Couldn’t Prosecute Satan
May 5, 2008 by inspectorgadget
Next time you hear a politician claim that crime can be dealt with effectively by somehow reorganising the police, give a thought to Wayne from Ruraltown.
Last week, Wayne was on Bail for punching his elderly mother in the face. He went back to the house (breaching his Bail conditions) and pushed his elderly father down the stairs. Wayne was drunk at the time and had gone round to “persuade” his mother to drop charges against him.
He was quickly arrested by police from F Division and remanded in our custody by CID. Wayne went to Court the next day and was released on Bail again!
This time, they gave him a curfew as well as the usual “not to contact named witnesses”. Thing is, these offences were committed during the day. Never mind. Curfew it is.
Naturally, his behaviour reinforced several times by the Court (i.e. no consequences) Wayne became drunk, and went around to his parents address. We attended and he was arrested.
Police found him with a can of petrol and a lighter at the back of the house.
Three arrests, a home safety package (which worked - hence arrest number three) two Remand Applications, three taped interviews and two Court appearances.
Someone tell me where the police have failed here?
All the fellatious talk about “Safer Neighbourhoods” and “Citizen Focus” are for nought if someone fails to grip the wretched situation with Magistrates.
Never a truer word said boss. We, despite what some think, do a fantastic job with our (very) limited resources. We are let down by everyone else, the blame strarting at trhe very top with the clowns that run the country.
I hop e you meant “fallacious” - but then again maybe we are all being screwed in rather exotic ways
ONG
Nope; I wrote ‘fellatious’ and I meant ‘fellatious’, sorry!
Nice one!
The police failed by not beating the living crap out of this worthless bag of skin and bones when they caught him the first time.
Oh, you mean you’re not allowed to do that either? Stupid bloody country.
Perfect post Guv
The Politicos dont realise or at least choose not to publicly realise that all the Policing in the world will not matter a dam with poor sentincing criterea, the ineffectual Bail Act (1976) and a prison system at capacity that has not kept pace with the growth of crime or even population growth.
We would have to double prison places to rectify this mess and double them for a generation. That would still be 4 times lower than the USA in prisoners per population ratio but they do go to far at times.
Its so obvious, how can it be even a debate as despite mandatory early release programs, huge rises in non custodial sentencing and a massive increase in other none court related disposals such as cautioning, conditional cautioning, fixed penalty notices etc the prisons are still full.
This Government has done everything in its power to keep people out of prison and they have attacked the system at every level. The introduction of non court disposals were supposed to reduce costs for the courts but the effect is that a person can steel £200 worth of gear or smash £500 worth of property and get less than a London parking fine. They introduced CPS Pre Charging Advice and targeted CPS on the number of successful outcomes which meant that CPS out of pure self interest only took the dead certs to court and let the rest go free. The Government then issued sentencing criteria that reduced remand cases and shortened custodial sentences for ineffectual tagging and community sentences. Finally the Government instigated mandatory early release programmes so the worst of the worst who we did managed to see locked up were free in less than half their ridiculously shortened sentences.
The problem is not the Police failing to get criminals to court or getting them convicted the problem is that when they are convicted they got nothing but a licence to go free and destroy more lives.
We are blamed for crime when it is clearly court sentencing criteria which is fixed by the Government. Those who can remember when Howard was on his “lock em up” policy will remember that burglaries and robberies fell dramatically for several years if not nearly a decade, purely because they were either inside and couldn’t commit crimes or were scared of going inside like so many of their mates.
There are three legs to the Criminal Justice System’s metaphorical stool; Police, Prisons and Courts. If you water down sentencing criteria to its current ineffectual levels then you effectively remove the courts as effective part of the system and the whole lot falls over.
Criminal Justice issues will be one of the major reasons why this Government will loose the next election. They don’t have the time to fix it as they simply cant build enough extra prison places in 2 years and more importantly because of their woeful mishandling of the Public finances where money has been spent everything that is nothing we don’t have the cash to spare for prisons or anything else we really need.
I prefer to stay out of Politics as its not my job but as Politics is now affecting my job i can only say that its time to speak up.
