“Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.“
Tom Lehrer
How the hell did we get here with the likes of Copperfield, Bloggs and Gadget being joined weekly by more officers all telling tales of the ugly truths of current Criminal Justice? How did we get into a situation where the Circuit Judges are quietly revolting and the Magistrates are as unhappy as unhappy can be with being pushed around by the government? Why has serious and violent crime been on the up every year since 1997? What kind of people have been setting the policies that have kicked such a big hole between the Police and the public? Bluntly, who has had their hands on the wheel whilst public confidence in all arms of the Criminal Justice System has tanked. I have an over simplistic explanation. It’s time to name and shame.
I’m sitting here thinking that we have a Lord Chancellor who has presided as public confidence in the Criminal Justice System is dropping through the floor. Only 31% of us now feel any level of confidence in how our system deals with criminals. His reaction? Well Jack Straw has been busy doing the Hokey Cokey with Bill of Rights 1.1 and foisting a Sentencing Commission onto judges through the Coroner’s and Justice Bill. I say foisting because the rather grandly named Council of Her Majesty’s Circuit Juudges broke cover last week and said “We do not consider these sentencing proposals to have any benefit. The proposals are not sought by the judiciary or any other criminal justice group. They are unnecessary, costly and unwelcome.” That strikes me as judge speak for “Stop.“
We started this government with a Lord Chancellor called Lord McKay of Clashfern. Editor of Halsbury’s Laws of England, by most accounts an outstanding lawyer and judge, leader of the Scots Bar, basically a bloody good lawyer and well respected. Fit to be top judge? Oh yes. Man of substance. A man guaranteed to put the interests of a strong independent judiciary above party politics.
A Distinguished and Experienced Lawyer
Cometh the blessed TonyBlair, cometh the old mate in the shape of Tony’s old boss Lord Irvine of Lairgs. He blows £650,000 of our money doing up his grace and favour pad including £59,000 on wallpaper. His career highlights involved marrying his best friends wife, introducing the Blairs and providing legal advice to the Labour Party throughout the 1980′s. A towering legal presence fit for the top judges spot? Possibly not but Tony liked him and he was keen on passing the Human Rights Act.
Tony’s Old Boss
As we slide gently down the ability curve, another mate of Tony’s got to wear the shiney golden robes. Step forward Lord Falconer of Thoroton. Lest you forget, he used to be Tony’s flat mate. Surely, you are thinking, he had more qualification than that? Well, he ran the Millenium Dome for a while, and he was Tony’s mate. At least he was some sort of lawyer and he made QC in 1991.
Tony’s Old Flatmate
That takes us back to the current incumbent Mr. John Whitaker Straw. Well he qualified as a barrister some years ago but since 1979, he has been a full time politician. That’s the man in charge of the Ministry of Justice. It shows.
Some Bloke Who Used To Be A Lawyer A Long Time Ago
That’s how it has been for noble office of Lord Chancellor these last few years. Does the man at the top of the pile inspire any confidence in and of himself? The results are in.
That other twin pillar of the Criminal Justice System, the Home Secretary, how has that noble office of state fared?
We start with the incumbent Michael Howard QC. Say what you like about him but he qualified as a QC on merit in 1982. As a Home Secretary, he authored the quote “Let us be clear. Prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists, and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice.” He was a Home Secretary who at least seemed to understand that the sentencing system needs to carry a little weight and that punishments need to enjoy general acceptance as fair. He appreciated the containment element of prison as well.
Reasonably Good At Law Stuff
Next up, running the Cops, the previously mentioned John Whitaker Straw. Jack brought us R.I.P.A. , sent Pinochet back to Chile and said of pre Operation Desert Storm Iraq “”we have faith in the integrity of the Iraqi judicial process and that you should have no concerns if you haven’t done anything wrong.” Thank’s Jack.
Perhaps Not Quite So Good At Law
All things must pass and in 2001, it was time for David Blunkett. Regular readers will know my opinions on his reign. A career politician with all the knowledge and experience of law enforcement that you would expect from the preparation of Sheffield City Council and teaching. Seldom has so much damage been done to the Police Service by one man. Along with beefing up RIPA and taking a swipe at jury trial, he started us down the road towards National Identity Cards. He was forced kicking and screaming from office when it became clear that he was somewhat involved in speeding through the immigration status of his mistress’s nanny, and giving the same mistress free train tickets on the public purse. I can do no better than quoting the top cop of the time Lord Stevens “If you are ever asked to meet with Blunkett, under no circumstances should you go alone…he is a bully and a liar.” Just what you want to hear about the man running the Police.
