be back at the weekend. In the meantime, these are links to older (last months) less read posts if anybody is interested

The flip side of workforce modernisation

Interviewing

Send In The Clowns

Complete Control

Twenty something years ago, I believe that a wrong box got ticked on a register and that is how I found myself appointed prefect at my old school. There can be no other explanation. I was not a model pupil, indeed it would be fair to say that I was somewhat known for the wrong reasons. Don’t get me wrong, by the standards of modern schools I was towards the Walter The Softy end of the spectrum

Anyway, this unexpected elevation got me a fancy tie, a seat at the big table at lunch and the ability to hand out detention slips instead of collecting them. It was also something nice for my U.C.C.A. forms and somewhere there is a big black board with my name on it in gold leaf.

Just call me Flashman

For a few months, nothing much happened. I patrolled once a week, we played bridge in the senior common room, life was fine and then one of our number was cashiered for being caught smoking in a cloakroom. He was a popular lad and we felt he had been badly done to by the school. There were still teachers who owed him fags they had borrowed. Clearly a great injustice had been done. It was quickly agreed that we should hold a memorial detention and for one week only, every prefect would enforce every rule on every occasion. It was, in short, time to compound the injustice.

Every smoker was hunted down in every smoking corner. We knew them all, half of us used them as well but not that week. Out of bounds regulations were observed to the inch. Run in a corridor? Not if we saw you. Every petty restriction was cranked on and we managed to issue sufficient detention slips to get about a third of the school kept in. Of course, it never happened, because the Head cancelled each and every one. He told us not to be so bloody silly but I think he saw the joke. It was a joke, I mean what sort of fool would set up some sort of enforceable system of legal sanctions without allowing for discretion applied by those who have to enforce it? Who would do something so stupid?

It is with the above experience in mind that I approach the current diktats regarding crime and detections. Imagine if every officer and PCSO for one week arrested, charged, ticketed and stopped everything that they saw. No blind eyes, no friendly warning, just blind enforcement.

Well that would be an interesting experiment in instant alienation of the public we serve. I do believe that between speed cameras and NCRS, we skirt dangerously close to that plug hole at the moment .

Jacob's Ladder

There are some days when I wish that the finger of God would appear, wreathed in fire and smoke from the clouds and start pointing out where wanted people are hiding. There are some times when something much less dramatic will do.

“Over there Nightjack, behind the sofa”

James was the worst of a bad brood on our local worst estate. Violent, amoral, vicious, dangerous and thoroughly dishonest, he was an adjective rich career burglar. He preyed exclusively on those living around him. He had several habits to feed and a multi generational background of aversion to paid employment. In his way, he was considerate in that he would wait for you to go out of your front door before kicking your back door in. James didn’t care about being seen. He had the invisibility cloak conferred by the knowledge that no-one in their right mind would grass him up. Better to lose your stuff than get the wrong side of James and his brothers. Any local enquiries would be met with shrugs or indifference. The best you might get would be a whispered “Off the record I think you should look at….” Statements were never forthcoming. The Police, you see, can only be there for you sometimes whilst the local criminal family is always there ready to hurt you or those you love. Its an easy choice to make. Its not like giving a statement to the police even gets the council to rehouse you as a priority. If it did, there would be a queue at the station door every day.

Still from time to time, we get a forensic hit. This time, James had cut himself and bled inside the house. He was duly circulated as wanted for burglary.

James was sighted by a uniformed officer in the local paper shop. She radioed for backup and approached him with caution. James quickly decked her and ran. Onlookers cheered. His is the side to be on after dark. I saw him ducking into his mum’s house 3 streets away and got in through the front door and past protesting Mum. “Eff off out of my house. Where’s your effin warrant? He’s not effin here you effin etc etc etc.” Effin heck if James wasn’t upstairs hiding in a wardrobe. To think that Mum was wrong all along and I so nearly believed her. Sensing my approaching and heavy footfall James was out of the wardrobe and out of a bedroom transom window head first. With the resilience that allows all four occupants of a stolen Metro to sprint away from 60mph head on crash, James literally hit the ground running and darted whippet-like into the first back alley.

Now I am as keen as the next person to arrest wanted burglars but there are limits. Also, I just can’t do whippet-like, its more like the big friendly Labrador with me.I was not following him out of that window. Back downstairs past Mum “I never knew he was effin there” Next step to the girlfriend 2 streets back the way he had come. Diane was a plain girl with an extensive and visible collection of sub Argos gold jewellery. “No, he’s not here. No I haven’t seen him for about a week. No I didn’t know he was wanted” As she lied, little Liam (4yrs) came toddling to the door bare of foot, pallid of face in his stained KappaKids tracky bottoms.

“Mummy”
“Not now Liam! The effin bizzies are here”
“But Mummy”
“Liam I’m effin busy now shut up. Go and watch TV or something. And you, I’ve told you he’s not here. Have you got an effin warrant? If not then you’re not coming in my effin house”

“But Mummy, why is Daddy hiding under the stairs?”

