Posted January 2, 200916 yr Tories vow to empower citizens in fight against low-level crime Police should use common sense, not 'waste time' on trivial offences, says Grieve The Independent.co.uk By Ben Russell, Home Affairs Correspondent Friday, 2 January 2009 Adults who rebuke unruly youngsters will be given added protection from prosecution under a return to "common sense" policing, Dominic Grieve, the shadow Home Secretary, has said. He said a new Conservative government would act within days to rewrite guidelines to officers and prosecutors to ensure that people were not targeted for taking the fight against low-level disorder into their own hands. In an interview with The Independent, Mr Grieve said people were feeling forced to "bleat" to the police about minor problems, while officers were also forced to waste their time investigating trivial complaints. He said he wanted to "reprofessionalise" police officers and ensure they would stop investigating minor offences and instead back up civic-minded householders. Mr Grieve said his party's planned, elected police commissioners would be tasked to ensure that people were encouraged to stand up to anti-social behaviour and pledged to use the Home Office to stop people being deterred for standing up for traditional good behaviour. Rebalancing the system to prevent police being called to deal with minor incidents that would be best settled between people themselves was important, he added. Mr Grieve also signalled that the Conservatives would have a New Year policy drive aimed at ending the "conveyor belt to crime", praising initiatives championed by the former party leader Iain Duncan Smith to target children at risk of falling into delinquency before they enter school. Under Conservative plans, guidelines for police contained in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act would be rewritten to give officers more discretion when dealing with people who intervene to prevent a crime. Guidelines for the Crown Prosecution Service would also be amended to ensure they "take account" of actions intended to prevent a crime, in a "double lock" intended to ensure that people who take reasonable steps to intervene to prevent disturbances are not faced with unfair prosecution. Mr Grieve insisted he did not want to promote vigilantism or defend people who used excessive force but said he wanted to stop people feeling that they could not intervene in their own neighbourhoods to prevent bad behaviour. Mr Grieve said: "There is no doubt – the police say that their discretion has been eroded. If somebody comes in to a police station and makes an allegation clearly of the most trivial character they nevertheless have to record it, to investigate it, go through a process of dealing with it which may involve going round and confronting the person against whom the trivial allegation has been made. "Equally, the public seem to have become tremendously willing to go running off to the police to bleat about the most minor matters. In part that may be because of the perception that they are so regulated and controlled in every other way that there is nothing they can do about problems and they have got to go to the police to solve them. If people feel they cannot tell children to stop misbehaving, that will fester and they will have a perception that things are very bad. History shows that if you go out and tell 10 and 11-year-olds who are misbehaving to stop misbehaving or you will call the police, they will stop. "There is also the need for police back-up, but the public have also come round to seeing the police as more likely to bite them than do something about the problems in the community around them. They also say: 'Oh well, if I try to stop that, someone will come round to arrest me.' Most of the complaints being made by the public are about quite low level anti-social behaviour issues about children and adolescents. I don't believe these problems didn't exist in the past, but in the past they were controlled because adults felt confident in tackling these problems themselves, not by being vigilantes, but by being sensible citizens. Do you support the Tory viewpoint or do you think the New Labour legislation on this subject is right?
January 2, 200916 yr It seems pointless. Why not, build more prisons, strip existing ones of shit like Xbox's and TV's in their cells, ditch the three course meals a day, make it a stricter place and get more police on the street and train em better. That's what I would do if I was PM :heehee: Cause tbh, the police do and know fukk all, they're hopeless.
January 2, 200916 yr It seems pointless. Why not, build more prisons, strip existing ones of shit like Xbox's and TV's in their cells, ditch the three course meals a day, make it a stricter place and get more police on the street and train em better. That's what I would do if I was PM :heehee: Cause tbh, the police do and know fukk all, they're hopeless. You would get my vote lol But I do disagree a bit with the last bit, the police do have their hands tied a lot 1) with this stupid human rights act and 2) with incredible amounts of paperwork, booking in a suspect and charging them and the evidence itself requires up to 34 pages of forms and it is said that the typical officer spends 14 out of 40 hours doing paperwork and form filling The important thing is to get the police back out on the streets fighting crime as opposed to filling in forms so the priority needs to be to reduce paperwork and have civillian staff dealing with all the admin as opposed to the officer
January 2, 200916 yr And also I would pretty much scrap traffic cops, they are best off not harrassing motorists who do 35 in a 30 and instead would be better deployed finding muggers and burglars, I would remove 90% of traffic cops and put them on the beat
January 2, 200916 yr And also I would pretty much scrap traffic cops, they are best off not harrassing motorists who do 35 in a 30 and instead would be better deployed finding muggers and burglars, I would remove 90% of traffic cops and put them on the beat As much as I dislike traffic cops, what you are proposing is either thousands more speed cameras or a free for all drive any speed you like on the roads. Are you insane. To me speed cameras are much worse than traffic cops, they are purely a money making option. Of course there should be more cops on the beat, but not by removing 90% from traffic patrol. Free them from filling in endless stupid forms in triplicate, and wasting hours in court then there might be some improvement in policing.