This Government is a collection ideological fools, dam fools and idiots.
notellin
As usual, perfect comment.
Yes, a perfect summing up of the situation but I dont see it changing for a long time if ever. This country is going down the pan at an ever increasing rate and I can only grieve and agonise for my grandchildren.
Jails are full, besides they are soft and the crims don’t actually bother much about being locked up.
They can still get their drugs inside anyway.
Being an ex-serviceman, I get annoyed at the fact that my barrackroom was smaller than a jail cell. I paid for my room.
The crims get better food inside jail than I got fed at the Junior ranks mess.
I think the criminal justice system is at near meltdown.
It is having a massive and terrible effect on society as a whole.
We need more jails and need em soon. Where the money will come from, I don’t know.
Jails need to be toughened up. I don’t want the crims to enjoy their jail sentence. I want them to fear it.
“fellatious”
Now here’s a man who doesn’t mince words;
he says what he means.
The Jails are full of people who are serving a few weeks here and there. That is not being ‘tough’ on crime.
Lock the buggers up for good and give them something they can really complain about.
Courts= the prosecution did not present the evidence to ensure we remand in custody
CPS= it was the fault of the Police for presenting a weak case for remand. After all we can only advise/ present the facts on the file.
Police Senior management= Blame the OIC.
OIC= FFS it was six hours after my shift ended. when i completed the file and i was the only person in the station. And i presented a strong remand application.
In conclusion it was the fault of the Police as it always rolls downhill
we are gagged as always from telling the truth as we know it.
Recent case history:
“Keith” - charged with supplying heroin x3.
Recent history: arrested x2 in connection with 2 drug deaths.
Offends on bail: x30 (+)
Fail to appear: 10 (ish)
Police intel: His address is being used as a shooting gallery for junkies.
Remand application: spotless.
Charged, remanded. Then bailed at the first bail application by gutless magistrates. Two days after bail, he failed to comply with conditions (did not abide by curfew), and was arrested by me and put before the court again.
Result ?
You guessed it: conditional bail. The condition being, apparently, that if the conditions are broken, then more bail will be supplied.
We as a nation don’t have the space to lock up people for the time period that their offence deserves, as stated in these forums prison is no longer a deterrent as its better than a home from home for some. I feel it’s about time we started sending anyone who commits an offence that warrants a sentence of over 12 months or has been imprisoned before to prisons in places like Vietnam, Thailand, or Burma, along with a whole host of others. Countries that know and are willing to make prisons hell on earth as they should be.
This will have several beneficial outcomes
It will give those countries a service they can provide to the world.
It will reduce their reliance on charity.
It will free up a whole load of prison spaces.
It will have an impact mentally on most people thinking of committing crime.
We will no longer have to worry about deporting foreign nationals, we just don’t let them back in.
It will be a big deterrent to anyone who has previously been imprisoned.
I suspect it will cost us less to imprison them over there, even with the airfare.
In fact I can’t think of a single downside.
I posted on this a while back.
http://madmax-plodcast.blogspot.com/2008/02/court-bail.html
I don’t blame the Mags, their hands are tied as much as ours. Its this poxy governments fault!
Seems to me that once bail has been granted, the bench gets a fixed attitude to keep it going. There is no outrage or even much disapproval from them when the conditions are flouted, just a bit of muttering before the bail pen is wheeled out again and again and again.
When there is no consequence to breaking bail conditions, there will be no compliance. The local repeat offenders may be daft but they are not stupid and every one of them has cottoned on to the fact that conditional bail is just another walk out disposal with permission to re-offend. Some of them must wake up every morning and pinch themselves, unable to believe that they are not looking at the world through bars.
Prison doesn’t work by the terms of reference used by prison reformers therefore they extend the argument that we shouldn’t use prison. Thing is, it does work, just not the way they want it to. It’s like saying sandals aren’t waterproof so we should only ever wear boots. Just because prison doesn’t fit your purpose, doesn’t mean it has no purpose. Prison is mild punishment and a decent method of containment. It gives the rest of us a break from the criminal’s activities for a while. If I wanted reform, I’d be looking at mandatory detox, a proper crack down on prison contraband and much more real education. I do not mean sitting in a semi circle whinging about violent impulses or learning to think twice before re-arranging that strangers face, I mean reading writing and sums. That is going to cost a shed load of cash to do properly so it wont happen. In the meantime, I am happy to settle for containment.