Gleeful Wrecker
Now David Blunkett was replaced by Charles Clarke. Another career politician with a side line in running a PR agency. He was another man wedded to identity cards with a regrettable ambition to have all communications data stored for law enforcement purposes. According to his successor, he left a Home Office unfit for purpose.
More Of The Same
Enter Dr. John Reid. The doctorate was in history. The doctoral thesis was a Marxist analysis of the slave trade. From there until parliament he was a full time political organiser, you can guess which party. He was surpisingly sound on building more prisons, closing up our porous borders and sorting out the Probation Service but he did not survive the departure of the blessed Tony and the accession of the Dear Leader.
60 Watts In A 20 Watt World
That brings us to Jacqueline Jill Smith, another academic but sans doctoral thesis this time. You all know the score with Jacqui. Total expenses hog. Second home that isn’t. Lots of TVs and a lovely fireplace. The current Home Secretary has made a signed claim for her husband’s prOn and trousered the resultant cash. We don’t ask for much before she claims her expenses but at least she could have pretended to check them and weeded out the obviously bogus stuff. Maybe her husband could have done better by her for his our £40,000 a year. Either way she made a blatantly bogus claim and she is set on brazening it out.
Born To Wear Clown Shoes
I detect a downward slope. We start of with one of the greatest lawyers of his age and we end up with errrm Jack Straw. We start off with a man who understands the public expectations that punishments should fit crimes and we end up with a petty expenses fiddler who tries to pretend she hasn’t been caught red handed. Now I’m not claiming that there was ever any golden age of the Criminal Justice System. That would be foolish, but I am just pointing out that there is a case to be made that the people in the key jobs may not have been the best possible choices .
An Unsubtle Visual Reference
Will you be joining the protest tomorrow Jack?
Thank you Nightjack for this timely reminder that the once great offices of state have been grossly diminished by a series of individuals who lack stature, intellect and integrity.
Top quality post. Question is, where can we find a government’s worth of politicians with a little respect for the institutions of the state that this lot have had such fun flushing down the gurgler?
Where are the next generation of actual, erm, statesmen?
A fair number of the Zanu-Labour cabinet members were communists, for example John Reid. That such individuals now enjoy privileged
lifestyles compared to the masses is no different to the Communist Party members in the USSR.
You will find famous Barristers and judges in this Compendium of Communist Biography by surname
Charles Clarke was (and still is) really ugly.
(Sorry to be flippant on such an erudite blog, but he is!)
For some reason this made me recall a line from an old Pete Seeger song, (“What Did You Learn at School Today”)……..`our leaders are the finest men and we elect them a g a i n and again….`
and do you honestly think they give a monkey’s what we think of them.They are so shamless and morally out of touch with normal people,just look at the latest researchers poll for the bar Standards Board.Politicians are only trusted by 1% of the population at most,and these are the dregs we let run our country.
Dear NJ,
It is most interesting that you produce this on the eve of April Fool’s day! I guess Jacqui Smith, (spliff), and Boris Johnson, (Quiff) are indeed excellent nominations for April fool. But what about Mcnulty?
sSsergeant T Twining
The list starts bad and gets worse…………..a little like the charge sheet at Nuremburg I imagine.
NJ – the reason the muppets in the mix above have made it to the top is that this government values spin, old boy ties and political soundbites over success, understanding and competance.
Twining – The fool is us, taxpaying public for allowing things to degenerate thus far.
Unfortunately NJ I don’t think you’ll every recapture the halcyon days of the miners’ strike etc. Maggie’s gone, get over it.
Whilst the current crop are pretty bad, (and I’m not defending them here) I think a lot of the decision making is done by faceless civil servants, a la Yes, Minister. So unfortunately I don’t think it really matters which lot are in power….
PS. It really does show just how much New Labour have messed up when the Tories (the fu**ing Tories) are seen as a ‘party of the people’ or the party who can save us. What’s more they’ve achieved this by doing absolutely nothing; it’s just been a side affect (effect?) of Labour’s mess.
I think I’ll vote Green or Libertarian…..
I think you’re harsh on these people. They *are* the best available, from the shallow genepool that is the Parliamentary Labour Party.
I thought it was ostriches who put their heads in the sand,not hibbopotamuses.
Nightjack,
This is possibly your best non-anecdotal post ever.
Hibbo,
If you vote for the Greens or whoever, New Labour will get back in again.
It was American ex-Democrats who voted Green who allowed george W. Bush two terms of office.
Another post by which the bar is set. Stellar stuff NJ.
