It seems to me that things were a lot simpler when I was younger. Not younger as in being a child, but younger as in being in my twenties and thirties. Certain acts were criminal, and as long as you didn’t rape, steal, murder or beat people up, you were unlikely to ever encounter a policeman. And when you did encounter a policeman because someone had stolen from you (the most common reason, in my experience) you could expect said policeman to ask you lots of questions and some serious-looking men in white coats would solemnly come and dust for fingerprints and take lots of photos. Whether they caught the miscreant or not was always a mystery, but you got the distinct impression that they took their jobs very seriously.

By some magic or mystery, I did not have to avail myself of the police’s services during the reign of Major’s Tories. However, after about three years of Blair’s government, a petty crime occurred whereby a radio was stolen from my car. It was clearly an opportunistic crime, committed by an amateur. I was able to make that impressive deduction by the complete shambles the thief made of the interior of my car. Even I would have been able to remove a car radio without destroying the dashboard of the car! Clues abounded, I was certain, so I phoned the police, and while I was waiting for them to answer, I started to unwrap my scarf and take off my winter jacket, wondering how I would while away the hours till they came.

As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered. A bored voice at the other end of the phone told me to “give this crime number to the insurer.” When I enquired as to what time I could expect the police to come and dust for fingerprints, etc., I was told that vehicle crime was only investigated if someone had been hurt.

I was rather taken aback, and even today, a decade later, I still feel the resonance of that shock. I was told that because there was so much car crime, they didn’t bother to investigate it. I did wonder what their tactics would be if murder became a common activity. Would they prefer not to investigate murder?

faulksd August 3, 2010 at 13:41

While the breakdown of law and order is a complex issue which evades simple
answers, it’s certainly undeniable that the police have been politicised
during the 13 years of the New Labour neo-communists. This is owed in part to
the activity of Common Purpose, which has infiltrated and infected most of the
country’s institutions (check out Brian Gerrish – he has fallen foul of them
and is very knowledgeable about their activities). Ultimately their objective
is to break down the social order in a variety of ways in order to clear the
path for the nastier alternative, which is the EU
communitarian/Fabian/communist/fascist state – which is the ultimate goal of
all of the establishment parties.
So, yes, O tempus, O mores, TDW. But it’s
all part of the plan…

JuliaM August 3,
2010 at 11:43

“I did wonder what their tactics would be if murder became a common
activity.”

What do you mean, ‘if’..?

Rob August 3, 2010 at 11:27

The huge expansion in the number of ‘crimes’ has a purpose – once everyone
is breaking the law, simply by existing, who is prosecuted then becomes a
political act. The citizen is no longer living within an agreed sensible
framework but a random, capricious web at the mercy of State ideologues

Ed P August 3, 2010 at 11:03

Most police officers are decent people doing a job made 100 times more
difficult by 13 years of Labour idiotic changes. Obviously there are bad
apples, like in any organisation, but the problem is structural and can be put
right by, for instance, local accountability, disband ACPO, get rid of those
muppet PCSOs & undo the box-ticking culture, beloved of NuLab, which
wastes so much time.

Pericles August 3, 2010 at 11:27

Certainly Labour did much damage in the police service

Spiral Architect
August 3, 2010 at 10:25

Evidence of the crassness of 21C policing in Britain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7918779/Woman-arrested-for-swearing-at-yobs.html

They really are useless, criminally so……….’protect life and property’ my
backside.

Pericles August 3, 2010 at 10:15

No-one I know would call the police to report a burglary, except to obtain
that incident number for the insurance claim.

I

Richard B August
3, 2010 at 10:11

I remember it well – crime was what bad people did, and the rest of us were
only concerned if it happened to us. Nowadays, everyone is a criminal: I’m
pretty sure that I break some law or other every day of my life. You put your
finger on it: the problem is too many laws. At one time, as long as you
behaved yourself and didn’t harm anyone, you didn’t have to bother about the
legality of anything you did. Now, you run the risk of fines or imprisonment
for the most trivial things. And, if everyone is a criminal, then criminality
doesn’t look so bad, does it?

If the law concerned offences that were few, and serious, then we would be
far more likely to co-operate.