January 4, 200916 yr weve had the speed camera argument before and they DO slow you down...im telling you this as a driver of 20k mpy . i stick to the speed limit especially if im on an unknown road where theres a camera threat... proof they work. im not so sure about 'empowering the public'... it will only work if the 'adult' can handle 'unruly kids' ... retribution is commonplace, bricks through windows etc...
January 9, 200916 yr And also I would pretty much scrap traffic cops, they are best off not harrassing motorists who do 35 in a 30 and instead would be better deployed finding muggers and burglars, I would remove 90% of traffic cops and put them on the beat And when that speeding motorists kills your child/mother/brother will you be so keen then to reduce traffic cops, speeding is dangerous, and dangerous driving is a crime, and is as anti social as mugging etc.....
January 9, 200916 yr To me, the first bit of that - about giving people 'backing' to tackle crimes themselves rather than get the police involved ... smacks to me of saying to people .... we're just going to leave you on your own! Its all very well them giving their backing when (for example) you've been clubbed to death by a vicious, anti-social neighbour just by merely asking them to turn the volume down on their TV! The Conservatives would pledge to empower hedgehogs if it would get them a vote. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than vote for David 'moonface' Cameron. Norma
January 9, 200916 yr And when that speeding motorists kills your child/mother/brother will you be so keen then to reduce traffic cops, speeding is dangerous, and dangerous driving is a crime, and is as anti social as mugging etc..... No reason why the private sector can't have more involvement in road management, I am sure if the remit of the RAC and Green Flag and the AA or whatever was changed to include policing of roads and dealing with accidents and even modest powers of arrest and so on that that would free up more officers to be fighting real crimes
January 14, 200916 yr No reason why the private sector can't have more involvement in road management, Er, no.... Dont go along with that.... You get the private sector involved, it's all about turning a profit as opposed to anything else... Look at Traffic Wardens and the Prisoner transportation system, particularly the serious cock-ups in the latter with prisoners absconding from prison transport being run by private security firms (*coughcough Group Four coughcough*).... Ever since the Traffic Warden system came out of police control, the instances of ludicrous ticketing skyrocketed, people being about two minutes late feeding a meter being given a ticket, ambulance drivers, doctors and paramedics being given a ticket (which happened recently), even disabled drivers in disabled parking spaces being given tickets (honestly, you couldn't make that one up...). Same with the car "booting" and some of the extremely dodgy firms who run that.... Bottom line, I dont trust the private sector with public services.....
January 14, 200916 yr Yeah but stuff like traffic wardens and parking management and so on is revenue raising stuff where wardens and parking attendents are given fixed targets and if they don't reach those targets they get the sack so you get these over zealous little hitlers slapping tickets on anything just in order to meet targets What I had in mind was for instance if there is an accident be it on a motorway or on a road or whatever then rather than the police spending hours closing the road, directing traffic, taking witness statements and so on then for example the AA or Green Flag or RAC or whoever is assigned the contract for a territory could handle all that stuff and then the police that are currently doing it would be able to be diverted to community policing and crime fighting
January 14, 200916 yr im not so sure about 'empowering the public'... it will only work if the 'adult' can handle 'unruly kids' ... retribution is commonplace, bricks through windows etc... I'd agree with that.... For your and my generation, the archetypal "clip round the ear" was enough to keep us in line, and all the old, working class grannies who lived round my way back in the day weren't afraid to tell you what they thought and give you that ear-clipping if you kicked your ball into their back garden.... :lol: Us kids tended to run away, absolutely terrified of the scary old man or old lady :lol: , these days, the grannies (and indeed teachers in some cases...) would probably get stabbed by scumbag chavs or hoodies if they stood up to them..... <_< Nah, I'm afraid it's all gone too far now, we have to start locking these little b'astards up, and not in some bloody 'holiday camp' either with Telly, DVDs and X-boxes..... Bring back the Borstal system....? Hmmmmm, dunno about that, but it should certainly be something way more punitive than that which exists at the moment for sure....
January 14, 200916 yr What I had in mind was for instance if there is an accident be it on a motorway or on a road or whatever then rather than the police spending hours closing the road, directing traffic, taking witness statements and so on then for example the AA or Green Flag or RAC or whoever is assigned the contract for a territory could handle all that stuff and then the police that are currently doing it would be able to be diverted to community policing and crime fighting Hmmm, I still dunno.... I mean, what's to stop them from becoming jumped up little Hitlers to raise revenue by harrassing motorists who just stray a few mph over the limit...? The AA and RAC have a good reputation amongst motorists just now because they can, literally, be life-savers when they come to the aid of stranded motorists, especially young female motorists whose cars have broken down in some dodgy little place in the middle of nowhere..... If they started acting like the Traffic Wardens, the good faith that's built up could rapidly deteriorate....
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