Oh, and thanks for the Winston Smith link, yet more uncomfortable reading from that there public sector but written so damn well.
Brilliant post NJ. I hadn’t realised how far down the slope of political mediocrity we have got.
What really worries me is, that at the next general election, there is no one to vote for. The current bunch of thieves and liars will possibly be out on their ears. Hopefully to then be arrested for their criminal neglect. However, there is no viable opposition. The Tories currently are mirrors of the present incumbents. I suspect their hands are in the till just as much. As for the liberals et al, they are no better.
Another thing is, none of our current ‘leaders’ are professionals. I mean, if they were to return to their previous jobs, before becoming full time wasters, would they actually be in gainful employment? As a private company employer, would you like any one like Ms Spliff on your pay roll?
I just lost some more faith today:
Man kills other man in shop queue for no reason 4 years
Parents lie to protect toe rag child (I don’t condone this) 4.5 years
How can killing someone be less serious (in terms of sentancing) than lying to the Police for your child?
I am not privvy to any info, other than what’s int he public domain, but this disparity in sentancing just makes me weep.
Where is the justice?
Come, come Jack – No Brittan, Baker, Hurd? Giants, whose uncompromising genius led to err, the doubling of crime, major riots and the torching of several prisons. The past can look rosy too – By 1997 Howard was a figure of fun, fit only to be humiliated by Hague in the Tory leadership eletion because he was so widely disliked in the country. The taint never really left him.
Of the “heavyweight” Tory Home secretaries, Clarke was in the job for a year and did pretty much nothing, Whitelaw presided over a series of disasters and made a complete bodge up of “short sharp shock”, so much so that even Thatch had to pension him off.
To be fair though , the most ludicrous Home Secertary in the last thirty years, David Waddington, only lasted a month. Major got that one right.
On a more serious note, Home secretary has always been the toughest senior ministerial job. You have to defend the indefensible on a regular basis, whether it is defending “brutality” or explaining away a rise in crime. Your own side is always out to get you for being too soft if you’re a tory, or too hard if you’re Labour. You’re blamed for things yu can have no control over, and responsible for most things in the publics life that they regard as unpleasant or irritating.
As a result, few politicians have held the job for long and escaped with their reputations enhanced. Butler perhaps – but at the price of ruining his chances of ever being PM – too liberal for the troops. mcmillan was wily enough to see that. Jenkins is remembered because he presided over social liberalisation which his party loved, but much of the public hated. I’m half convinced Jenkins cost Labour the 70 election as home sec and chancellor.
Other than them – the post war Home Office has had a great proportion of relative nonenties like Soskice, Brooke, Carr, Rees and Lloyd George Junior. Of the other big names of the period – Callaghan got the job cause he couldn’t be sacked and Maudling belong in jail, not in charge of them.
So while I appreciate the critique of my own chaps, I think the old Bono glasses may have been donned in respect of the past…
NightJack, sorry, I knicked your awash tanker:
http://bodwyn.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/an-admiral-of-the-ocean-seasee/
As to your legal intelligent bad element, it’s not the cracks in the pavement…it’s the ones in their backsides that’s the giveaway!
I don’t think even the Tories can give you back what you remember so well…
Hopi
The reason why we should pour scorn and derision on the Labour plonkers is not because they have presided over a massive rise in crime – it’s that they have been illiberal authoritarian gullible fools. They have engaged in the most appalling centralised targets culture that has made the rank and file police angry and bewildered and isnt doing a lot for the average man in the street. They’ve presided over detention without charge for ever longer periods, pushed the old canard of ID cards, expanded the DNA database and tried to do awful things to the right to jury trials and other common law liberties. At the other end, they’ve espoused stricter sentencing guidelines removing ever more discretion from the judiciary. They are vandals – ignorant and destructive.
On those terms, Jack Straw was the least bad of the Labour HSs and Waddington and Howard join the illiberal authoritarians – but fortunately their party didnt follow them along the route to ID cards etc.
The problem with Hopi’s comparisons is that they are comparing apples with oranges. The Conservative government under Mrs Thatcher and Mr Major was dealing with a structurally unsound economy and the low growth caused by misallocated resources. Under such circumstances the government’s ability to splash the cash is limited. It reminds me of Labour supporters who claim that Brown is a better PM than Thatcher, because the economy is in better shape now – well the structural reforms that made the UK a better place took place under Mrs T. It’s like claiming Bush is a better President than Obama – the economy was in much better shape under George W Bush than under Obama, but it’s a ridiculous comparison.
Labour – a threat to Liberty and devoid of common sense. Only a moron would support them.
Hopi.
