On Mon, 7 Jul 2008, Mike Hughes wrote:

In message , Tom Anderson
writes
On Sun, 6 Jul 2008, Mike Hughes wrote:

In message , Neil Williams
writes
On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 15:25:12 +0100, Mike Hughes
wrote:

Boris has promised to double the number of officers employed on specific
enforcement from 34 to 68. I doubt if that will be enough but it is a
start.
Why can the general police not make some progress in enforcing this?
After all, a crime is, in my understanding, being committed.

That's a question that many people, nit just those in the taxi trade, have
asked. The main problem appears to be that of having the 'political' will
to do something as to take someone to court requires time and money. That
money has increased since introduction of PACE (Police and Criminal
Evidence Act) as introduced (IMO)

That's true. Before PACE, you could just forge a confession and beat a
suspect into signing it, which was much more cost-effective than all this
'proof' business.

There were undoubtedly *some* miscarriages of justice pre-PACE which
needed to be addressed. It is at the 'lower' levels of criminal
prosecutions such as most traffic offences that PACE has imposed an
extra layer of bureaucracy which has increased costs. It is these costs
concerns that mean these offences are not going to court and *some* (not
all) guilty persons are not being punished.

In the original context of this part of the thread that the 'touting' and
unlawful plying for hire, etc. is not being dealt with.

I can remember way back when I was a police officer we would prosecute (low
level) cases at magistrates court without getting solicitors involved and the
magistrates would decide based upon the evidence. Nowadays the CPS 'decide'
the case beforehand with cost being a greater consideration that it used to
be.

IMO 'low' level crime, if not dealt with, leads to a greater and greater
likelihood of people continuing to break the law and treat with more and
more contempt.

This is a very interesting point, Mike, one i hadn't thought of before,
and one which you have expressed very clearly, and perhaps with more
patience than my sarcastic response deserved.

The protections PACE and related laws gave to the public are extremely
important ones, and i'm very concerned by recent movements towards
reducing them in the name of efficiency (the stop and search receipts, for
instance). However, i can see that when it comes to low-level crime,
runaway bureaucracy can get in the way of dealing with problems. I am a
bit skeptical about this being a direct consequence of the law, rather
than being manufactured by overzealous administrators in the police and
CPS, but it certainly sounds like a real problem.

tom

--
There are lousy reviews, and then there's empirical ****ness. -- pikelet