King's Cross tube: now it's metal detectors
- Thread starter Azrael
- Start date
I think people are trying to blow it up mate. Oh, yeah. And they're stabbing fuck out of anyone that looks at them a bit wrong.Azrael said:What the fuck's happening to my country?
Always a reliable anti-crime and anti-terrorism tactic that ...Azrael said:
It's called a reasonable excuse. It's in the law.Alf Klein said:
If it has a blade with a cutting edge of more than 3", unless you have a reasonable excuse, yes.beeboo said:
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Trying being the operative word. The combined might of the Third Reich also gave that goal its best shot. Britain, and its liberties, survived. Now we're to believe a handful of murderous lunatics are to succeed where the industrial might of a European superpower didn't.detective-boy said:
Certain people have always been stabbing the fuck out of other people who look at them funny; using it as an excuse to treat everyone as a suspect is an exciting new development.
Yeees ... good thing I didn't suggest it as a reliable anti-crime measure isn't it.detective-boy said:Always a reliable anti-crime and anti-terrorism tactic that ...
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
On the contrary, treating everyone as a suspect is the best means to improve clear up rate provided you've got the technology to do so. The cops selected people at King's Cross because they only had the one scanner. When they get scanners built into the stations ala airports treating everyone as suspects is exactly what they'll be doing.paolo999 said:
They're already doing it with the innocent people's DNA samples they've stolen. When that started we were assured it would only be "the real criminals" who'd be affected.
For your information, "clear-up" means charge, summons, caution or other "authority clear-up" (a range of tightly defined outcomes provided by the Home office (and policed quite tightly by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary).Azrael said:
It does NOT include anything to do with stop or stop and search.
It's not bollocks, it's the law (s.139 Criminal Justice Act 1988).arty said:
If your friend was convicted of an offence to do with the knife it must be because (a) it fell within the defintion of made, adapted or intended offensive weapon (an offence under s.1 Prevention of Crime Act 1953 for which there is NO restriction on blade size) or (b) it was not a "folding pocket knife", which is the thing which has to have the 3" or less blade for there to be no offence.
Azrael said:
OK I'm following you are trying to say.
I don't see scanning as an infringement of civil liberties, because it's:
- Transient (i.e. No records kept)
- Specific (unlike, say, a bag search, which could be abused as a "fishing trip")
It's not like you're going to get stopped for carrying weed or anything. Making it difficult for knife carriers to travel would, in my opinion, be a good thing.
Can't see what there is to be bothered about.
IF NO-ONE IS IN POSSESSION OF ANYTHING WHICH IS AN OFFENCE THEN THERE IS NO CHARGE AND NO CLEAR-UP.Azrael said:
It is a PREVENTIVE measure - which is what the police are meant to be all about: preventing crime - and that is notoriously difficult to justify precisely because it does NOT appear in the clear-up rates.
I believe that searches based on reasonable grounds to suspect possession of prohibited articles are a reasonable step to take to prevent crime. I would rather that some innocent people were inconvenienced a little by a search based on suspicions which turned out to be wrong than people felt they were able to carry knives with impunity and someone ended up inconvenienced a lot by being dead.Azrael said:
You call that an "unjustified fishing trip".
Whatever.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
The odds of a random search picking up some knives are excellent, I agree. The odds of actually stumbling over a man with murder on his mind aren't. It's not the simple "let us search whoever we like and crimes fall" argument you're making out. Exactly the same reasons were used to support the Sus Laws. If you balance the usefulness of stop and search against the bad feeling it creates, bad feeling that undermines public co-operation, it doesn't look so good. Its role in alienating ethnic minorities cannot be overstated.
Just like the DNA fiasco. We can keep the DNA of everyone we nick, great! But suddenly people aren't volunteering the DNA to police sweeps and aren't reporting crimes due to horror stories in the press. Unless you live in a genuine police state public co-operation is vital to good policing and authoritarian measures undermine it. You'll get rid of knives by changing the culture that glorifies them, not busting commuters on their way home from work.
Just like the DNA fiasco. We can keep the DNA of everyone we nick, great! But suddenly people aren't volunteering the DNA to police sweeps and aren't reporting crimes due to horror stories in the press. Unless you live in a genuine police state public co-operation is vital to good policing and authoritarian measures undermine it. You'll get rid of knives by changing the culture that glorifies them, not busting commuters on their way home from work.
detective-boy said:
Why do you insist on the 'EX' thing when you still display the mentality of a cop. Random searches suggest that these ''suspicions'' are bullshit and the police haven't got a clue who's carrying and who isn't. Setting up blocks and randomly hassling people going about their daily business is more about creating a climate of fear amongst the population than anything else.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Stop mixing me up with Azrael23 already.jæd said:You got evidence for that, or is yet another Azreal "fact"...?
http://www.buzztracker.org/2004/07/03/cache/257647.html <--- has a nice potted history of the issue.
