Mother tormented to suicide by teenage gang. UK Police indifferent. Peter Dow cares.
- Thread starter Peter Dow
- Start date
This level of desperation may be, thankfully, a rarity.
That doesn't mean there aren't a lot more people who suffer in silence albeit to a lesser degree in this frightened fucked up country.
Polariing the debate to either 'Feral Youth' redtop headline bullshit or 'whinging' is not helpful.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
People hardly ever kill themselves and their child, true. As Awesome Wells says, this level of desperation is probably a rarity. (Although how many more who aren't so newsworthy kill themselves quietly?) That's beside the point: the police allowed louts to run riot. Not because officers are personally bad, but because of the system successive governments have created.
DownwardDog
Well-Known Member
The Labour Party campaigning on "traditional Labour values" hasn't been able to secure an effective majority since 1966 so that way lies political oblivion I imagine.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
What are these "traditional Labour values" anyway? All Labout have failed to do is run around nationalising anything that's nailed down. They're fanatical supporters of comprehensive education and the public sector.
And, of course, they're very happy not to punish criminals or return discretion to the police. Far from it, they stripped the police of the ability to even charge suspects. I suppose we could see a return to the views of people like Clement Attlee, who voted in favour of hanging in 1948. But I imagine that's not what people had in mind.
And, of course, they're very happy not to punish criminals or return discretion to the police. Far from it, they stripped the police of the ability to even charge suspects. I suppose we could see a return to the views of people like Clement Attlee, who voted in favour of hanging in 1948. But I imagine that's not what people had in mind.
Seen a more detailed report over the weekend. Quite a lengthy statement from the local Superintendent. Sadly it appears my suggestion as to possible fuck up was right ... a whole series of things, dealt with by different officers and different units over a considerable period of time ... and not linked together as a series which needed to be treated as something far more serious than the sum of it's parts.
Serious systemic failure ... and quite possibly individual failure (in failing to make proper background checks on taking on the new reports). There should be an IPCC / other force investigation and discipline (possibly criminal action for malfeasance in public office if gross misconduct is proven).
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
If you have fire brigade policing then tragedies like this are inevitable. However good individual officers are they can't compensate for a broken system. Broken because it makes officers remote, and no one officer knows the complete picture. This is exactly the sort of thing a patrolling constable would have nipped in the bud right at the start.
What would have happened if they'd got some of the miscreants to court? An ASBO? They laugh at it. Community service? Ditto. If by some miracle you got a magistrate to lock a few of them up, they'd soon be back out again, undeterred and unrepentant, and determined to make the woman pay for the unforgivable sin of standing up to them.
All the IPCC investigations in the world won't solve that.
What would have happened if they'd got some of the miscreants to court? An ASBO? They laugh at it. Community service? Ditto. If by some miracle you got a magistrate to lock a few of them up, they'd soon be back out again, undeterred and unrepentant, and determined to make the woman pay for the unforgivable sin of standing up to them.
All the IPCC investigations in the world won't solve that.
FabricLiveBaby!
Live Baby Fabric!
It would be a whitewash anyway. It allways is.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Don't be so sure. This story is generating a lot of anger, and it's quite possible that, to diffuse it, a few unfortunate officers will be hung out to dry.
It'll solve nothing, of course, as the entire system is rotten. Sacrificing individual officers will allow the system itself to remain unchanged. It can only be put right when those in power change their minds. This is virtually impossible. In which case, the only answer is to change those in power. Yet many who are enraged by this story don't make the connection and will continue to vote Labour or Tory out of tribal loyalty.
audiotech
wav, aiff, mp3, ogg, flac
Knock, knock...........
Are you sure you're not Peter Hitchens? This is the sort of simplistic drivel he trots out all the time.
What on earth makes you think "patrolling constables" only ever patrol the same streets?
Neighbourhood policing teams (Safer Neighbourhood Teams in the Met) have way more local focus and responsibility than ever before.
Oh right. Let's just give up then unless they give us Dixon of Dock Green back, along with the power to clip kids round the ear'ole and fit people up without needing to worry about meddlesome rules like those in PACE ...
coccinelle
Active Member
I, for one. don't think it is simplistic drivel.
fair enough, but all the calls of this countries going to the dogs etc etc when it actual fact humans being cunts to each has been going on forever only serves to highten the level of fear, which imo, is one of the fundamental forces that has stopped us from going its fuckin up this capitalist shit, lets change it
people are terrified and fear, once unleashed, will prowl around searching for more things to be scared of, which the media duly provides and we lap up
none of which is actually that relevant to the op, its just something ive been thinking about a lot lately
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Much as I'd enjoy being paid a salary for giving my POV, afraid not. Mr Hitchens isn't the only one who sees the merits in a beat system.