Oh dear. You really dont get it, do you?
If you go back and read Nightjack carefully, you’ll find that he isnt in favour of ID cards or DNA database being used to store innocent people’s DNA. He is in favour of being allowed to do things like stop and search without all the ridiculous paperwork. Labour believes in authoritarian ID card stuff, but bends over backwards to shaft the police by making them do all kinds of diversity/race awareness BS. Just read the hoops that poor old Gadget goes through when he has to find an ethnic minority to interface with over Christmas – some poor Hindu bloke is harassed by every police station in the county as the only available “ethnic minority”.
You are one of those deluded souls who think that targets work. Some targets will work. But in reality in areas like the police or education or the health service, targets generally shift emphasis but dont actually deal with underlying problems.
The education system suffers from targetitis. Blunkett’s reforms simply meant that the State system shafted the bright and the stupid by transferring a lot of resources to the borderline D\C group. Yes, there has been some progress, but given the amount of money thrown at the problem, this isnt surprising.
I happen to be quite familiar with both the practice of targets (in education), and the sociologists (and economists) analysis of them. In some limited areas targets and tick box systems work. In the bulk of things like the police, social services, healthcare, education, they dont.
We need some statistics – how many crimes, how many detections, but these should be an end result. What we need are soft – human – monitoring of best practice. We shouldnt be using targets to beat policemen, doctors or teachers round the head – all too often it results in perverse results. Instead, we should determine what makes a school/police station/hospital fail (eg lots of dropouts, too much crime, too many deaths) and resolve those problems. It’s more difficult than saying “this is the target”, but it is far more likely to result in a system that works.
Labour – a bunch of useless plonkers who wouldnt be able to manage their way out of a wet paper bag.
So in my world, the police would have some basic reporting of stats, which would allow targeting of resources on problems and would make it clear if a particular area was suffering from more crime than we would expect. But, they wouldnt actually have a target for any particular crime. Think of the thousands of jobs that could be gotten rid of and replaced with real cops and all those Home Office staff that could be fired.
The HMIC and NPIA would stop being the cookie cutter groups they are, but instead would have the best police officers in various fields (real frontline coppers as well as good backoffice people) on short (say 3 year tours) trying to learn what works for each force, pass on the lessons, rake over the coals those failing to learn.
I particularly think this is important given the stories in Gadget’s book about IIRC the NPIA coppers trying to get IG to deploy his dozen (non-existent) officers at an incident in some theory test. It may be national policy, but it’s bollox.
Nightjack, sorry for the totally off-topic post but just saw something I wondered about and you seemed like the best person to ask. Apparently
“Official figures showed more than 200 paedophiles who admitted having sexual activity with children aged under 13 were cautioned by police.”
What is classified as ‘sexual activity with children’ here and in practice what offence falling into that category would be dealt with by a caution?
Hopisen
Some very interesting observations about the increased centralisation the police are enduring.
There are huge problems with centralising control of the police in the way this govt has done. Much of what now occurs in day to day policing in the UK is dictated by policy. Force policy is dictated by Home Office policy.
By the nature of the police bureaucracy officers who fail to comply with any policy are frowned upon. They cause waves. They are much less likely to be promoted or to be selected to attend specialist courses. Senior officers who breach policy can kiss their precious careers goodbye. This happens regardless of their competence in role.
Compliance with the centrally directed policy becomes all important.
Doing what the boss wants is not a problem. The boss pays the wages. If you pay the piper you call the tune.
However, it is impossible to write a law or policy applicable to every situation. This has long been understood by the police and justiciary which is why police have (or had) discretion.
Now, every Home office policy diktat is strictly enforced. This leads to numerous anomalies, clusterf**ks, sh1tstorms and nonsensical actions.
Example:
Home Office Directive: Prosecute all Domestic Violence Offenders.
Force Policy: If sufficient grounds for reasonable suspicion exist in DV incident, arrest the offender.
Situation: Police called to house where Mentally Ill woman alleges assault by her partner (also her carer). Police speak to both parties. The assault alleged is him pushing her out of his way when he was trying to get away from her shouting abuse at him. This behaviour is part of her condition. Kids are present and know mummy is “having one of her turns”. On police arrival both parties are spoken to and circumstances made clear to officers.
According to policy the man should now be arrested for a trivial matter leaving the children in the care of the MI mother or removed from the home against her physical resistance and placed with relatives or in care.
Clearly this is nonsense but common and not unrealistic.
There are many times when people’s behaviour falls outside legislation or policy but is nonetheless reasonable and correct. That is why the word “reasonable” appears in law.
