With England facing twice the violent crime rate as the US, the system is starting to fall apart. As Don Kates wrote to me: "To conserve scarce criminal justice resources England has now moved from not investigating burglary and assault to not prosecuting even the few thugs the police manage to identify and catch." He also noted that since handguns were banned in 1997 violent crime reported to police have gone up, not down as promised.
Burglars will be allowed to escape without punishment under new instructions sent to all police forces. Police have been told they can let them off the threat of a court appearance and instead allow them to go with a caution.
The same leniency will be shown to criminals responsible for more than 60 other different offences, ranging from arson through vandalism to sex with underage girls.
New rules sent to police chiefs by the Home Office set out how seriously various crimes should be regarded, and when offenders who admit to them should be sent home with a caution.
A caution counts as a criminal record but means the offender does not face a court appearance which would be likely to end in a fine, a community punishment or jail. . . .
Well, given the failure of the government to prosecute these criminals, this next article in the Daily Mail is not too surprising:
Six out of ten muggings are never reported because the public have lost faith in the police to do anything, it emerged last night.
The devastating verdict is delivered in a report by Demos, one of Tony Blair's favourite think-tanks. It reveals plummeting public confidence in the police means tens of thousands of offences go unreported.
If, as research cited by Demos suggests, police are not told of 58 per cent of muggings, the 80,780 offences recorded last year would in reality number 192,000.
The list of unreported crimes also includes 35 per cent of violent attacks by strangers, 38 per cent of burglaries and 42 per cent of thefts from vehicles.
Tory home affairs spokesman Nick Herbert said: "When such large numbers of people aren't even reporting offences, the true level of crime is far higher than official figures suggest. . . .
For a picture from the Economist magazine showing how robbery rates have changed over time follow this link (the commentary there is also useful).
Of interest: The results of an online poll of people reading this English newspaper can be found here. Last I looked 94 percent thought that the courts in England were too soft on criminals.
The same leniency will be shown to criminals responsible for more than 60 other different offences, ranging from arson through vandalism to sex with underage girls.
New rules sent to police chiefs by the Home Office set out how seriously various crimes should be regarded, and when offenders who admit to them should be sent home with a caution.
A caution counts as a criminal record but means the offender does not face a court appearance which would be likely to end in a fine, a community punishment or jail. . . .
Well, given the failure of the government to prosecute these criminals, this next article in the Daily Mail is not too surprising:
The devastating verdict is delivered in a report by Demos, one of Tony Blair's favourite think-tanks. It reveals plummeting public confidence in the police means tens of thousands of offences go unreported.
If, as research cited by Demos suggests, police are not told of 58 per cent of muggings, the 80,780 offences recorded last year would in reality number 192,000.
The list of unreported crimes also includes 35 per cent of violent attacks by strangers, 38 per cent of burglaries and 42 per cent of thefts from vehicles.
Tory home affairs spokesman Nick Herbert said: "When such large numbers of people aren't even reporting offences, the true level of crime is far higher than official figures suggest. . . .
For a picture from the Economist magazine showing how robbery rates have changed over time follow this link (the commentary there is also useful).
Of interest: The results of an online poll of people reading this English newspaper can be found here. Last I looked 94 percent thought that the courts in England were too soft on criminals.
Criminals being left off without even having to show up in court in England.
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Oleh
abudzar
