JP here. Not been posting on this blog for a while, just thought I'd give a run-down of my opinions on the news over the past few weeks and some other things that have popped up in general debates...
Let's do 'democracy' at work first shall we? The EU president - So Herman van Rompuy is the new president. I couldn't really care less to be honest. People seem to be of the opinion that Van Rompuy will hold the same sway over Europe as Obama does over America, which is a load of rubbish. He's little more than a puppet for the collective leaders of the EU member countries (the Council), and will have virtually no influence over policy. Hell, he already sits on the Council as PM of Belgium. Very little will change.
Global Morality Index of 2009 - An organisation has recently ranked countries based on their 'morality'. Apparently, "Over 70 sources were scoured for information on the attitudes of the public and legal standing against morally reprehensible actions viewed negatively by all civilized and honourable beings. Interviews were conducted through various media and adjustments made to reflect differing viewpoints on immorality in these regions." Want to see the list? The highest possible score is 10, the lowest is 1...
1. Saudi Arabia 9.03
2. Iran 9.01
3. Oman 8.99
4. Mauritania 8.98
5. Bahrain 8.81
6. Qatar 8.80
7. Brunei 8.75
8. Afghanistan 8. 75
9. Togo 8.70
10. Somalia 8.57
11. Guinea 8.43
12. Iraq 8.36
13. Sudan 8.23
14. Palestine 8.19
15. Bangladesh 8.15
16. United Arab Emirates 7.67
17. Kyrgyz Republic 7.43
18. Cameroon 7.25
19. Lebanon 7.11
20. Malaysia 7.03
Right. First of all, Palestine is not a country. Second of all, Saudia Arabia still mandate that women are not allowed to sit in the front seat of a car if a man is driving, amongst other things. But what is most interesting are the bottom 5... (Only 67 countries were in the survey)
63. United Kingdom 1.24
64. United States 1.06
65. Israel 0.32
66. Netherlands 0.15
67. Denmark 0.14
Notice anything? All of these countries have been attacked by Islamic extremists in the past decade! And the top 20 are all breeding grounds for terrorism! What a crock of shit, eh?
The police - I recently had to write an essay on the role of the state police in modern society. My opponents seemed to favour a powerful state police force, I do not. However the subject quickly ran onto on-the-spot fines. Now, I feel summary justice is simply wrong. There is no way of knowing if the person in question was even guilty of anything, let alone if the sentence is proportionate (eg. someone fined £100 for throwing away a letter they took to read on the way to a bus stop in a public bin). What's more, since levying these fines is increasingly being farmed out to contractors who are paid on commission, they represent a corrosive effect on society: these 'police' are no longer "only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence," but state mercenaries given special privileges and set against the public for their own enrichment.
As to the police themselves: I do not see how being an employee of the state can justly entitle someone to greater powers over others. Either arresting people in particular circumstances (or whatever) is moral and just, in which case anyone ought to be able to do it, or it is not, in which case no one should. The growth in such powers has gone hand-in-hand with the summary punishments and 'victimless crimes' for the enforcement of which they are necessary. To return to that great Peel quote:
"Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."
So it should be. So it was meant to be. But it isn't, at least, not any more.
Having conceded that, though, you could well ask what the purpose of a government police force is. People certainly did when the state police were first introduced in the mid 1800s. Since the government police have no special powers in my desired new libertarian world, it hardly seems fair to, eg. pay for the policing of property crimes against large businesses out of the public purse, since they can obviously afford it themselves. And similar logic can be applied to residential areas. Each person in the UK, for instance, pays about £200/year for policing. So my street (for instance) could, for the same money, afford to employ a constable on a full time basis just to guard our street. This may not even be the best use of the money, but it's hard to see how the present government solution would provide better protection. Decentralisation of police, and taking the powers out of the hands of the state, would be more beneficial to how crime is fought, I feel.
Anyone who feels that the streets would descend into anarchy with private police, I ask, can you apply your same logic to your own side, and ask yourself: "Why don't the police, as they hold a very privileged position legally, and are by far the largest and best armed enforcement agency in this country, take over the government, shoot suspected criminals without trial, and ignore the law wherever it pleases them?"
To an extent I would say that they have done the latter two things. But that they do not do these things to the extent that society descends into anarchy as you describe, it is in the final analysis only because they either do not believe this personally to be just, fear the adverse reaction of their colleagues, or fear, in the last resort, the army suppressing such a coup. In the first and final case, the same applies to private policemen. They would still have their own moral code, and fear of the ultimate measures that may be taken to restore order. In the second case, however, and I think the dominant one in actually preventing the majority of potential police criminality, the private system is far stronger, because it invests in no particular organisation the powers of policing. A corrupt policeman or a 'vigilante' would have to fear not just the response of his friends and colleagues, but the response of other, possibly competing, organisations, the aggrieved man and his own guards, and even the response of private citizens.
