OK Pug I'll take it point by point.
1. Census points are ordered by the Local Authority. I think I covered that and called not just for new elected members of that Local Authority but new parties with totally new members with an agenda of serving the public instead of abusing it.
2. There is no way that that Census found out what cars usually use that stretch of road at that time of day. Everyone in those 10 mile queues including me called at least one relative and informed them of the chaos and told them to take another route. Lorries were u-turning on the A5, no easy task in itself and gong another route. Had they not blockaded the road but set up in one of the laybys they could have got a more realistic result albeit from a smaller sample. By chasing the chaos they changed the survey result.
3. So the Police are 'dragged' in are they? Often on their days off the poor lambs? Are you saying that the Police have no way to say no to the Local Authority and to point out the sheer lunacy of what was proposed? The truth is that the Police could and should have refused to be involved and forced a better method which as per 2. wild have yielded a more representative result.
4. The argument that they might have detected other crimes is specious. The Police can and do set up roadblocks at any times. They may not be legally entitled to do it but they do it anyway. Why not at midnight? Do you believe more criminals will be abroad in rush hour or at midnight?
5. Like all legal professionals you slight menders of the public as having no experience of the 'real world'. CC's often like to refer to Policing issues and states that civilians have no experience of policing issues so they should stay mute about them. So how is that working out for us? Do we have a world class police force annihilating crime? Nope we have a useless bunch of idiots who by their incompetence have turned the UK in to officially (see statistics published today in the newspapers) the most violent society in the world. The UK is now officially more violent than South Africa. My contention is that ANY system would be better than the one we currently have and IF we ended up with the elected fool you envisage then in 2 years we get to replace him.
Now who looks foolish?
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"Do we have a world class police force annihilating crime? Nope we have a useless bunch of idiots who by their incompetence have turned the UK in to officially (see statistics published today in the newspapers) the most violent society in the world. The UK is now officially more violent than South Africa."
You had a touch of sympathy up to this point. I think you should cancel your Daily Wail subscription. As one of those 'useless idiots', I would like to say you've just made yourself look very silly indeed!
Elected Chief Constables! I shudder att the thought. They'd do what every other Politician does. Go for headlines and soundbites that would win them votes, regardless of the cost or consequences.
>>" Now who looks foolish?"
Errr...you do!
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1. So why make drag the Police into it then, especially with childish name calling.
2. Yes at a huge cost to the local council tax payers - Cops will be more than happy !
3. Yes they can, specifically under PACE they can set up road safety checks at any time and yes if you knew anything about the way big time crims operate they are far ore likely to be moving about in the day than at midnight - think as to why they want to do that.
4. No, I am a mender (sic) of the public as well, and was caught up in one yesterday - totally pointless, conned off roundabout cops on the slip road and the census bloke handed me a form to fill out and post back (who's going to do that for goodness sake ?). Policing has failed in this country due to nonsense paperwork, targets and the stifling of local Policing. Two years is a long time.
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No doubt a cop and a lawyer think I am being foolish but then they would. They are invested in a system that has clearly failed. It is hard to see yourself through others eyes under such circumstances but I represent the majority view and they know it and I do not view telling the truth as name calling.
The crime survey I refer to was undertaken by the International Crime Victims Survey, which the Home Office help draw up with the Dutch ministry of justice and 40,000 people from 17 industrialised countries, including the US, Portugal, France and Poland were sampled. Its results were reported in most of the newspapers including the Independent. Funny how Pug doesn't think references to the Daily Wail are name calling.
One thought I leave you with. If we had elected CC's do you think Richard Brunstrom would still be in a job? 2 years may be a long time but the good people of North Wales are suffering without end.
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I agree that Daily Wail is nae calling - I don't disagree on your views on crime and disorder. Agree with RB - funnily enough he no longer is in the post !
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Oh and Brunstrom's 3 BCUs are always in the top five for audited crime detection.
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That report was in the Telegraph too, with a sentence far down in the copy about comparisons between different countries being hard to make owing to different ways of collecting the crime statistics. It doesn't carry much conviction to say our society is more violent than quite a few I can think of.
Nevertheless one can only sympathise with Niallster's forcefully argued case. Much of what he says seems incontrovertible, although the polemical use of terms like idiots and clowns over-eggs the case a bit. It seems true that police work is undermined on one level by choking paperwork and mad regulation, and distorted and harrassed on another by the same over-regulation.
But the malaise runs a lot deeper than local authorities and Police 'services' as they are called these days. Our politics are increasingly dominated by a namby-pamby wish to coddle all citizens, the more undeserving the better, at the cost of everything else up to and including public order. That is what we seem to be demanding of our politicians, and that is why they are giving it to us. At the same time our children and grandchildren are being saddled with colossal debt. It's hard to imagine where all this carp is going to end.