You totally fail to understand the issue. "Random" is not the same as "based on reasonable grounds to suspect". "Based on reasonable grounds to suspect" is not the same as "knows".soulman said:
You CANNOT have a power based on knowledge, because you never know, so it would be a meaningless exercise.
The options are:
1. Keep what is there and exercise it properly - which I argue for.
2. Introduce a new power based on power to stop/search only if it is known that someone is carrying a prohibited article - which would be the same as abolishing the power altogether
3. Introduce random stop/search with no need for any reasonable grounds to suspect (which is what has been done in relation to terrorism and areas defined for short period of times under the public order act - which I believe awould be unnecessary and which would be excessive.
There is loads of evidence for it, but it is becoming a bit dated now as it mainly comes from the late 90s / early 2000s. Police practice has changed significantly (including a massive drop in total stop and searches conducted) and the current situation is by no means as bad as it was.jæd said:You got evidence for that, or is yet another Azreal "fact"...?
The article linked to by Azrael gives a pretty accurate potted history. A Home Office researcher, now a Professor of CRiminology somewhere (University of Kent?) called Marion Fitzgerald did a load of research on the issue (and on the difficulties of comparing the demographics of the ethnicity of persons stop-searched with the demographics of the local resident community - are the street population (i.e. those likely to be stop-searched) of the same demographic as local residents? I would suggest very definitely not and her research showed that the stop-search ratio was far, far more proportionate to the ethnicity demographic of the street population than the census of local residents (and this was done in Brixton if I recall). She's still about - was on BBC News today talking about knife crime statistics.
detective-boy said:
While the so called grounds involved in "based on reasonable grounds to suspect" remains outside of the public domain then I suggest these searches are random. If you can provide the actual grounds, the ''intelligence'', for these particular checkpoints then I'd be interested to read them. If not then you are accepting and expecting other posters here to accept these apparently random shows of state force.
d-b said:
You can however create and sustain power over people, over a population for example, by alluding to ''knowledge'' which would be dangerous if shared openly with those people you profess to be protecting.
d-b said:
Are you seriously suggesting they are the only options available to people?
The actual deployments of the focused checks are based on crime trends. The ones at stations targetting the carrying of knives are based on the records of assaults and other incidents involving knives over the last few months. The operation deploys on ines which are "hotspots" in terms of such incidents.soulman said:
Once the checks have been set up, then each individual stop/search is based on specific reasonable grounds which will very from case to case. The general types of grounds can be found in PACE Code of Practice A, section 2. That is a public document. The fact that you don't happen to know it is not the same as it not being in the public domain. The subject of a stop/search is entitled to request (at the time or within 12 months) a copy of the record of the search which will record the specific grounds relied upon. The fact that they choose not to tell you does not mean they are not available to the subject of the search.
Yes. You got any alternatives seeing as you are so all-knowing?soulman said:
Azrael said:Anyone else seen this?
Walked through King's Cross Underground Station Friday night and not only is it crawling with old bill (30+), they've only gone and set up a bloody great metal detector in the tunnel leading to the Circle Line! Assume its something to do with that pilot for airport-style security on the Tube that's been in the news, but it was a still a shock to come home and be confronted with that great monstrosity.
Called out for me to stop 'cos I had a large package (contents being a floor lamp, not the next 7 July, sorry chaps) but kept walking and luckily got lost to the crowd. Lots of poor sods, mostly Arab appearance (surprise) lined up & going through it.
What the fuck's happening to my country?
Welcome to the police state Renew your passport NOW
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Two other possibilities immediately spring to mind: abolish stop & search entirely and only allow a search after a lawful arrest; or demand a much higher standard than "reasonable suspicion". ("Probable cause" or something similar.) Both of which are the situation in other common law countries. Or try something new. We hear so much about how the modern world makes civil liberty shibboleths redundant. Let's reverse that and use technology to improve them. Have the police videotape a suspect, e-mail it to a magistrate and get a search warrant over the phone.detective-boy said:
No doubt there's plenty more possibilities out there. So those are far from the only options.
Both your first two suggestions amount to the same as my option 2 - abolish anything based on suspicion and introduce something based on knowledge. That, as I have said, would not work. You may as well give up altogether.Azrael said:
If your "probable cause" is not knowledge, what IS it. Give some examples of what would, in your opinion, be sufficient "probable cause". If it is anything less than knowledge I will bet it is the same as the current situation, just using different words.
And though new technology is tempting, do you really think that the videoing you suggest would (a) be anything like swift enough and (b) would survive challenges of "Why you videoing me, what power you got?". I would suggest that stopping and searching someone is less of an intrusion of their liberty than videoing them and then stop and searching them.
The answer is to ensure that current powers are used properly and that they public have faith in that. There is much which could - and should - be done to improve the situation (or to confirm that it is being done legally, as is the case most of the time). The answer is not abolition.
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