Commit A Crime In London And The Chances Are, You Could Get Off With A Caution.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/13/metropolitan-police-cautions-rape

The punishment for a quarter of all solved crimes in London?

Merely a caution.

/// the UK's biggest police force issued 28,998 cautions in the period, a quarter of all solved crimes in the capital. ///

/// Of these, 5,843 were given out for violent attacks, 165 for sexual offences and five for rape, while 180 offenders were cautioned for grievous bodily harm or wounding, 131 for robbery and 318 for drug-trafficking. ///

318 cautions for drug trafficking that's certainly showing firm action against that vile trade, and how can a person be cautioned for rape? according to these figures five apparently were.

[jim360]

Not going to quibble over any semantic issues, I agree -- if those figures are true, then they seem far too high. The article did note that it was a reduction on the previous year. I hope that trend continues.

[LazyGun]

It does seem on the surface at least extraordinarily odd that cases of rape could be resolved with a caution - but I also read some of the comments, and one of those gave an example of where a caution might indeed be appropriate.

From the comments;
"A man with a terminal illness and just weeks to live turns up at the police station to confess to a rape he supposedly committed 35 years earlier because it is on his conscience. He says he and his girlfriend were heavily petting, he was overcome with the urge to have sex and forced himself onto her. He profusely apologised afterwards and she went home. They then met up several times afterwards, including for dates, but eventually split up. The police locate the "victim". She confirmed what had happened in a statement but says she really doesn't want the matter to go any further - she has long forgiven him. So the police have a confessed rape and a statement confirming the rape, but the circumstances are quite exceptional. The man is not going to survive long enough to face trial, let alone go to prison, and there is not even a complaint from the victim - quite the opposite - she just wants it dropping.
A caution in this case would be what the police call a "technical disposal". There is no point in dealing with the matter any other way"

Now in those specific circumstances, a caution does not seem unreasonable, does it?

If your point of view is that all cautions are merely the polices way of brushing crimes under the carpet, then the figures are disturbing - but I really am not at all sure that it is as simple as that....

[mushroom25]

to take a cynical view here, in the "Director's Guidance" for conditional cautions, http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/directors_guidance/adult_conditional_cautions.html clause 7.1 states "7.1 Police and prosecutors should ensure that a Conditional Caution is considered in any case for which it is permitted and provides an appropriate outcome for the victim, community and offender."

I'm willing to bet that some authorities take that as a mandate to consider the caution before all other courses of action, and that "an appropriate outcome for the community" can be taken to mean a situation where expenditure is minimised.

[Zeuhl]

so 87,000 cases solved by more severe action.

I expect quite a few were for 'drug trafficking' and went 'all the way'

Therefore, i think it would be beneficial to know more details on the 318 which received just a caution.

I suspect the rationale lies in the details

[FredPuli43]

Violent attacks, sexual offences , well, yes, it might be appropriate because those categories are very broad and the particular cases can be at the lowest end of the scale of severity. Rape, no. GBH and wounding are both s20 offences, not 'with intent gbh', but it's hard to see even the least serious as being worth a caution. LG's example is a possible excuse for a caution, because the case couldn't be proved if it went to trial; the defendant might well be dead by then or unfit to stand trial, let alone the difficulty in evidence.

It's always possible, of course, that cases in every category listed above result in cautions because the police know,or are advised by the CPS, that the case could never be proved at a trial. That may be seen as a bit sneaky by some, but it does improve the clear up rate.

[Zeuhl]

That's true fred

I think a 'caution' also achieves a formal 'criminal record' which is a useful outcome for future use and reference if conviction is unlikely

[emmie]

can i go and batter a politician, will start with Milliband, then Clegg, and Cameron, and work my way through the rest of the no hopers.

[New Judge]

Whilst cautions are recorded and may show up against a person’s name when CRB checks are undertaken they do not form “previous” when sentencing for any future offence is undertaken. Unlike convictions they cannot be used as an aggravating feature.

The use of cautions by the police has got out of hand and needs to be reined in - something that the Magistrates' Association is vigorously pursuing. The original idea of them was that they should be used to deal with first time offenders accepting guilt to minor offences. Their use has moved far away from that.