I don't, since the beat system hasn't existed for 40-odd years. Do you think officers based in a local station, who knew their area well, would have let this tragic case escalate anywhere close to the victim's suicide?
Perhaps they do. Unfortunately they're not universal in the way a beat system was.
This is a whopping great straw man, since I never suggested police be given a license to dish out common assault and to fit suspects up. I see no PACE safeguard that couldn't be offered in a simplified form, and many PACE attacks on liberty that should be removed.Oh right. Let's just give up then unless they give us Dixon of Dock Green back, along with the power to clip kids round the ear'ole and fit people up without needing to worry about meddlesome rules like those in PACE ...
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
this isn't about the cops tho. this is about a society that allows shit like this to occur. which is far more shameful imo.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
i notice lots of people start to care now there is nothing left to do but complain
_angel_
.
So we can't do anything unless we want to see repressive tactics - Don't be so silly.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I don't think it would. We have more police than we've ever had, and certainly more than we had when the beat system was abolished. Doesn't matter how many police we have if they're doing the wrong thing.
The special tasks would have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, but I'm doubtful if a patrolling constable couldn't do much good by his very presence.
In this tragic case, he or she would have soon got to know the repeat offenders by name, and could drag them home to their parents early on. (And no, not with a "clip around the ear", a cliche that distracts from the issue.) Given discretion over who gets arrested, the officer would easily defeat the nasty criminal tactic of using false accusations to scare victims into silence.
Either the children's parents would stop the misbehaviour, or the authorities would have to step in. Either way, no one would be driven to suicide and killing, and no remote commanders would palm victims off with excuses of "lack of resources", or the like.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I've been going on about this sort of thing for years, and have asked MPs about it. They just ignore me and launch into tub-tumping rhetoric about "getting tough on crime" and "winning the war on anti-social behaviour", backed by a barrage of dubious and largely irrelevant statistics.
I must have imagined being assigned to beats in the early 80s then ...
They obviously fucking did ... there will be a neighbourhood policing team in the relevant location. There is everywhere in the UK. I note you say they are not universal. Please link to the evidence you have for that assertion.
One thing you can't have (unless you want to piss millions down the pan every day) is "bobbies on the beat" and no stop / search or stop / account - there'd be absolutely no point in them at all if they didn't do anything.
You cannot simultaneously whinge about the police doing things and about them not doing stuff ... but the fucking media (and loads on here) seem to believe that you can ...
And the power to use force for that would be ...
That would constitute exactly the "clip round the ear" type assault you claim is a strawman ...
like in the nhs, police numbers and nursing numbers have increased over the years, but do to the governments obsession with targets, paperwork has increased exponentially. reports suggest police officer spends 55% of his/her time doing paperwork.
in my life, an assessment that would take me 2 hours to do 7 years ago, now takes me nearly a full day.
in addition regards police, to meet targets, its very tempting to "solve" easy crimes (busting hippies ofr dope at festies anyone?)..... this sort of crime (antisocial and harassment amongst others) isnt solved easily, if it requires 'solving' at all. like much in life, you cannot evidence that what you have prevented from occurring.
no, but the balance has shifted too far. we've seen on here how people are fearful of being arrested for doing their duty under CJA of preventing crime, and the common law "expectation" of using reasonable force to do so
persoanlly i like the 'texas model'.... someone breaks into your home.. you shoot them.. you get a civil award... cuts down on re-offending rates too
(a) the police constable still has absolute discretion in the exercise of their powers.
(b) are you really suggesting that police should choose who to arrest or not based on, well, whether they are "like them", say (i.e. primarily white, middle-class (well, aspiring), heterosexual, "hard-working families") ...
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
they could maybe arrest someone after 10 incidents or however many phone calls there were perhaps??? show a bit of an interest like???(a) the police constable still has absolute discretion in the exercise of their powers.
(b) are you really suggesting that police should choose who to arrest or not based on, well, whether they are "like them", say (i.e. primarily white, middle-class (well, aspiring), heterosexual, "hard-working families") ...
It's the people who vote for ever more performance management to prevent their tax pounds being wasted ... perhaps the voters need to tell (all) the political parties we've had enough of performance managemnt - it's shite.
Until it's not a burglar ... that law is US fuckwittedness of the first order.... someone breaks into your home.. you shoot them.. you get a civil award... cuts down on re-offending rates too
If you actually read the thread rather than simply wading in and taking a post out of the context of the discussion it was part of, you'd see that that is exactly what I have been saying should have fucking happened from the start ...
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