This item from Johnno,
an ex police officer who decided to resign the force in order to campaign for
better policing, Real Policing. You can
sign up to his growing campaign here.
Johnno spent three
and a half years as a uniformed officer in Sussex, who originally joined the
job in order to make a difference by investigating, detecting and, most
importantly, preventing crime, but eventually, like the 6,000 other officers who
have resigned over the past 2 years realised that the only way to make a
difference was on the outside. Click here to read more about Johnno, and read his blog here.
Today, he sends
an open letter to John Reid, the Home Secretary, which I republish here.
Dear Doctor Reid,
I read with eager
anticipation the news story on
phone theft,' which outlined new measures to combat gun and knife crime,
mobile phone robberies and hooliganism.
The story
explained the new powers given to police and trading standards officers
under parts of the 2006 Violent Crime
is a pre-requisite in dealing with the offences which it criminalises
but is of little use if police officers are not readily on the streets to
enforce it.
Depending on
which statistic you choose to believe, Sir, how much of an effect do
you consider one in fifty eight police officers on patrol at any one time
is going to have enforcing your new legislation? How
effective are a third of police officers who are tied to their desks due
to paperwork going to be at exercising their new powers? How
effective is the officer who has to spend an average of ten hours and
six minutes dealing with a single prisoner in custody going to be in
preventing such crimes of theft, robbery and hooliganism?
Do you truly
believe that legislation alone is going to combat the problem?
Legislation is merely one tool in an utterly useless box if there is
no law enforcement officer readily available to exercise the power the
legislation provides.
You have once
again failed to address the issue in its entirety and your solution merely
addresses part of the problem. The lack of a visible police
presence has created the opportunity for violent crime to flourish to its
current proportions despite your assertions that police numbers have never been
greater.
Your legislation,
without a visible police presence to enforce it, will neither deter,
prevent, reassure nor punish.
If that were not
enough, you have the audacity to extol your
Government's interference and shambolic mismanagement of the police
force by stating that this current legislation builds on the solid
foundations laid by it to tackle violent crime and disorder on our
streets.
For every law-abiding citizen
in this country, every person who has signed this petition and every rank
and file officer who serves or has served in the British police force your
words ring hollow. You continue to insult us and let us down.
Make no mistake,
Sir, your Government's actions, or lack thereof, rather than building
solid foundations have served only to undermine and destroy them.
Sincerely,
Johnno Hills.
To join Johnno’s campaign
and sign his petition click here, or print it out
and gather even more signatures. Any help I can give to this campaign is a pleasure. The Real Policing links are also on my sidebar.
NuLab –
Destroying
