[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Graham

But the point is that you're just going to end up with another bloody politician!

Maybe, or maybe you may end up with a police force that responds to the publics fears and hopes.

The "crimes that the public care about" are often the ones that get the most media coverage and make people go "something must be done!", but they are very often not necessarily the ones that really *need* to be dealt with.

Well, firstly, I would say that ALL crime needs to be dealt with. People get killed and go missing every day, of course one or two certain crimes gain media attention. This is usually because there's an angle to the story.

The yorkshire ripper was a high profile case with a lot of resources thrown at it, and if you were a young woman in West Yorkshire at the time you'd bloody well be glad that there were.

Likewise the Soham murdrers, if you were a parent around Ely and Cambridge during that time you'd want the police to throw evrything they had at finding the killer, they did and caught him quickly.

I really don't see your point.

Consider the Soham Murders and the fallout from that whereby everyone who wants to get a job working with children or even working in areas *close* to children has to have a Criminal Record check which has resulted in the Criminal Records Bureau being swamped with a mass of applications that caused and is still causing backlogs.

Or we could let convicted child molestors and abusers to continue to work with children unchecked.!!!!

Which is why the two girls are no longer here!

I'm afraid a backlog of applications for jobs is a small price to pay.

Now I appreciate that the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was a tragedy, but they were, in all honesty, an *isolated* incident,however due to the press coverage, any elected Comissioner who did *not* immediately respond to public concerns or said "this is not a sensible use of resources" would end up, as I pointed out in previous messages, being faced with claims that "they are failing to protect children".

So are you saying that when two young children both go missing that without press coverage the police would take their own sweet time about finding them????

As said before children go missing and/or killed all too often, and the police will put the same effort into finding them whether it's headline news or not. By the time these things reach the papers the police investigation is usually well underway.

The end result would be that resources would end up being used up in an inefficient way because it would *look good* to the public.

This is the problem with elected officials.

I know it's not the way you want it to come across, but if I was a member of Hollys or Jessicas family, I'd be really offended by your post.

I couldn't disagree with you more.


look around the country and what are the publics issues with crime.

Anti-social behaviour
Burglery
Speed cameras

These issues are what needs to be tackled 24/7 and on what the police will be judged. Not isolated terrible public crimes as you suggest.