That is why police had discretion. Centralised micro management removes discretion.
This creates a situation where police follow policies which make no sense in situation and apparently make crazy decisions……tabloids love it. The police hate it. The public hate it.
I hate it.
“PS. It really does show just how much New Labour have messed up when the Tories (the fu**ing Tories) are seen as a ‘party of the people’ or the party who can save us. ”
I quite agree. As I think I might have muttered before, this government’s greatest failure will be presenting an unprepared network of chinless public schoolboys as a serious contender for political power.
Flipping love you NJ. God bless.
Yes, what a shower. Just for the added pleasure of the speculative on this blog, try to imagine Mr Cameron and Mr Brown in bed. Not together, obviously. One lies awake hoping the other may fluff the recovery but realises aspirations of becoming PM are slipping away. His adversary sleeps soundly with a broad grin. Why might that be so?
Labour has never witnessed such a long period of generous criticism from the Nation. Even its staunchest supporters have muttered, grumbled and cursed it. Yet Mr Brown, masochist as he may be, is thoroughly enjoying it all. He knows that should he deliver us from our worst fears of recession, support will rally for him and Labour like never before.
There are no mutinies during a storm and we are not on the brink of making an International reputation for having the most stupid electorate, ever.
So with an excuse of pragmatism concealing some infidelity, I may share an inclination with a majority by voting Labour; if for no other reason than barring inexperienced Old Etonians and other clueless from unfurling the mainsail and running aground.
MTG, the only problem is Brown and his nosers are not actually Labour. Also, for some reason I cannot fathom, the fact that they have failed the country miserably and are actually failing to acknowledge this in the face of everyone who doesn’t believe everything written in ‘The Sun’ (other, and better, toilet papers are available). It will serve the right if they get elected again. They are creating a massive parasitic community, and have absolutely no way of paying for it. The don’t works, won’t works, already know how to play the system against those poor bastards that will lose their jobs because of B’liars and Browns selfish incompetence. These people, unlucky sods, have not only worked and paid into the system, they will be made to jump through hoops, loosing any dignity they had, having to sign on with work shy chavs, (except when dealing drugs) foul mouthed spitters and so on.
Slightly OT but in reply to Rick B’s comment – if i remember that case from the paper right there were a lot of mitigating circumstances surrounding the shop murder case – genuine ones too by the sound of it.
More on-topic is on the subject of Blunkett – the only thing more dangerous than an indept home secretary (‘Spliff) is one with a Plan (note the capital – Blunkett).
Problem is with any target culture – the low rankers usually hate it and want to avoid it – the management love it as it allows them to look good without doing much! I suspect the real battle for whoever takes up the gauntlet of CJS reform (real reform in a way that makes it work properly again) will be to weane the management off stats and targets and prune away the deadwood that refuses to let go of them. THAT will require a pair of big shiny political balls.
[...] be working, Jack Night and I are having an interesting debate about Crime and policing, (starts here and continues here - read the comments) in which I attempt to defend the [...]
Nightjack, you mention serious and violent crime going up every year since 1997? What sources are you using there?
A quick check on google brought up this Home Office document:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb0708.pdf
Which shows that in 2006-7 violent crime was reduced by 12% according to the BCS and 8% according to the Police Recorded Crime figures.
As far as I’m aware using both the BCS and the Police figures are the best available, which are you using?
(Very interesting blog by the way)
NJ,
You asked about the Lord chancellorship – Truth is i know very little about it, as in the early years of the Gov’t it wasn’t really part of the day to day political life (though irvine himself was, obv).
The only view I really have is that if the price for a cleaner seperation of powers between exec and judiciary on is that the lord chancellor turns from a quasi-judge/politician to a lowly political hack, that’s still probably a trade worth making.
In the middle of all this I don’t think that Cabbage has had a reply to his/her/its unrelated but important question about the cautioning of serious sexual offenders.
Lots of things might have happened, but the following probably describes the basic circumstances in most if not all of the 200 cases cited. (Incidentally, 200 over how long? Six weeks? A year? A decade?)
Scenario:
Middle aged person walks into the enquiry office and asks to see a police officer in confidence. They are upset, but controlled. Once in the interview room they begin to describe an incident (episode, catalogue) of sexual abuse perpetrated by their uncle/father/step-dad/parents’ friend/etc 20/30/40 years ago.
It has taken the victim many years to get this point. The offender is now elderly, but still known to the family. Any power or hold that they once had over their victim has now evaporated to the extend that their victim is quietly telling their story to someone in a police station. Perhaps mother has died recently. The victim didn’t want to put her through this.