LG’s scenario of the terminally ill rapist should not be suitable for a caution. No rape should. If the CPS has evidence that the accused is most likely to die before going to court then no action should be taken (though I would suggest he should be charged in case he does an “Ernest Saunders“). Otherwise a court should decide the outcome.

[Zeuhl]

Thanks for clarification NJ

Why do you think these cases are being dealt with as cautions?

[LazyGun]

To be clear - It is not my scenario. It is a supposed account from someone in the comments section of the original article from the Guardian.

In the scenario that was suggested, why is a caution unacceptable, especially since the woman concerned says she had forgiven him, she had not registered a complaint, and how likely is it that she would even bother to appear at any trial?

So in these kind of exceptional circumstances, surely a caution is a better solution than going to trial or just not taking any action at all?

[jim360]

Even supposing it to be the right thing to do to give a caution in that scenario, it's surely impossible to explain all cautions given out as based on compassionate grounds for criminals about to die. Perhaps a few, too, are because the victim declined to press charges, but even then the police might go ahead anyway if they have enough to go on without the victim as a witness.

Overall this is a statistic that sounds far too high to be reasonable, and I'd hope to see it come down.

[LazyGun]

sheesh jim.

I am not trying to extrapolate some excuse or defence of the use of cautions by the police from that one case to cover all the cautions. I was specifically alluding to the 5- five- cautions given in cases of rape.

And I did not read anything anywhere that suggested that a caution was offered in that specific instance on compassionate grounds- it was more the unlikelihood and practical implications associated with getting a trial / securing a conviction.

The article and AoGs take on i, in essence, appears to be that a caution represents some sort of cynical police ploy of massaging crime clear-up rates - Mushroom also alluded to this.

I have no evidence on this one way or another. I also would hate to think that cautions are being used in serious cases of bodily harm, rape, robbery and drug trafficking in place of proper police work or taking an alleged offender to trial - but i am not at all sure that the numbers as presented actually reflect this....

[jim360]

Well if I grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick, I apologise.

[FredPuli43]

NJ, that's my view too. If there's no provable case within the CPS guidelines, the suspect should not be charged and will not be. It's not proper practice to offer a caution. ( I confess, I once took a plea bargain of guilty offered to s20 gbh on a s18 gbh with intent gbh when I couldn't have proved either, the witnesses having disappeared, but I hope that's different. The foolish young defence counsel never asked me whether my witnesses were present. Her client got three years, which he'd have avoided, but for her )

It looks as though cautions are being misused, if as I believe, far more use of them is being made now than formerly. If so, that may be cautioning in unprovable cases or not prosecuting cases that should be prosecuted.

.

[New Judge]

Sorry LG, should have said “the scenario you described”.

Leaving aside the fact that the accused was terminally ill, the test whether or not to take action would be two-fold:

(A) is there sufficient evidence to see a reasonable chance of a conviction?

(B) Is it in the public interest to proceed?

If the answer is “yes” to both these questions then a prosecution should follow. If not then no action should be taken. It may well be that in view of the defendant’s condition it might be decided that it is not in the public interest to proceed. It may also be true that in view of the victim’s wish not to testify it may be that the evidence is weak. But that does not leave a caution as an alternative. They should not be available to deal with compassionate issues - that is the function of a properly convened court.

The guidance on conditional cautions for “indictable only” offences (which rape is) is quite clear:

“As such offences will generally attract significant custodial sentences on conviction the maintenance of public confidence in the Justice System will ordinarily require such cases to be dealt with at court.”

There is a strong indication here that cautions are not a suitable alternative for such serious offences and once again the deal between the public and the State is being broken by failing to provide suitable justice for victims of serious offences.

Why have cautions seen a big increase? I can only assume that the police and the CPS see them as a handy way to cut down their workload.

[LazyGun]

@ NJ Thanks for the elaboration. I do think it would be extremely interesting to get some more detailed explanation as to why, for example, cautions were issued in those 5 recorded cases of rape...