Edited by Lud on 02/07/2009 at 18:55
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comparisons between different countries being hard to make owing to different ways of collecting the crime statistics >>
That does not seem to me fit with what Niallster says:
" undertaken by the International Crime Victims Survey, which the Home Office help draw up with the Dutch ministry of justice and 40,000 people from 17 industrialised countries "
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" but I represent the majority view "
Really..you've sampled everyone in the country have you? I have taken to studiously avoiding a lot of the nonsense that gets posted at regular intervals on the forum. Your insults of very hard working Police Officers, who put themselves at risk on a daily basis, was completely out of order.
I can give you plenty of examples of appreciation letters and e-mails. Those don't make good headlines (and fact really doesn't have to matter in todays newspapers). The Daily Mail reference is entirely appropriate. There are a good few of it's readers who seem to have migrated here lately.
You got caught up in a survey. It's a pain and has happened to most of us. Most of us however haven't taken to making vicious and petulant attacks on those who may be involved.
As Inspector Gadget recently posted:
What, then, are the police for these days?
1. To exceed Government and ACPO targets, regardless of their relevance.
2. To ?Deliver Performance? in terms of whatever silly new initiative is in fashion (currently Citizen Focus).
3. To provide a scapegoat when things go wrong, usually with people who should be in prison.
4. To provide a scapegoat when things go wrong, usually with people who should be in care.
5. To provide a scapegoat when things go wrong, usually with people who should be in hospital.
6. To be the ONLY police force in the world (as far as I can research) who tackle bat/ knife/gun wielding maniacs without any weapons except an aluminium stick and a tin of pepper.
7. To provide a scapegoat when things go wrong, usually with people who society has never said ?No? to.
8. To provide a scapegoat when things go wrong, usually with children who should be being parented.
9. To engage with partners to provide locally based, coordinated and effective responses to issues in the community.
10. To deliver effective criminal justice outcomes, working seamlessly with the CPS and the Courts.
OK, so I made up those last two just to see if you were still awake. Sorry. That was rude.
Edited by midlifecrisis on 02/07/2009 at 19:00
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What, then, are the police for these days? >>
According to reports today, this is what the ACPO wish Policing to be in future:
"In a response to the Government's Green Paper on policing, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) came up with a sentence described as ?gobbledygook? by the Plain English Campaign.
The paper, signed off by Chief Constable Sir Ken Jones, the President of ACPO, was revealed in full today in Police Review as:
'The promise of reform which the Green Paper heralds holds much for the public and Service alike; local policing, customised to local need with authentic answerability, strengthened accountabilities at force level through reforms to police authorities and HMIC, performance management at the service of localities with targets and plans tailored to local needs, the end of centrally-engineered one size fits all initiatives, an intelligent approach to cutting red tape through redesign of processes and cultures, a renewed emphasis on strategic development so as to better equip our service to meet the amorphous challenges of managing cross force harms, risks and opportunities' "
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...The Daily Mail reference is entirely appropriate. There are a good few of it's readers who seem to have migrated here lately...
Sounds like a witch hunt.
Instead of shooting the messenger all the time, you could consider why the Daily Mail is so successful.
It would give the police plenty of backing if they went out and nicked people instead of hiding behind their desks and institutionalised politically correct claptrap.
I appreciate there are many policemen who would love to be allowed to get out and do the job, but a serving copper said to me the other day:
"I like paperwork, it doesn't fight back.''
Like it or not, the clear-up rates are abysmal for burglary, assaults, criminal damage and other low-level crimes.
Big business has a word for it: failure.
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It would give the police plenty of backing if they went out and nicked people instead of hiding behind their desks and institutionalised politically correct claptrap.
A colleague of mine was shot dead not too long ago. He wasn't 'hiding behind a desk'. When you're tucked up in bed, I'm out with my colleagues filling up the prisons (you know, those places that are full to bursting, despite a weak and ineffective CPS)
Feel free to complain about the politically correct claptrap to your local, elected Politician. They're the ones responsible for it.
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" but I represent the majority view " Really..you've sampled everyone in the country have you?
I think he's got a valid point. I don't think that our confidence in (road and other) policing has ever been so low.
I have taken to studiously avoiding a lot of the nonsense that gets posted at regular intervals on the forum.
Hm. Unfortunately when replies are made to this "nonsense", I feel that the blind rejection of quite possibly valid points in fact compounds the problem.
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>> mender (sic) >> >>
as their [sic] are likely to be developments >> Daily Wail is nae [sic] calling >>
sic to you too! twice. ;-)
Edited by jbif on 02/07/2009 at 18:47
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4. No I am a mender (sic) of the public as well and was caught up in one yesterday
Eh, before you make such comments as above, with the (sic) comment, it might be worth checking your own spelling in the previous post first:
>>specifically why cars are using that stretch of road at that time of day, usually as their are likely to be developments that will impact on traffic flow in the future;
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it might be worth checking your own spelling in the previous post first: >>
R75
;-) That's what I said in my post at Thu 2 Jul 09 17:47 (although not as directly as you did).
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No I am a mender (sic) of the public
I thought that the mispelling was quite funny really. Maybe we need Menders of the Public !
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