Point 10 from Cameron's Blueprint for Britain was this:
10. We'll double magistrates' sentencing powers from six month to a year and make sure knife offenders can expect to go to jail. And we will get more police officers on the street by slashing paperwork, including the stop and account form.
JuliaM posts endless tales about ridiculously lenient sentencing in this country, so mucking about with maximum sentences is pointless; it's minimum sentences we ought to be thinking about*. The only politician I'd trust with this is Michael Howard, who was prepared to take on the whole "criminal law industry" wholesale and made them actually do their job rather than seeing it as a gravy train. And he got results. It was far from perfect, but he got results.
* UPDATE. Jackart in the comments says that "bureaucratically defined minimum sentences" are a tad illiberal. Maybe so, but can we make a start by ensuring that offenders actually serve the sentences that are currently being imposed, rather than a small fraction thereof or none at all? For examples see JuliaM.
As to the second sentence, as WOAR explained a couple of days ago:
The simplest way to get more officers on the street is to abolish the PCSOs. Each one costs approximately 2/3 the cost of a proper officer but in utility terms is less than half as useful plus many of them are a complete liability when they open their mouths in public. Three plastic plod costs £60k and offers 1.5 worth of utility value. Two real police officers cost £54k (starting) and offer 2.0 worth of utility value.
We lose value on every single PCSO. Madness. Don't worry about paperwork at this stage. Cut the PCSOs immediately.
I hope that you've found this weekend's series thought-provoking. No, I don't claim to absolutely right on absolutely everything, but I can say for sure that the Tories are absolutely wrong on nearly everything - the only bit of their blueprint that wasn't complete rubbish was the first half of point 8. Anyway, time for a birthday drink.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Ten reasons to hate the Tories (10)
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10 comments:
MW,
Oh, Happy Birthday dear chap! Thanks for a highly entertaining and well written series of posts
Afterthought: Is it 'Bus-Pass' celebrations then?!
"10. We'll double magistrates' sentencing powers from six month to a year and make sure knife offenders can expect to go to jail. And we will get more police officers on the street by slashing paperwork, including the stop and account form."
Way back in the early sixties there was a major "bin the Knife" campaign in Glasgow when I was a boy and it's lead campaigner was a star of the time, namely Frankie "give me the moonlight" Vaughan. I've been hearing that they will contain 'knife crime' ever since I was a boy...and I am now in my mid fifties!
Politicians come out with this crap every election but never make a dent in it...Something is missing in their way of working but they keep repeating it.
Many happy returns, Mr W, a glass was raised in your honour during today's roasted feast.
By the way, what have you done to nice Miss Alice? She's been gone three weeks now.
WFW, thanks, but my bus pass is a long way off.
BY, a bit like US Presidents who think they can sort out Israel/Palestine?
TFB, also ta, I emailed Miss A yesterday, I've not heard yet.
You're a libertarian, and you want bureaucratically defined minimum sentences.
And you think this is a reason to HATE the Tories?
This says more about your political confusion than the Tories policies.
Happy Birthday for yesterday, Mark.
Thanks for all the explanations.
WOAR, I thank your for your bright suggestion!
It's the sentencing tables in that book they use (the name escapes me) that you have to change.
The PCSO info was from Dispatches last week. The suggestion isn't original - opinion in the Police Force is split. Some Chief Police Officers think PCSOs are useful, others disagree.
The main point was the funding was ring-fenced the Chief Constables were they were told they could have PCSOs or go without. They were never allowed to spend the money on a smaller number of officers.
I haven't worked out why a political decision was imposed over the authority of the CPOs, but it definitely was political dogma, not a police-driven demand - as witnessed by the imposed name which is to blur the difference between real officers and civilians in a hi-vis vest. I have suspicions, but that means I've overdosed on conspiracy juice.
I've corrected your quote: "JuliaM *makes up* endless *shite* *pretending that we have* lenient sentencing in this country". HTH.
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