The victim is adamant that they will not go to court. Never. Not in any circumstances. But they have decided that they want us to know. Their reasons for this are many, but will usually include a desire to ‘take control’ or to get ‘closure’, and perhaps to ‘stop it happening again’ with grandchildren or great-grandchildren. They want the offender to acknowledge what happened.
They are absolutely terrified they’ll find out from us that there are other victims. Victims for whom they will feel responsible. They say they ‘should have come to see you a long time ago’.
Any forensic evidence has long gone, but a lengthy statement is taken. The officer explains to the victim what they intend to do next, encourages them to think again about going to court, and asks if there are brothers, sisters or friends who might be prepared to speak to the police too. Sometimes there are.
An arrest is made, and a custody sergeant clears the booking-in area so that the ‘circs’ can be given with a degree of privacy usually not afforded to the common-or-garden shoplifter. Sometimes the offender will be infirm, walking with the aid of a stick. They will be found a chair while their details are recorded on the computer and a DNA mouth-swab taken.
Confronted with the victim’s story the offender ‘has it’. They differ in their responses. Some are brazen, others cry, some express disbelief at first – but crumble as the detailed account given in the victim’s statement slowly unwinds in the tape-recorded interview.
An officer visits the victim and explains that there has been ‘an admission’. Would the victim see this through to its natural conclusion in court? No? Have they spoken to the nice lady at Victim Support that we referred them to? Is there anything we can do support them as a witness? No?
The victim is unshakeable. They have the vindication they wanted. But they don’t want the court and all the potential publicity that it would bring, anonymity or not.
There are ways of prosecuting such as case without the cooperation of the victim/witness, but in all but the most esoteric of cases they involve warrants, compulsion and ultimately the threat of imprisonment – for the victim. This is not a good thing.
The impasse leaves two real options. No Further Police Action, or a Caution. No-one (bar the offender) wants NFPA. The CPS are consulted. It goes to their regional ‘thorny cases’ department.
The custody sergeant blanches when the trouser-suited DC explains that the 70 year-old coming back on bail at 1400hrs needs a caution for raping a child. CPS decision-sheets, memos and case files are scrutinised. Heads are shaken. Resignation sinks in.
Once again the booking-in area is cleared. The custody sergeant explains to a man forty years their senior that it is wrong to sexually abuse children. They then go through the statutory notice part of the Caution form.
This is the bit where the offender has to confirm that they formally admit the offence for which they’re being cautioned. They are told that this is not a conviction, but an admission of guilt. That a record will be kept of the Caution, and that this may be disclosed by CRB checks, visa applications etc. The Caution may be cited in any future court proceedings. Finally, this being a sexual offence, they are told that they will be obliged to sign the Sex Offenders Register – and all that entails.
They leave. The DC and custody sergeant shake their heads silently as the door closes behind the offender.
Scenario:
The Daily Hate publishes a story, picked up by the broadsheets, which starts “A Freedom of Information Act request to the Ministry of Justice has revealed…”. In paragraph five a politician is quoted as being shocked that such a thing could happen. Police Cautions for paedophiles indeed! A scandal, and an insult to the victims! They will raise it in Parliament. They will hold the police to account.
That weekend, at a family barbeque, the off-duty custody sergeant is accosted by one of their cousins – who vents about the scandalous story they read where the police routinely let child-rapists off with a caution. How can you bring yourself to be part of such a system they ask?
The off-duty custody sergeant shakes his head again.
(Sorry this is so long NJ, and unrelated to your original post, but Cabbage did ask).
ACS, an excellent scenario that shows that to do the right thing may be so wrong. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I don’t have the right answer for such a situation, but it does beg the question; Should someone whom has committed a serious crime many years ago, but until now has not been taken to account for their actions, be ‘let off’? I think that in the above example NFPA would be wrong, the next step would be; how do you ‘punish’ an OAP for a crime he cannot commit again, without either monstrous overkill or as you say, a caution and the Sex Offenders register? Which, to many, would be seen to be a let off.
ACS, I just checked this comments section and spotted your reply. If you ever happen to look here again and see this message, thank you. It was enlightening.
That’s because he’s made from the off cuts of a Mr Potato Head set!!!!
TBS,
As I have posted before “the higher up the tree the monkey climbs, the more it shows it’s arse”
Your darned right old bean, spin, ties and soundbites are the order of the day. I get the impression some of these culprits would sleep with there own kith and kin if guaranteed poltical success.
If you need proof of this spin doctor Alastair Campbell is a Burnley fan!!!!
