Ellesmere Port.Angle : Forum

Re: local gangs

Posted By: Neil
Date: 3 May 2004 at 20:15

> Had the police got out of their 'Panda' car
> (do they still use that term?) theres a fair
> likelihood a fight might break out. Kids who
> do get t9ogether in gangs and walk the
> streets smoking and drinking on mass are
> quite a force! It would take quite a number
> of police-men/women to break them up and
> unfortunatly the police are too under-funded
> to use such resources! Blame the goverment I
> say!

I have to disagree about the police being under-funded. The police are not under-funded. More and more has been spent on the police over the last fifty years but crime has multiplied many times. And it's not the big crime that blights our lives, it's the gangs going round knocking our garden walls over or throwing bottles into the street or vomiting on the pavement. This kind of crime, which the police think unworthy of their time, is what leads to many people feeling as if they are prisoners in their own homes.

Ever since the police went from the policeman on the beat to the police car patrols the element of crime prevention has disappeared from the system. What we have now is simply a police service that makes a note of the crime that has been committed against you and gives you a crime number for the insurance company if you have had anything stolen. The chances of anyone being caught are virtually nil.

I deliberately used the term 'police service' above because that is what they now call themselves. They are not a police force as they used to be. The police have had many of their old responsibilities passed on to others. For example, traffic control used to be the responsibility of the police. Traffic wardens now have that job. The policeman on the beat used to protect building sites. Now there is razor wire, security guards and dogs. Also, many of the administrative jobs that policemen used to have to do were taken away from them when the government introduced a whole new section to take over that aspect of their work. These traffic, security and admin workers were not police so the extra money spent on the police is actually rather more, in effect, than the government admits.

I agree with you on one thing though. I blame the government. This present government in particular has bound the hands of the police so that they cannot do their jobs properly.

I can recommend a brilliant book if you want to find out what has actually happened to the police and crime over the last fifty years. It is called 'The Abolition of Liberty' by Peter Hitchens. It is an updated paperback edition of a book he released last year called 'A Brief History of Crime'. It is excellent. It made my blood boil reading about the kinds of mistakes that various governments have made and the way this government is taking our liberty away from us.

Is this too serious? I hope not.

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