They even bailed an Inspector recently - who went on to kill his mother in law!
Police ordered to stop treating criminal damage as a crime to improve performance figures
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=564109&in_page_id=1770
nuff said really.
People do what they do because it is rewarding, they not do it because it be painful. They always take the path of least resistance, ’tis why one becomes an Member of Parliament , easy pickings.
The Government has outsourced work to foreign countries,why not pay Angola half what it costs to keep a man incarcerated and their jail gets paid for each day they keep them and make extra by farming them out to build pyramids..
Then we can use those nice warm jails for low cost housing
for those that behave themselves.
Of course that be cruel and unusual punishment..
We’ve had it one better. Scroat (sorry, Service User) on bail gets arrested for breaching conditions and sent back to Court (again).
Magistrates solution? Remove the conditions; then he won’t keep breaching it will he!
You couldn’t make it up.
Dammit build more prisons, factor in public protection and why the hell do we not treat violent crimes as a hint that victims and society should not be put at risk.
Bail may seem a humane measure in some circumstances but we should not allow or tolerate people playing with the system. If given it is a contract, if broken that particular contract shows complete disregard for society.
Put them away.
Performance management by reclassification, “crime is reducing” simply leaves the public at risk. Like so many things this government does, sentencing guidelines or policy guidance for magistrates should be just that not an instruction to allow people out to re-offend.
I have a genuine query here regarding the availability of drugs etc. in prisons.
Night jack states: “If I wanted reform, I’d be looking at mandatory detox, a proper crack down on prison contraband and much more real education.”
I remember reading the two Major Reid books about his time in Colditz. Conditions there would seem to have been harsher than any prison in the U.K. in the last 40 years. Contravening the rules even slightly could earn you a long spell in unpleasant solitary, and really bad transgressions could get you shot. Yet those men managed to put together all sorts of equipment, and clothing and some borderline miraculous stuff, presumably because they were extremely motivated to do so.
I would suggest that junkies are highly motivated to acquire drugs, and the people who want to supply them for profit aren’t far behind. If the incredibly harsh regime of Colditz didn’t stop the prisoners working all manner of tricks under the guards’ noses, then what would do so in a U.K. prison, except some incredibly dehumanising Judge Dredd-style isolation-cube environment, where no human-human contact was permitted?
All it’s ever going to take to breach any line of security is one corrupt guard, or one who can be bought or intimidated, and out of a population so huge, there’s bound to be someone who fits the bill.
And I reckon if I were a prison guard, and had a choice between having inmates who were on edge all the time, or stoned and quiet, it might be all too easy to look the other way.
#5 hahahaha Mosh. Oh, oops, I probably shouldn’t be laughing at that, but it’s funny.
#16 Well put Nightjack.
Prison gives society a very welcome break from offenders’ offensiveness. It must be absolutely maddening for you coppers to see custody NOT be the result of your hard work. Your post is a powerful one, Inspector.
Prison is cushy for many, whose lives are totally crappy on the outside. For a lot it certainly isn’t a deterrent. Some of the guys I’ve seen today in the jails I work in are happy as Larry (who was Larry?) in prison. Some of them are so institutionalised, having started with secure units as kids and “progressed” through that outside is a lot scarier than inside.
But on the other hand, it has to be said that for quite a lot of offenders prison is a totally scary place and one trip there is enough to put them off for life, which is good.
So it’s terrifying for some yet home for others…
It’s complicated. If we harsh it up too much, the suicide rate may soar, and it’ll be those with the potential to succeed that’ll be most potentially vulnerable.
Ax
Whatever happened to being ‘victim orientated’ in all this? Another buzzword/concept dies in the wake of the criminal’s human rights.
The Rio de Janeiro solution would probably work quite well.
There could be quite a long list of people willing to sign up for them.
Shorten the unemployment/dole queues at both ends (and from the middle).