One of many enduring Tory gaffes was Maggie’s reference to ‘Our boys’ during the miners’ strike. A vicious sneer at non Tory voters oblivious to insult poured over the heads of police. I am sure that given NJ’s sense of fair play, he has in hand an immediate follow up with a ‘spoilt for choice’ Rogues Gallery of Tories.
B-boom!
My head is very much out of the sand, I just think people are putting to Tory-tinted specs on a bit too easily.
Do you honestly,seriously believe things would have degenerated so far with a tory goverment.Granted this lot are hardly different from labour but this is due to them trying to mimick phoney blair for popularity stakes,they are not real tory’s.
I know it will get up your lefty noses but we really do need another maggie thatcher now,whats needed is guts and determination.
Both of those sentences should have had the decimal point shoved (at least) one place to the right. Then they might, just possibly, have had some lasting effect in the squalid cess pool which is so great a part of British society these days.
No doubt every single one of the wretches sentenced today in the supermarket case and the Sean Mercer case will shortly be taking their place in the aristocracy of their local prisons with their heads held high. What a travesty.
Thanks Jack, David, Charlie, John, Derry, Charles and that thieving old perfume dodger off the estate who’d name eludes me.
MOP, Some interesting points are ruined by the last line, which is the kind of nonsense that belongs in a “ZanuLIEbore” troll post.
There’s a thread I don’t quite understand running through some of the comments, and I’d love an explanation.
The sense I get is that the thing that’s really annoying most of the front line bloggers is that not that the government is “authoritarian” – Jack would like little more than expanded powers to do things he regards as helpful to him, but that the authority goes to the centre, not to the front line.
Fair enough.
But look from the other end of the telescope. What Labour and the Tories have found is that if you pump more into the system without grabbing hold of the system, nothing much happens.
Take Labour, after the 2000 CSR (which took labour out of the Clarke straightjacket on public spending it had accepted in ’97 and which led to falling police numbers from 1997 to 2000) – in Home and Health, Labour put money in, but didn’t demand too much back in terms of structural reform. Police numbers went up from 125k to 140k, doctors pay went up, and… progress was pretty minimal.
Want to know why Blunkett was made Home sec, why you got PCSOs, ministerial priorities areas, the police reform white paper and the rest? Tha’ts why. The police reform white paper was the direct result of trying things the other way and seeing not much happen.
Blunkett was made Home sec because he’d bullied the education system into accepting things like the literacy hour and fast track teaching and closing failing schools, and it was the part of the early new Labour reform programme that was showing appreciable results. Teachers hated it, but it got somewhere. So why not try it with the police too?
So here’s my question to Jack, genuinely meant.
Since he knows that some of his colleagues dial it in, while most are dedicated and hardworking, that some constabularies are useless, and some senior officers worse than that, why wouldn’t a Home sec look at this and come to conclusion tha their only viable option is to grab hold of the system and tell it what to do, even if that means wrenching the agenda away from the freedom of the frontline police to do what they will?
Their fear, and a fear with data to support it, is that if you don’t tell the system what to do but let them set their own priorities instead, then what a big enough proportion to impact the numbers choose to do is.. well, not good enough.
The Tories are currently saying that they will let the professionals do the job. (and Labour did that too, in opposition, in the NHS at least) Unsurprisingly, that pleases the professionals. I like it when my boss tells me to get on with the job without interfering too. The trouble comes when he then discovers i’ve not delivered eerything he wanted – but a lot of things I liked. In that scenario he’s finds he’s got to give me some central direction.
How would Jack solve that conundrum?
Sunburn,
I recognise this set of DV circumstances all too well. It comes from politicians having knee jerk reactions to the media circus.
If politicians stayed to politics, journos stayed to impartial reporting and cops were allowed to police unhindered then the country would run a lot more smoothly.
J. Smith is a teacher by trade. Just cause she becomes a politician doesn’t make her any more qualified to become a beacon of policing.
I’m continually frustrated by armchair Bobbies suddenly becoming experts in the field, Ms Smith and the alike often do walk arounds with senior officers and the corporate few and as a result they do not get a realistic view of what is happening.
To an extent the police service encourages negative change……..for crying out loud we even have people who go out into the community soliciting complaints where there were no complaints in the first place.
tabloids love it. The police hate it. The public hate it.
I hate it.
You are only slightly off the mark there; the police LOVE it.
This gives them their bread and butter, it allows them to chalk up the detections they need without having to do much. There are many more examples of this other than DV. The police love this so much because the perpetrators of these non-crimes are good honest people who will straight away ‘confess’ “yes of course I did it”, which when compared with going after someone who punched a man in a taxi queue, is a very appealing prospect for Mr Plod.
