State monopoly on solving crime?

[anonguest]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-45209127

" .......only the police have the authority to fully investigate, solve, and prosecute those responsible for crime "

REALLY!?

So....it's illegal for member of the public, if they want, to independently investigate crime and acquire evidence that will subsequently support a conviction?  Making a photograph of someones face in public, without their knowledge, is illegal?!  (Where does that leave art/photo galleries standing?!)

If this homemade poster (clearly acting as 'wanted' poster) made any sort of direct accusation or defamatory allegation about the person in the photograph then I could begin to see where a possible offence may have been committed. BUT IF it merely seeks the person to 'help with enquiries', as the police would put it, then what offence is committed?

[Exiled Canadian]

20 hours ago, anonguest said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-45209127

" .......only the police have the authority to fully investigate, solve, and prosecute those responsible for crime "

REALLY!?

So....it's illegal for member of the public, if they want, to independently investigate crime and acquire evidence that will subsequently support a conviction?  Making a photograph of someones face in public, without their knowledge, is illegal?!  (Where does that leave art/photo galleries standing?!)

If this homemade poster (clearly acting as 'wanted' poster) made any sort of direct accusation or defamatory allegation about the person in the photograph then I could begin to see where a possible offence may have been committed. BUT IF it merely seeks the person to 'help with enquiries', as the police would put it, then what offence is committed?

I can see your point. But if you spin it around the other way how would you feel if posters showing your face stating that you were being sought "to assist police with their inquiries" were posted all over your town? - particularly if you were completely innocent.

[Will!]

19 minutes ago, Exiled Canadian said:

But if you spin it around the other way how would you feel if posters showing your face stating that you were being sought "to assist police with their inquiries" were posted all over your town? - particularly if you were completely innocent.

I'd go to the police to sort it out.

[anonguest]

8 hours ago, Exiled Canadian said:

I can see your point. But if you spin it around the other way how would you feel if posters showing your face stating that you were being sought "to assist police with their inquiries" were posted all over your town? - particularly if you were completely innocent.

Indeed - and I wonder IF the rise in that sort of thinking led to the demise of the publicly distributed 'Wanted' poster that police forces in this country used to think nothing of from using (in just the same way as they were in the Wild West).

However, though we are not told the precise details of what the poster actually said or even implied, the action seemed to work - as a pawnbroker returned the stolen item, having seen the poster - which suggests that the poster must have contained at least some information connecting the the item stolen with the person pictured.  Interesting that the report dwells on the supposed naughtiness of the poster creator and tut tutting attitude of the police and makes no mention of whether the pawnbrokers contribution led to police succesfully apprehending the presumed villain.

My main point was the claimed assertion by the police that Joe Public has no legal right to independently investigate crime. We know that citizens can, if their pockets are deep enough, launch private prosecution cases.

Methinks that these sort of actions by the police, that give appearance of 'punish the victim', are merely driven by fear of stoking vigilante type activity and/or for 'public order' worries IF such independently created wanted posters were allowed to become common?

[The Eagle]

The police probably fears that people solving their own cases will make the police look even worse than they already look due to the abysmal rate of solved cases.

The following video is a real eye-opener about the state of policing in the UK:

Police & Crime Commissioner Anthony Stansfeld - YouTube

[Big Orange]

In a worse case scenario I get the feeling that Rule of Law slowly gets forgotten about by around 2050s if/when British Policing becomes a total vacuum, and you'd mainly get "public" law enforcement (modelled on NI paramilitaries and Yakuza) or privatised South African-esque security firms.

[Riedquat]

I do get the feeling (although it might just be me getting even grumpier with time) that more and more people, in all areas, are unable to see further than "these are the rules," and the law is just another set of rules at the end of the day, not fundamentally different from any other set. People don't want to have to think for themselves, they want to be told what's right and wrong so they don't have to figure it out for themselves. It gives rise to what I call "pigeonhole thinking". People get a list of pigeonholes telling them that this or that is right or wrong and when they encounter something similar they stuff it in the nearest pigeonhole, read the label above it that says "right" or "wrong" and leave it at that. Letter of the law instead of spirit.