Strikes me that Magistrates use ‘Guidelines’ as certain others use ‘Superior Orders’! Not my fault!
Here in Massive Force (sorry, Service) I’ve been on ‘ringback’ duty.
Woman has her purse taken from her handbag - known as ‘dipping’ - I get the job switched to me. My task? To try to persuade the victim that her purse might have been ‘lost’ rather than stolen.
I refused to do it. Blatant manipulation of the true figures simply because our bosses are politically driven and march to the tune of this NuLab social engineering experiment which has been gathering pace (no pun intended) for the last 11 years.
However hard this Government tries, they cannot disguise the fact that the Emperor is completely, stark bollock naked.
Prisoners should not languish in gaol; they should be used for a good purpose. There are several major construction projects that would benefit the country, eg, a barrage across the Severn estuary which could be built using prison labour.
Let them earn their remission at the rate of one day worked for one day’s remission - and get some fresh air at the same time!
I’m sure that I’m arguing something very similar today about deterrence and the futility of CCTV cameras, while Labour continues it’s policies of early release schemes and fails to invest in new prisons and instructs magistrates to be tediously supine and useless by not sending anyone but proven murderers and suspected terrorists to clink!
Great post!! just the tip of the iceberg of course, I would say this scenario is repeated all over the country and the government do shag all about it.
Gone to the dogs, maybe I’m off to a better place! Keep up the good work IG. See you in a couple of weeks.
It’s not new though and not just Labours fault, it just seems to get worse.
Twenty years ago a couple of neighbours were Wayne type loafers ( who stuck by the old-style code of not sh*tting on their own doorstep thankfully ).
They and their mates were all full time juvenile offenders, shoplifting, warehouses, car theft/radios, drugs for personal use etc plus bits of violence as required .
Well known to the Police, they were doing crime every day but slowed down a bit on Friday evenings because if they got nicked then it might take a day or so for the social worker to turn up.
All of them regarded a future that included time in a HMYOI as a certainty but knew that this would not happen until several ” walks ” from any number of court appearances over some years.
Subsequently I met one of them who has seemingly ” gone straight” and I asked him out of all the crimes you commited how many did you actually get sentenced for ( excluding TIC since he had explained that racket to me ).
He thought probably about 1 in 100.
I further asked what had turned him ’straight’ and he replied that he did not wish to go to a proper prison but that was two decades ago.
Hehe, The link to Rio at 25 reminds me of the time I accompanied my A/C Super and Chief Insp Ops to a ‘neighbourhood consultation meeting’. We were informed by the Super that we would act on the wishes, priorities and concerns of the ‘community’. Most things were addressed (the normal litter, dog cack and so on) when two little old women, salt of the earth types, stood up and began complaining about ‘youths’ gathering on street corners (again the normal complaint).
The super got up and began to talk about multi agency blah blah blah, when one of the women just said ‘ Why can’t you just cull them, like they do in Brazil?’
The rest of the attendees at the meeting then all joined in, voicing support for that course of action….
Super didn’t know what to say or where to put himself!!
Citizen Focus, Victim oriented policing - take it too literally and that is what you get.
Does have its plus points, mind…
Gadget and Ong, a lexicographal fact re “Fellatious”
The word “Fellatio” is often thought to be a Latin derivative, though it actually evolved in England, its first recorded usage being in the Cumbrian town of Cockermouth.
You’ve been a great audience, I wish I had a better act. Thank you and goodnight
…..it is also a little known fact that Admiral Nelson’s name was in actually ‘Fellatio Nelson’ and that at the Battle of Trafalgar his final words were “Kiss me Hardon”……..
I’ll get my coat………
To Zulu at 20.
Repeat offender dizzy driver arrested for driving, charged and bailed at his first appearance at Mags.
One of the conditions was not to drive any mv on a road!
Cannot wait till they bail people not to break any LAWS.
This country is FUBAR.
The tone of this blog has really gone down recently.
Frankly, it’s beginning to stick in my throat.
Re Happy as Larry…one theory…
“… relates to the Cornish and later Australian/New Zealand slang term ‘larrikin’, meaning a rough type or hooligan, i.e. one predisposed to larking about.
