Friday, June 27, 2008

Image and Reality With The Five-Oh

Image:
One of the country's most senior police officers announced he would abandon the Government's overall target for detecting crime to prevent his officers being hamstrung by an "over zealous obsession with chasing numbers".

[Martin Richards, Chief Constable of Sussex Police] said he wanted to encourage his officers not to focus on "easy detections" of low-level crimes but to concentrate on more serious offences that "people really care about" including violence, burglary and domestic abuse.
Reality:
When Frank McCourt's home was targeted by young hooligans hurling rocks and eggs, he challenged them and told them to leave and never return.

But the next day they came back so Mr McCourt, a former soldier, tried to phone [Sussex Police} but was put on hold for 45 minutes.

At the end of his tether, he grabbed one of the louts by the arm and hauled him inside, telling him he was performing a citizen's arrest.

But it was Mr McCourt who was arrested later that day - for kidnap.

The 57-year-old spent six weeks on bail before being charged with the lesser offence of assault.

The case hung over him for two and a half months before it was dropped just days before the trial when prosecutors accepted there was no realistic prospect of convicting him.
On the other hand, let's be fair: maybe safety at work for vandals is one of the issues "people really care about". Or perhaps not.

Note that all the usual indicators of police sleaze are present and correct. There's the attempt to bounce the citizen into accepting a caution, combined with the attempt to intimidate by over-charging, then the looooong period where the victim is kept on the hook, before the police admit they don't - in the strict sense of the word - have an actual case.

See, this is what's so sleazy about all those libs insisting citizens have the right to self-defence. That may be true in the strict legal sense, but the process is the punishment. What relevant information were they hoping would change things after, say, the first month ? Nada - they were just trawling for dirt while ramping up the stress levels - and the legal bills.

This also sinks the other great excuse Mr Plod hides behind. Let's pretend, for the sake of their sleazy argument, that the mere fact a complaint was made means they just had to arrest him. Two and a half months. That's a lot of paperwork. Ditto, how come this maximalist arrest policy doesn't apply to the chav scum ? Not only do we have the vandalism, we have the chavette piling in ? How come the police didn't have to arrest her ?

This is why modern policing is worse than mere anarchy. Anarchy is when Vikings attack a village. What we have now is where the Vikings get beaten back, then call in the King's troops to rampage through the village looking for inflammatory parchments and unlicensed swords.

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