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Originally Posted by Pierre
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Originally Posted by Graham
But the point is that you're just going to end up with another bloody politician!
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Maybe, or maybe you may end up with a police force that responds to the publics fears and hopes. |
And you can *get* that, as I keep saying, by stopping politicians from using the Police as a political football!!!
The first thing a politician wants to do is to meddle with something to "show they're doing something". Unfortunately they don't realise that sometimes the best form of management is "hands off" and let the people *doing* the job actually *do* their job.
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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.
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Well, firstly, I would say that ALL crime needs to be dealt with.
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Yes, of course, but resources have to be used efficiently.
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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.
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I'm sure you would, but that is letting fear over-ride logic.
It makes as much sense as people stopping using trains and going back to cars because of disasters like Hatfield, when, in fact, the number of deaths on the roads each year are the equivalent of a Hatfield *every two days*!
Yet road accidents don't get media coverage unless they're really spectacular, but rail accidents are big news.
Using all those resources to chase the Ripper may have made people *think* they were safer, but not at the expense of any/ all other crime being given a lower priority as a result.
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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.
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That is evident. People's *perceptions* of what the risks of crime are and what the *actual* risks may be are two entirely different things.
Until you can step back and look at the situation *objectively* you are not going to understand what I am talking about.
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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.
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And this is a *perfect* example of what I am talking about.
Valuable and scarce resources are being expended to deal with a problem which is actually *incredibly* rare in comparison to burglaries, violence and other such crimes, because of the high profile that case got.
The *fact* of the matter is that a child is still much more likely to be abused or harmed or even killed by a close family member rather than a stranger or someone working as a caretaker, yet this fact is swamped by a mass of unreasoning emotion.
You consider it a "small price", but consider the many people who may have been mugged or had their houses broken into because resources that could have been used to deal with the criminals who commit those common offences were being dedicated to something that that is extremely rare.
Try telling someone "sorry your house was broken into or you were mugged, but that's a small price to pay to stop another Holly and Jessica, isn't it?" and see what sort of response you get.
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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".
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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????
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No, I'm not saying anything of the sort, but, once again, you make my point for me perfectly, because *THAT* is exactly the sort of rhetoric that candidates for an elected position like we're discussing would use to "prove" that *they* are the best person for the job!!
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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.
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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.
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If you were a member of their families I would not expect you to be able to look at the situation in a logical and non-emotional manner.
However I would hope that other people *would* be able to step back and see the fallacies present in your arguments.
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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.
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And once more you miss the point. The crimes you list there are *not* the ones that stick in the public consciousness because they do *not* get the mass media coverage.
The public in general do not think about these things in a non-emotional manner and putting up an official for election who *will* exploit public emotion to get the job is *not* a good idea.