The earliest citation of that is in H. W. Harper’s Letters from New Zealand, 1868:
“We are beset with larrikins, who lurk about in the darkness and deliver every sort of attack on the walls and roof with stones and sticks.”
There ya go. “We are beset with Larrikins”. Sounds like a social disease. Or an antisocial one
I.G, an article from today’s press. The government and ACPO have more important things to consider like cooking the books.
Police officers are being told to play down offences such as burglary and car theft in order to reduce crime figures, it was claimed yesterday.
Force chiefs have sent out a memo warning police constables to query carefully whether a crime has been committed, especially in the case of damage to property.
This could mean that a burglary or the smashing of a car window where nothing was stolen could be reduced to an offence of criminal damage or vandalism – lesser crimes.
The change in policy, sent to police in Norwich but thought to be being adopted across the country, has angered rank-and-file officers who accused their superiors of fiddling the figures.
Article continuesadvertisement
One policeman in the city claimed that in divisional management meetings, senior officers routinely queried whether crimes should be downgraded – even asking if some burglaries should be re-classified as criminal damage.
The whistleblower said: “This is just one example of what’s going on to try to screen out crimes. What’s worse is that if they are not going to record it, it’s not going to show the true picture of what’s going on in an area.”
The leaked memo suggests that if a car window is smashed but no one is seen breaking it or actually stealing anything, then it should not be recorded as a crime. The same principle could also be adopted for break-ins, it suggests.
The memo says this system could be used to help reach crime reduction targets.
“We appear to be making things difficult for ourselves by ‘criming’ things that aren’t actually crimes,” it adds.
Referring to the example of the broken car window, the memo says: “If there is no evidence of someone intending to destroy or be reckless then there is no crime.”
The memo suggests officers often record crimes out of “habit” so people can claim on their insurance.
“Where you are dealing with an incident where a crime has been alleged please ask yourself if there is evidence of a crime or if it’s more appropriate to deal with it in a different way,” it adds.
“As you are well aware it is much easier not to put a crime on than to get it off the system once it is there. So we need to get this right from the start.”
The police source, who did not want to be named, said senior officers often used daily briefing sessions to try to downgrade crimes and put pressure on Pcs not to record crime.
“This is just a blatant attempt to cut crime by fiddling the stats. It’s quite outrageous really,” he said.
Anne Campbell, the head of communications for Norfolk police, insisted the move was not an attempt to massage the figures but a local initiative.
She said: “It’s not a change, it’s just a reflection of the new delivery unit’s decision to really get policing much more locally focused.”
We have a DCI who looks through all burglaries. Apparently if someone walks behind the bar and steals in a Pub that is open than this is not a Burglary because the pub was open! clearly just a theft then I must of had some kind of different law input
Re: the Prisons issue. There are a number of uninhabited Islands around the coast of Britain where you could dump the assorted pondlife that vex the more law abiding souls, although the greenies would proably kick up about the wildlife. Maybe HMG could recommission HMP Weare despite the ‘lack of welfare facilities’.
Perhaps that would let Magistrates impose more suitable custodial sentences on the multiple violent wrongdoers?
Manners…………
“All the fellatious talk” I thought it was rude to talk with your mouth full?
Norfolk Constabulary website…..
http://www.norfolk.police.uk/article.cfm?artID=11086&catID=638&bctrail=-1
“The constabulary has one of the best-resourced teams of crime recording auditors in the country - a team of three people dedicated solely to monitoring the ethical recording of crime in the county.
“This demonstrates our commitment to accurate and ethical crime recording processes and it is these processes that lead to accurate data.”
I bet Norfolk folk would prefer resources devoted to Crime Prevention rather than Crime Counting
Can I have a blue square this time. To match my eyes.
Or are they magic eye pictures? Look through the image for long enough, and you can see the ethical recording of crime supervisor…
I got the same one as last time. Am I being remote monitored by the IPCC?
I quite like my Purple. The jagged shapes pointing in different directions are somehow symbolic of my fractured thought processes.
Gadget,
As a local councillor, I regularly see problems linked to under resourcing, in detection and reporting, I can see issues with the CPS and their understanding and capability, crazy sentencing guidelines for magistrates and the judiciary quirky decisions and the lack of commitment to keep members of our society safe from dangerous people.