Time to call for the van

It's Alright Ma

My Mum reads the blog. Hi Mum. We had a family lunch today, lamb, roast spuds, the works. Then, later, (between the dishwasher and the chocolate fudge cake I think) she asked me if I was happy in my job? I guess she read Vichy Cop, Grasping The Third Rail and some of my other more gloomy posts.

Mum, I love my job. I have spent the last 15 years trying to be where I am, doing what I am doing. Now I am here and it absolutely lives up to expectations. For all that I am deeply concerned about the direction my organisation is being managed in, it is still a wonderful career.

Even now, there are work moments when I laugh until it hurts. I still get the same buzz of excitement about going to work now that I did as a uniform foot patrol officer. I may be lucky but I haven’t met a colleague yet that I don’t like.

In the last 15 years I have

• Been well paid to participate in the world’s best game of hide and seek
• Felt joy at securing the convictions of some very bad people
• Had countless moments of quiet satisfaction at a job well done
• Had countless moments of thinking “Blimey, how did we pull that off?”
• Enjoyed the company and comradeship of some truly outstanding people
• Used my brain far more than I ever did in my old job
• Looked forward to working every shift except for that bit where they made me work for the Divisional Commander upstairs. I know it sounded a bit glamorous and maybe I should have taken my exams but it was boring and a lot more responsibility than a Constable should have had.
•  Been supported and looked after by some outstanding supervisors
• Got a postgraduate level education in a lot of good stuff, for free

It’s alright Ma, I’m only sighing

Yours Aye

Number 1 Son

Only 24 Hours To Crack The Case (Part 2)

Four days after the event, “Melissa” (14yrs) is admitted to A&E with an overdose. It is one of those real I want to end it all overdoses. The sort involving tubes and beeps and lights and readouts. We only find out about it when she recovers. She speaks to Mum, and alleges that her boyfriend got her very drunk, took her to a seaside hotel and raped her whilst she was passed out.

The modern version of the bag of sweeties

So on day six, the Police are called. Day seven Melissa is sensitively and appropriately interviewed to find out what happened to her. She is not sure of her boyfriends’ name, it might be Bilal (we will learn that this is not the truth) . She is not sure what sort of car he has, just that is “well wicked” and customised. She thinks he is 21 (we will learn in the end that he is well over 30). She does know that she went with her friend “Cara” and her boyfriend Qasim. Melissa thinks hearts and romance. Bilal thinks just another goray.

Mum thought she was sleeping over with Cara, visa versa obviously. Into the car, one stop to get a bottle of vodka and a bottle of gin. Glug glug glug in the back of the car. Next stop the rent-by-the- hour Bedbug Towers hotel in a convenient seaside town. Melissa wakes in a strange bed to the inevitable and thoroughly planned molestation.

Some 8 days after the event and its time for the detectives to get involved. OK one lucky lucky lucky (and I say again lucky) break. All of Melissa’s laundry from the night is still lying mid way up the heap on her bedroom floor. We have forensics maybe. A pair of us are despatched to find Cara. Cue two hours tramping the streets of a run down estate. We do find her in the end via a grandparent. With distressing inevitability Cara is now enjoying the dubious benefits of “Bilal’s” attentions. She is 17 but she looks a lot lot younger. That’s probably why Bilal gives her a second glance. Cue three hours of talking, cajoling and persuading Cara to stand up for her mate. The tipping point comes when she MMS’s a picture of Bilal to my phone. She tells it like it was, sort of. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and Cara is never going to say that she knew what the plans for Melissa were. She can also give us an address for Bilal. It is not the address where Bilal’s wife and three children live. The jackpot is when we drive Cara to the seaside ourselves and against the run of play she picks a hotel and she gets it right. Twelve pages of statement follow, from which she will later try and recant when Bilal declares his love to her again.

Further enquiries at the hotel confirm Bilal’s presence on the night with a girl who was sick outside and again in the lobby. The Lithuanian night porter remembers Melissa being carried upstairs by Bilal, Qasim and Cara. Disturbingly, the staff recall having to put the mirror door from the wardrobe back on the next morning.

The interview was a wash out. No forensics yet, no comment but VIPER is a hit and CPS direct authorise charges.

We will get more statements showing where the booze came from and proving that Bilal took Melissa to the hotel with evil on his mind.

We seize the mattress from Bedbug Towers. In time this will give us a DNA hit. Bedbug Towers ain’t keen to ever have it back when they learn about Bilal’s Hep A status.

Last but not least, Bilal actually gets bail checked, by a very good bobby with the mobile numbers for Bilal as known to Cara and Melissa on speed dial.

“Hello Bilal, I’m here to check your bail. Oh, what’s that ringing sound? Oh its your mobile. I’ll have that. Thanks.”

Now me, if I had video of me molesting a 14 year old on my phone, if I had used a well positioned door mirror to video my grinning evil self on the job and I was charged with raping her, I would delete it. Thank you Bilal you stupid arrogant child rapist.