Crosswords1 min ago
Are Cops Worth Their Hire?
... (pace Retrocop 😉)
'The fact that our police do not police crime is not my [Douglas Murray, The Spectator] view. It is a fact. Recent figures have shown that they currently fail to solve 90 per cent of reported crimes. Put into real numbers, that is 6,000 criminals every day getting away with serious offences. In 2022 that included 30,000 sexual offences, 320,000 violent crimes, 1.3 million thefts and over 310,000 cases of criminal damage and arson. Or to put it still another way, only 6.5 per cent of crimes led to a charge or court summons, while 2.2 million cases were dropped because no suspect was found.
Some areas of the country manage to beat even this record. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, in the past three years police forces have failed to solve a single burglary in half of all neighbourhoods in England and Wales. Not one. Nada. Zilch.
So what are they reduced to doing? Why, policing language of course. As the great Mark Steyn has said, our societies in the West have ended up policing everything except crime.'
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Answers
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“erm because you pay for the police thro your council tax precept. One clearly HASN'T read one's guff froo da letter box about council tax and what they spend it on”Not quite correct, Peter:https:
22:05 Tue 02nd Apr 2024
As the great Mark Steyn has said, our societies in the West have ended up policing everything except crime.'
frequently glossed as - the Manchester police fight everything except fight crime
yeah - we had a home invasion ignored because 'there was no video and so no crime' - stunning - (home in stunning geddit?)
I think we probably get what we pay for
“erm because you pay for the police thro your council tax precept. One clearly HASN'T read one's guff froo da letter box about council tax and what they spend it on”
Not quite correct, Peter:
https:/
“The main income source for the 43 geographic police forces in England and Wales is a central government grant made available through the annual Home Office Police Grant Report.”
“PCCs can raise additional revenue locally through the council tax (police) precept. PCCs can increase the precept, but the increase cannot be at a rate that is ‘excessive’ unless authorised by a ‘yes’ vote in a local referendum.”
But it makes no difference where the funds come from or how many police officers are employed. The police force (sorry, “service”) is now an ideological organisation rather akin to a branch of the Social Services. Its senior officers are obsessed with "equality, diversity and inclusion" to such a degree that they’ve lost sight of their principle task – the prevention and detection of crime (i.e feeling collars). Few senior officers now have the depth of experience that equips them to fight the type of crime that effects the majority of victims most profoundly – burglary, criminal damage, domestic violence, theft, robbery and general mayhem. They are not selected for their policing acumen but as managers of an orgaisation that must signal its virtues at every opportunity. They’d rather employ their officers behind computer screens policing the internet in case anybody is offended by remarks made on Soshul Meeja than send them out on a Saturday night keeping drunks in order.
'Last November the Met arrested a man for a post in which he criticised the number of Palestinian flags flying from lampposts in his area. There’s also the recent prosecution of Sam Melia, whose crimes included putting up stickers which said ‘It’s okay to be white’ and ‘Reject white guilt’. We have yet to learn whether it is a crime in Britain to put up stickers saying ‘It’s okay to be black’ or ‘Reject black guilt’.'
There is a a large supermarket near here that has a petrol station with a shop, like lots of them these days. Three or four times a week, a young man walks into the shop with a hold-all and fills it up with various items off the shelves, then he walks out without paying. The staff are not allowed to challenge him and the police won't take any action, despite the fact that it is recorded on CCTV. This is the situation now at lots of supermarkets and is one reason given for price increases.
At the same supermarket, the staff are regularly subjected to racial insults from young Asian men who say that if the police are called, they will say that the insults were aimed at them first. This is stuff you don't hear about and happens on a regular basis.
All the crime figures indicate that the police forces across the country are totally unfit for purpose. Only when there is a high profile crime such as murder do they swing into action. As 10CS mentions, shoplifting has been virtually decriminalised; possession and distribution of illegal drugs is routinely ignored; any traffic offences that cannot be detected remotely are most unlikely to see enforcement. Anti-social behaviour and criminal damage is rife. The Metropolitan Police was placed into “Special Measures” following a series of scandals, one of which involved the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer. A review into their performance was damning and one senior officer was quoted as saying “If you look at our performance around rape and serious sexual offences you might well assume they had been decriminalised.”
What is happening with the police force is the same as is happening with the health service. People are having to make their own arrangements. Most large retailers employ security staff (though they are of little use since the police often refuse to attend when thieves have been apprehended). Some enclaves with well-off residents are paying for private security services to patrol their areas. It won’t be too long before some less well off people gather together to form vigilante groups to protect themselves and their property.
Meanwhile, vast amounts of police resources are poured into investigating “hate” crime (i.e. people allegedly upsetting others by what they say or write about them). Scotland has just introduced a law that basically imposes a set of thought characteristics which it believes its citizens should follow. People across the UK are subject to having the police record “non crime hate incidents” against their name. These are incidents where behaviour does not meet the threshold for a crime but is perceived to be “motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group”. So you can’t hold malice or ill-will towards a group with “protected characteristics” in this country, even though in doing so you may not be breaking any law. The police seem to have plenty of time to do this, and then they wonder why most of the public has little time for them and hold them in such low regard.
I believe there are many problems with todays Police.
1) The use of Officers. Numbers are not an issue and in fact are approaching the highest ever which was 2010 with more being recruited as we speack. The issue is how those officers are used. It can be seen that they have plenty if its a 'pet project' or hunting so called hate crime but none when it comes to shoplifting or burglarly. This is the fault of the chiefs.
2) The Chiefs. Stop recruiting from Uni into high positions. Make coppers work through the ranks so they understand better.
3) Make Police visible. Walking the beat in Cities, cars/motorbikes/pushbikes outside of them. And reopen local stations. Stop hiding.
4) Split the Met into four.
5) Remove Police Commissionairs.
6) Support coppers who have to make tough calls, dont hang them out to dry. Whilst investigations must occur for things like shootings they could be made much faster. Get them back on the front line.
7) Make Judges and magistrates elected.
8) The Government should look again at minimum sentences and how they are used. Stop letting people out early.
9) Build more jails. An incresing population needs more jail space, its part of infrastructure.
Plenty more but enough there to get started.
"Make Judges and magistrates elected."
I don't think that's a particularly good idea, youngmaf.
All that will happen is that they will be elected on the same basis as Police and Crime Commissioners are - i.e. along party lines. Whenever PCC elections are held there are always candidates put up by the main parties plus an smattering of independents (who rarely do very well). There should be no party involvement in these elections and all candidates shold stand as independents. I fear that if members of the judiciary are elected the same problems will be seen there.
// Numbers are not an issue and in fact are approaching the highest ever which was 2010 with more being recruited as we speack. //
Between 2010 and 2019, 20,000 police numbers were cut. Since 2019, 20,000 have been added. Which means that in the 14 years of Conservative Government, very few additional Police have been added. When you take the rise in the UK polulation, then there are fewer officers per capita.
When 20,000 were cut, the Police were unable to properly fight crime, so they concentrated on the easy stuff not the important stuff. We still send lots of people to prison, about 90,000, but with the return of 20,000 staff coming on stream, that is projected to rise to 100,000+ by 2027.
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