In my part of the world we are regularly told that crime is reducing, that the public has an incorrect perception about how things are and the need to help people see the error of their ways. I have commented on my reaction to that previously.
I am often updated on the statistics to support these claims. Reading a number of the comments on this post I can see that the numbers are only as reliable as the management flavour of the month. I can also see that some posters resist or refuse to get involved in this fogging process. GOOD ON YER!
Looking back over your own posts I can see a number of examples or themes where numbers are being massaged, including drives for Section 5 or not, vehicle crime or not, now burglaries or not. Violent assault against the police during arrests seems not to have any downside for culprits.
The Norfolk Police document that talks about reclassifying broken windows on cars, initiatives for ethical reporting and others.
Governments latest agenda seem to revolve around a partnerships approach that is designed to keep us so busy having circular discussions and meetings that things do not move and there are loads of opportunity for “plausible deniability” and reams of foggy statistics.
Four questions:
At what level/rank in an individual force do we find people with the responsibility for stopping this stupid situation and why do they not act (probably career, backbone or other self interest)?
Do members of a police authority have any say?
How do you folk stay sane through this?
What can we do as MOPS?
While I acept that magistrates have the final responsibility for letting scrotes like this out on bail, you should consider what they are faced with.
On one side a clued up and persuasive defence brief, paid for out of my pocket, who is allowed to put forward the grossest lies on behalf of his client - since he is required to believe everything his client says and present it in the most compelling way.
On the other side an overworked and under-qualified CPS mouthpiece who only read the case papers ten minutes ago and presents to the Court a simplified precis of the offence and offender without knowing either in depth.
The Magistrates - bless their simple hearts - are required to accept the defence argument at its strongest and only remand if there is no other option. If a person presents with a good address a promise not to contact and a willingness to be curfewed then few would argue that there is no other option; especially if the CPS argument is simply that ‘he might commit further offences’.
On that basis what would the ‘reasonable man in the street’, whom the Mags are supposed to represent, do?
When people are asked their opinion about how to deal with crime,they usually say the same things - build more prisons; harsher sentencing. etc. And they are correct, of course. But I believe such people are thinking too high up the ladder of solutions.
Instead,we must ask ourselves ‘why do so many people act as they do?’ Obviously the no-brainer answer is that they are serving their own ends,and that they are simply getting away with their offences.
But the ‘real’ answer is of a lack of morality in society as a whole. This is the true source of our troubles. Everything else is, as I say, too far up the ladder of solutions.
Most of us don’t like this answer because it’s difficult, it’s far reaching and nebulous. It’s too lilly-livered liberal, if you like.
But do we really believe that we can live in a society completely devoid of any form of morality,and expect certain others to behave themselves?
To the intelligent person such influences as, the multitude of ridiculus soap operas; the sensationalist newspapers; the political lies;the lionizing of idiots; and the lax criminal justice system, are merely sources of amusement or debate.
But all these negative influences , to the more gullible, near sighted individuals register unconsciously as a society out of control,and they act accordingly.
Can anybody name a positive role model that the masses can look up to? There’s nobody who trips off the tongue,is there? Nobody in the popular media who stands out as a beacon.
Though I’ll wager we could all name a few negative unfluences. So what did we really expect would happen when a generation was exposed to such influences without any guidence?
Basically, if you Keep walking around a dung pile, you’ll eventually smell of dung.
So where’s the answer? Well, personally I would say a stronger presence of religion. ( Yes,I know what some people will be thinking!) I do believe that religion could act as a distraction at very least; an alternative viewpoint to let the masses know there is another set of beliefs other than the accumulation of material goods.
I’m actually an athiest, by the way;but I can see the positive points a stronger religious presence could bring to a society such as ours.
We can keep building prisons until this little island of ours sinks into the waves,and we can birch every offender until they become so thick skinned it no longer makes a difference. But it won’t change anything in the long term because they’ll just keep coming; and they’ll keep coming more frequently because we’re breeding them.
We must find a way to address the real source of our troubles.