Specky August 3, 2010 at 10:08

Odd though how their seems to be a correlation between the nore laws that
are passed ,14,000 or so I believe by the last bunch of muppets, crime appears
to increase.
Could it be more idle hands created by higher taxation and
regulation on business plus the burgeoning welfare state are breeding
criminals ?
And we all know who can find plenty of work for idle hands, do
we not.

Kevin August 3, 2010 at 10:05

When I was burgled they weren’t interested and so I told them some of my
wife’s knickers were stolen and they then sent 5 coppers round (sex crime you
see) and they caught the little sod (it was a 15 year old kid) within a couple
of hours.

Spiral Architect
August 3, 2010 at 09:59

The police is run by politicians – in Westminster, in council chambers and
in the headquarters of the various forces.

As we all know – whilst feigning altruism (and efficiency), politicians
have only their own interests at heart………both financial and ideological.

The end result is that nothing of any value ever gets done, the lives of
decent, law-abiding people become blighted and criminals and yobboes have
licence to operate with impunity.

The public is being ripped off and let down, it’s time to act.

How did it come to this?……………….(he asked rhetorically).

Brian August 3, 2010 at 10:21

The Police is, alas, not run by politicians. That is part of the problem.
It has become an unreformed Trade Union jealous of its powers and unwilling
to allow independent investigation or oversight. Its chief officers are all
of a muchness having taken Marxist social-science degrees. The association
of Chief Police Officers is a private limited company to avoid the FoI Act.
Many officers are Common Purpose graduates.
Only when Chief Constables
are directly elected will we begin to return to Peel’s Nine Principles of
Policing. Until then the police will amass more powers and means of coercing
their paymasters and fellow citizens. Why else have they recently adopted
black shirts except to intimidate. The Police are merely ordinary citizens
paid to do full time what the rest of us have a duty and right to do and we
wear blue or white shirts – what sort of people wear black?

Bucko August 3,
2010 at 09:43

However, if you catch a scrot sack breaking into your car and “deal” with
it yourself, it then becomes a crime. And a rather serious one in the eyes of
the police.

Alan August 3, 2010 at 09:46

Yes but not one of giving someone a kicking, you have ‘taken the law into
your own hands’ and usurped the Police’s ‘authority’. They do not like that.
The law does not belong to the Police and they are not the sole arbiter of
upholding it – they are *our* laws.

Bucko August
3, 2010 at 11:42

True. The original function of the police was to assist us. Now they
have completely monopolised law enforcement and the use of force. We are
supposed to be defenceless without them.

Captain
Ranty August 3, 2010 at 09:33

“Would they prefer not to investigate murder?” -Thaddeus.

Yes. They would prefer not investigating. They have shown this to be true
over 1100 times since 2004.

The unfortunates who perished were in police custody at the time. Not one
single conviction for wrongful death. Not one.

Being taken into custody is becoming as dangerous for ones health as being
admitted to hospital.

CR.

PT August 3, 2010 at 09:11

Things have changed since then, TJW. These days you won’t be offered a
crime number by the police pen-pushers for the benefit of your insurance
company’s pen-pushers. No. Nowadays you get an Incident Number. This enables
the police to record an incident, rather than a crime, and this process leads
a reduction in reported crime. It’s easy for politicians, be they the
Westminster variety or the senior police officer variety , to claim a
reduction in crime committed on their watch. Personally, I think they’re just
playing at it, they’ve not really thought it through. I would raise the age of
criminal responsibility to 107. No more crime!

Jack Savage August 3, 2010 at 08:53

The only surprising thing about this post is that you have taken so long to
realise it.
Even casual reading of the (by and large pro-police!)
mainstream press would have convinced you of this years ago. In my case,
anecdotal evidence over the years has convinced me of this fundamental truth :
“There is no dangerous,accidental,violent or larcenous incident that the
arrival of the Police cannot make worse.”

briony August 3, 2010 at 08:26

In 1997 I saw a car skid down a road in London and hit two cars and then
drive off. I called the police and gave them the details and registration
number…they never bothered to do anything about it.

Three years ago we were driven into by an uninsured Albanian driver and the
police didn’t even prosecute him despite being on the scene moments after the
incident and taking statements from a number of witnesses. If we had been
uninsured it would have been a different story because we would have been easy
targets. I’m still fighting to get our no claims bonus reinstated and our
excess paid back to us.