Every time I read the Guardian, I learn how statistically improved law enforcement has become across the pond, apparently compliments of the incredibly efficient central planners of the Labour Government. There is no local police force in the UK. It is all centralized. Indeed, even mention of devolving power to the uneducated masses to vote for their local police leadership is anathema to the socialists in Labour.
Thus I have often found it curious that policing should have so statistically improved under ten years of Labour rule when, from my friends in the U.K., I hear regularly that the lack of proper policing is one of their major complaints. As always in such cases, pulling up the government's skirt and thoroughly examining its dirty knickers leads inexorably to an answer.
Police spent months gathering statements from 542 people who donated money to a youngster who collected £700 for Comic Relief but then kept it.Read the rest of the story here. Would a local police chief answerable to the locals by way of election for his position put up with this insanity. Hardly. But, when the central planners at Labour want their statistics to convince the confused U.K. voters just how effective the police in the U.K. really are . . . .
The case was then recorded as 542 crimes of obtaining money by deception, boosting detection rates even though the youngster only received a warning, the Police Federation conference in Blackpool heard yesterday. It also emerged that an unidentified child in North Wales received a "penalty notice for disorder" (PND) for chalking on the pavement.
The cases were highlighted as absurd examples of the "target culture" reviled by many rank and file officers in England and Wales, which is "criminalising middle England".
The critics say pressure to boost the apparent success rate against crime forces police to make ridiculous decisions and use arrests, cautions or fines for trivial incidents which would not previously have been treated as crimes.
Investigation of more serious offences is then neglected. . .
This would be a major scandal in the U.S. It seems to have caused only a should shrugging ripple across the pond at this point. I do hope it picks up steam. God forbid our police should ever become as good statistically as the U.K.'s. Then we will know it's time to vote the bums out.