I agree with you. The answer is to my mind, good management, but I guess you already know that.
Where you don’t have good management, the people at the top in any organisation tend to pull the levers available as hard as they can.
So for example, in Academies, where government feels confident they can let the managers get on with it, there is freedom for schools to use their own discretion. In a failing LEA, they get covered. I think that’s the way to go.
You could say (as the Tories are in education) that everyone should get that freedom no questions asked. Which is fine until Ofsted says an entire towns schools are failing.
I don’t pretend to know enough about the police to offer a solution to experts who live it day to day, but my instinct would be to ask which managers, which teams are delivering, and what can they tell me about those that aren’t. Can I let the good free on more things and can I intervene more usefully on the bad?
MOP.. err that’s what I said NJ supports “authoritarian” measures that he regards as being helpful to the officer on the frontline, like being able to S&S, and opposes those he think do more to give power to the centre.
Waht I’m trying to do isn’t defend “targetitis” but to try and explain why governments feel the need to direct from the centre – because when they “allow people to get on with the job”, all to often they discover that too many of them haven’t and then there’s a scandal they’re blamed for, an increase in crime they’re held responsible for or some such.
Contrary to most impressions, ministers would generally rather they could set a general direction and allow the ship of state to chug it’s way there, but then they find out no one bought any fuel, the engine’s not been repaired for a decade, they’re paying ovvrtime to engineers to polish brass pipes when there’s no coal in the engines – and their becalmed and the paying passanger are threatening mutiny.
At that point they start issuing tagets for coal filling, fuel purchasing, and time spent brass polishing, at which the sailors understandably complain they have to keep telling them what they spend their time doing.
Yes, sometimes this is ridiculous (Dangerous dogs act?) and sometimes the attempt to direct the system has perverse consequences. but the decison ofminister to do this is not irrational. My personal bias is the fault for this tends to lie with incompetent middle management systems, as much as anyone, but then, I would say that.
“Blunkett was made Home sec because he’d bullied the education system into accepting things like the literacy hour and fast track teaching and closing failing schools, and it was the part of the early new Labour reform programme that was showing appreciable results.”
Yeah, indeed. Our educational achievements are a world class success story, aren’t they…?
To extend your analogy further Hopi, what if you are happy doing what you are doing and the customers are generally happy with the way you are doing it but then the boss has a great new idea for some new “deliverable” that leaves you pissed off and the customer base disenchanted but does make the boss and some of the shareholders really delighted with themselves.
I’m home from another day investigating crime. The chicken is in the marinade and I am reading back through the hopisen thread. It is an interesting thread. I am composing a post looking at what David Blunkett said and what he did in relation to the Police. My thesis is that he was that most dangerous of things, a quick thinker and forceful advocate with no trace of self doubt. I believe that his starting point for Police reform was not to make policing more effective but to make it more transparent and socially accountable. I need to put the flesh on those bones before posting something less sweeping and more informed.
Counting The Cracks In The Pavement was always a little bit broad brush. Whilst I am thinking about the Home Secretary thing, does hopi have any opinion on the slow slide down the credibility / ability scale of the office of Lord Chancellor?
NJ
I may be reading and writing for some time.
NJ
Yes we love it lots and lots.
Thats why all police blogs complain about the removal of discretion and the imposition of targets.
Let me guess, next you will be saying – all we do is whinge on blogs and never actually do anything constructive to change things.
Hibbo,
Come back and tell me what I like and hate when you’re a copper.
I am, Your not. End of.
So sad Tony, that a pit of quicksand was mistaken for a safety net.
As some wise soul once said on Question Time “I thought it was a safety net, not a fishing net”
Thanks ACS. I’m glad it is so long because it took so long to tell it so right.
Labourboy / Hopi – On violent crime levels I quoted Sir David Normington in his private report to the cabinet that got leaked.
In his document Sir David wrote: “In view of the fact that more serious violence has not reduced in the way that we would have wanted in recent years, and that these offences cause the most harm to individual victims and to society as a whole, our long-term strategy on violence focuses on seriousness. This includes homicides, serious wounding and serious sexual offences such as rape. Recorded crime statistics do indicate that despite recent falls, the levels of the most serious violence are higher than they were ten years ago.”
We can all cherry pick stats. The Home Office will say loudly that total violent crime is down whilst keeping quieter about the fact that the levels of the most serious violent crime are rising. Overall crime falling. Serious crime rising. Not good. Suggests that maybe something has made the Police concentrate on addressing minor crime and the eye has come off the ball in terms of the serious stuff.