Elected Commissioners, Frontline Cuts; all a smokescreen.

People just don’t seem to get it.

All this argument about whether budget cuts will affect the so-called police front line completely misses the point. Even if the front line was a million strong, with the piss-poor sentencing we currently have, it would make no difference.

Take Billy McBride from The Swamp Estate in Ruraltown. Billy was nicked again by my team this morning on suspicion of stealing a minibus. He was clearly seen on CCTV doing this, his dabs are inside the vehicle and his DNA is all over the seats. In addition to this, he admitted the whole thing, even giving us the location of the CD player from the dashboard before we could finish getting the caution out.

I was present when the ‘strike’ went in at Billy’s mother’s house. He was found in the rear yard, hanging out the washing and greeted the team with a smile of resignation. No attempt to run, no angry denials, no demanding to know why we were there. Billy is totally comfortable with the whole criminal justice process from start to finish because he knows that he is largely untouchable for some reason. He has over 100 previous convictions for similar offences. He goes to prison for just long enough to get processed, before he is out again, released on some scheme or programme to steal again.

No one can really remember the exact date when stealing over and over again became acceptable, but the total lack of any meaningful consequences has effectively inoculated Billy from ever having to worry about being held to account for his actions. Billy has had it all over the years; restorative justice where he had to write an apology to his victim, community sentencing where he was supposed to ‘pay back’ for his crimes, counselling for anger management, alcohol rehabilitation and short jail sentences.

Billy loves all this of course because it represents a victory against his one big fear; the long prison sentence. Billy says, on his daughters eyes, he could not ‘do time’. So we acquiesce and he doesn’t have to. So Billy and his criminal associates, who constitute about 45% of the male population of the estate, carry on taking what ever they want from pensioners and school kids, and burgling our houses or stealing our cars.

So you see, in terms of crime reduction, it really doesn’t matter how big the front line is, it doesn’t matter if the Chief is elected and it doesn’t matter if we find efficiencies or not.

Gadget Note: Found in Billy’s trouser pockets – one lock-knife (not illegal since he was at home) some cannabis, £300 in used notes, someone else’s credit card and a mobile phone belonging to a kid who was robbed yesterday. Billy will dress in a nice borrowed suit, say he found these items on the way home and tell a sob-story about ‘turning his life around’ for his child. He will swear everything on his daughter’s eyes and some silly, half-demented, over privileged psuedo-beak will let him off again.

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