Sorry to quote this again, but Peel has very elegantly summed up almost all my views on this into a single sentence (shame he founded the Met):
"Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."
In other words, under a private system there is no dichotomy of "the police", who are above and beyond the citizen, and thereby owe him some sort of partial duty to not abuse the powers that he has claimed. There are merely individuals, some of whom are paid full time to do what is the equal right and duty of all.
8 comments:
The only real danger that I can see with private policing is that you risk legitimising and enforcing protection rackets ("All the other shops round here pay me each month, so I take care of them... If you don't pay up, something bad could happen, and wouldn't that be a shame...")
Given who are in the top ten moral countries, I pleased that we are near the bottom.
Whether the Islamists deliberately target the countries at the bottom, of whether those countries simply allow too many Islamists in and then allow them to flourish, I don't know.
RA, yes, protection rackets are a risk, but that is a risk with state policing as well, so I'm not sure it's relevant.
Nice piece.
Of course, back in Sir Robert's day, the "Peelers" were trained to uphold Common Law. It's right there in the Oath they swore when putting on the blue serge for the first time. The same Oath is taken today, but they are no respecters of Common Law.
What changed?
Hundreds of thousands of Statutes and Statutory Instruments appeared. In recent years, all police forces transmogrified into Limited companies. Even ACPO is a Ltd company. All magistrates courts are limited companies.
The single most important reason for converting to a limited company (liability issues aside for now) is to turn a profit.
Over the centuries, Peel's men changed from Peace Keepers to Police Constables and finally to Police Officers. Today they are reduced to collection agents, hence the spot fines (summary judgement-about as far from Common Law as you can get) and vicious thugs in uniform.
We need to return, not to old fashioned policing, but to proper policing, where Peace Keepers know the difference between Statute and Common Law.
It's all about money. The police and the courts no longer dispense justice.
A court is not for arbitration. It is for generating revenue.
CR.
The morality index certainly raises more questions than in answers.
"Over 70 sources were scoured for information on the attitudes of the public and legal standing against morally reprehensible actions viewed negatively by all civilized and honourable beings."
Well firstly, if they were viewed in the same way by all civilized and honourable being, then surely the answers would have all been the same? Which raises the question of who was asking and what morally reprehensible actions were they looking at? I'd also be interested to know what sources they were looking at...
I'd not be surprised to find that they considered things like "profaning the image of Mohammed" as morally reprehensible then trawled the news sites of various countries to see how they framed the Danish cartoons story.
Let's face it, it doesn't really matter what you're measuring - if Saudi Arabia is top of the list, we probably want to be as near the bottom as we can get.
Also, agreed re policing. A return to Peelian principles would be a fantastic thing.
"An organisation has recently ranked countries based on their 'morality'."
That's got to be "An Islamic organisation has recently ranked countries based on their morality with reference to shariah law". Then it all makes sense. Interesting to see the results of a similar survey done by Buddhists, though.
wv zatoc (the priest)
Interesting piece, JP.
As to the police themselves: I do not see how being an employee of the state can justly entitle someone to greater powers over others. Either arresting people in particular circumstances (or whatever) is moral and just, in which case anyone ought to be able to do it, or it is not, in which case no one should. The growth in such powers has gone hand-in-hand with the summary punishments and 'victimless crimes' for the enforcement of which they are necessary.
It's not enough to just elect police chiefs - there has to be an alteration to the whole paradigm and atmosphere in the community vis a vis police. That can only come top down, unless we, as a whole, press for it.
Private companies do hire their own investigators, brand owners do, insurance companies do. Companies that are the targets of fraudsters also hire their own fraud specialists and rarely disseminate the information they gather to the cops. To a large extent private companies do hire their own 'police' only these people have no powers.
If you did give banks and mobile phone companies the power to arrest, imprison and interogate suspected fraudsters they would likely abuse these powers, using them on people who can't pay their bills.
"So my street (for instance) could, for the same money, afford to employ a constable on a full time basis just to guard our street."
It's not about affordability, it's about intelligence, (no not IQ), forensics, the ability for the police to join up and conduct searches, sharing of information.
I can see these private police being good for patrolling a street, but if my child was kidnapped i think i'd be calling the plod.
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