Perhaps it's filling the void becoming less religious has left, religion being the traditional means of telling people what to think.

[Big Orange]

The Law is pretty much a set of "super rules" for civil society aren't they? The trouble is the Law can be rendered obsolete, have annoying loopholes/blindspots, and drafted to help enforce exploitative or inhumane policies for TPTB.

And this country (and the US) suffers from having too many lawyers (while in Japan, it has too few, so the vacuum is filled by Yakuza thugs who settle civil disputes for a price instead).

[Riedquat]

8 hours ago, Big Orange said:

The Law is pretty much a set of "super rules" for civil society aren't they? The trouble is the Law can be rendered obsolete, have annoying loopholes/blindspots, and drafted to help enforce exploitative or inhumane policies for TPTB.

I suppose so, but I don't regard them as fundamentally any different from any other set of rules. Some people seem to - you must've seen discussions about the rights and wrongs of something when someone pops up with "but that's against the law anyway", which implies that they mistakenly feel that's relevant to the debate.

On obsolescene and loopholes that's at least part to the problems of language in being able to define things properly. Make the wording too generic and the law becomes a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, sweeping in all sorts of things that shouldn't fall on to it. Make it too precise and you create room for the loopholes. Then there's the problem with the degree - it's illegal or not (although differences in penalties attempt to deal with that to some degree).

[Byron]

The right of citizens to investigate and arrest is far, far older than any modern Police Force.

Indeed, the British Police claim to be just citizens in uniform.

They do need to make their mind up.

[Big Orange]

On 21/08/2018 at 09:59, Riedquat said:

On obsolescene and loopholes that's at least part to the problems of language in being able to define things properly. Make the wording too generic and the law becomes a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, sweeping in all sorts of things that shouldn't fall on to it. Make it too precise and you create room for the loopholes. Then there's the problem with the degree - it's illegal or not (although differences in penalties attempt to deal with that to some degree).

Also courts and judiciary that becomes too corrupt, politicised, or inefficient is asking for trouble and rendered impotent next to martial power - in the Philippines the court backlog and lack of decent judges reached such a crisis point, and the Rule of Law was never properly established in many regions in the first place, it was unable to address the violence and crime on the streets (then Duterte just assembled a load of vigilantes and hitmen who then killed and killed and killed, short circuiting the Rule of Law). 

I remember a popular post here that vaguely remember and (to paraphrase) which stating the banks, businessmen, and politicians ignoring the Law (rendering it slowly more meaningless), while plundering the country would eventually accumulate in the Law (now meaningless) no longer able to protect them when the enraged murdering mobs eventually break through the security barricades to tear them to pieces....

[Big Orange]

And how can law enforcement in Britain main a monopoly on solving crime when they admit they're falling behind and may have been permanently damaged by under funding?

Quote

POLICING in Britain is ‘broken’ the head of police federation has admitted. John Apter, who represents rank and file officers across England and Wales, said the public was being failed. Mr Apter, who took over the role of chairman of the police federation after a long stint as Hampshire Police Federation’s chief, blamed swingeing government cuts for the situation.Speaking to The Independent, he said some forces were ‘in crisis’ and that the public would ‘suffer’ more in the future as a result of limited resources.He claimed: ‘We can’t do everything - there are going to be situations where we simply can’t deliver the policing we want to deliver.

Link

Which is why I think, in my lifetime, we'll probably get policing more akin to Latin America or South Africa (with heavy corporate security protecting the wealthy and felons in rougher neighbourhoods taken out by angry mobs). 

[The Eagle]

On 20/08/2018 at 08:46, Big Orange said:

privatised South African-esque security firms.

We are there already:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/britains-first-private-police-force-to-go-nationwide-after-success-in-londons-wealthiest-a3832321.html

[Big Orange]

On 18/09/2018 at 01:59, The Eagle said:

We are there already:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/britains-first-private-police-force-to-go-nationwide-after-success-in-londons-wealthiest-a3832321.html

Yes, but when will some people, in parts of Britain and wider Europe, take the law into their own hands in the worse possible way (with  tyres, petrol, and matches?).