February 04, 2005

Law and Order

Some notes on Law and Order, the first is an article by Civitas about crime and how in the neighbourhood of the author they have had to go to the lengths of employing a private security guard to patrol the streets because of the levels of crime in their area. This is despite the Home Office saying that crime levels are falling. However the article contains the answer to this seeming paradox, the offical crime rates falling while crime experienced rising, quite simply most happened to children how are not included in the official figures as the article puts it:
"the ‘most accurate measure ever’, 10 out of the 17 crimes in my neighbourhood did not happen."

And the crime rate has grown so much that some crimes simply are not reported or even noticed anymore, they have just become part of everyday life:
"Petty theft and criminal damage to cars has become so commonplace that no one counts up any more, let along reports it to the police."


So it is not really a paradox at all the offical crime rates falling while crime experienced rising because the official crime rates are wrong.This is the same as how the government can claim that waiting lists are universally less than six weeks even when people are waiting more than that time. The official figures are wrong as there are really two lists. The official waiting list that the government gets its numbers from, and a second unnoffical pre-waiting list that people get put on until they can be guaranteed being seen in six weeks at which point they get on the official list. Why? Equally simple, money. If the list gets to long then the hospital gets its budget cut for 'failing to deliver', but if it gets too short then it gets it's budget cut as it obviously is not in as much need as other hospitals. Hence the waiting list stays exactly at the government target level.

This is not a pure New Labour phenomina, it happens where ever you get a micro-managing government spewing out targets. The most imfamous example being the China's Great Leap Forward under Moa. Each village collective was givern a required amount of rice that it had to produce. Knowing that they, and their villagers, would be killed if they failed they fudged the figures to stay alive. The tactics included planting rice to close together so it looked like there was more to the inspecters, which then made it die. End result Moa thinks that he has produced the largest harvest in Chinese history, whilst in the countryside people died of the famine that he had actually caursed.

This has been picked up by a serving Police Officer in his weblog, who has much sympathy for the lady that wrote the article for Civitas, Harriet Sergeant, as he has to deal with policing a the ground level and understands the stupidity of the current situation as only a Police Officer would saying:
"Hiring private security is not a cheap option, but it seems as if the people in the area have lost all faith in the police and no-longer even consider calling them. My favourite part of the article is when the Borough Commander says: ”We are so focused on reducing crime that we don’t have the officers to patrol.” Eh? How does that work? More to the point, who is that Borough Commander, and how is he reducing crime without officers on the streets?

I suspect it’s a combination of specialist squads and strategies. Peel’s principles, first published in 1829 and often quoted by this officer, are now nothing more than historical curiosities."

Policing requires boots on the ground, you cannot control an area unless you have people in that area. This is the same thing that was found, on a larger scale, in the aftermath of Gulf War 2. The Americans could defeat Sadam very quickly with comparitively small numbers of troops. But they could not maintain law and order with only these small number of troops leading to widespread looting, theiving, hostage taking (mainly of Iraqis and for money). Which in turn is leading to the ordinary Iraqis to ignore the offical authorities take matters into their own hands. The spirt is similar to employing your own security guard, it is just the scale that is different. Mrs Sergeant was only facing muggers and burglers, so a private security guard is all that is needed. In Iraq the Iraqis face terrorists, hostage takers, and murderers so more force is required to take back their streets.

There is a reason why the tabloids where making such a fuss over people being able to defend their own homes, people where worried. They did not know whether they could do anything at all when they where burgled, and that is when not if. However the Guardian chooses to poke fun at these fears, saying that you should just let the burglers get on with it as your safety is more important than you video recorder. They quite clearly see that crime is just part of modern life and something that the more prosperous have to bear as a result of their prosperity. This is simply not the case. Nobody has the right to steal from me because I work and save up to buy things. I should be able to defend myself, but more importantly I should not have to be prepared to defend myself, I should not expect to be burgled. But that is not the kind of easy crime that can raise the detection and conviction rates, which is the statistic is used to guage performance. From the article when the author talks to a cafe owner that had basically had his shop taken over as the headquarters of a local gang:
There seemed to be an extraordinary level of criminal
activity in such a small shopping street. Where were the
police? Sid shrugged, ‘The local police are never here.
We get different people assigned to walk the beat for the
day but it is not seen as a crime hot spot. The police do
not seem to realize that people want something done.’
Suddenly we noticed a warden ticketing the people
carrier, ‘If only the police were as effective,’ said Sid
gloomily.

The police spend all of their time on revenue raising uncrime, speeding cameras, parking fines, etc. because it is easy. Set up a speed camera on a safe bit of motorway and you will quickly rack up a large number of fines as almost everybody goes at 80 on the motorway, bringing in money for the treasury, and raising the number of 'crimes' detected and convictions gained. But the public do not care about speeding we care about feeling safe in our homes. Where all of these speeding fines issued by actual policemen then it might make a difference based on the experience of New York as
When Bratton took over the New York transit police in 1990, the
police started arresting everyone who had not paid their
fare. The result proved startling. One out of every seven
fare dodgers was wanted for a serious crime. One out of
every 21 carried a weapon. George Kelling points out it
is the same with car crime, ‘You think bad guys become
good guys when they get behind the wheel?’ Major criminals
and, incidentally, terrorists, commit petty crime ‘and
that’s how you catch them. Check out who is parked illegally
on that disabled parking space!’

But in order to get these results you need a trained policeman. A speed camera cannot spot if someone is on the wanted board in the local station, it cannot tell if they have a weapon, it cannot look in the back to see if there is anything suspicious that needs further investigation. But it is cheaper, and not doing any of this means it can catch more and so generate more revenue.

The articles ends with the principles of policing that where laid down when the service was founded, probably something that the home secertary would be advised to read, when he isn't busy locking people up indeffinantly without trial that is.
  1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
  2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
  3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
  4. recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
  5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth and social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
  6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advise and warningis found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
  7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police. The police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interest of community welfare and existence.
  8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, an to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary or avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
  9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

Point 1 is nolonger any kind of priority and because of this they have lost so much credibility with the public that they nolonger have point 3. As the article is at pains to point out point 9 is ignored, as is seven as the sureest way of getting a policeman to respond to an incedent is to say that you are going to do something yourself. Point 2 is also something that should be remembered as the current revenue raising priorities do nothing to "secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public" when they do nothing about real crimes like theiving. Quite the reverse based on the reaction of the man Sid in the article to the traffic warden. It is only really point 5 that is in evidence, because of the proffessionalism of the officers themselves. Where it up to the government I can see that the idea of "not [sic] pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law," would soon disappear.

A change to the metrics of sucsess is needed away from the current wrong crime figures to the prevention of crime and disorder. This maybe harder to get into sound bite statistics but it is the way to really reduce crime and the fear of crime, and should this be taken up then I would expect that a return to the rest of Peels points on good policing would probably follow.

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