The Inspector Writes

This time it's Inspector Gadget and he's back in the Daily Mail with a spirited piece about what he feels is going wrong in the police service. He is of course the long-standing author of the hugely popular police blog that bears his name and who was accorded the enormous honour of getting a mention on last Friday's BBC 1 tv programme 'Have I Got News For You'.

Well he didn't exactly get the mention, but the badgers did who he says are often identified as being responsible for breaking into garden sheds. You know, the sort of fairytale world of unreality that once identified a bus company that didn't pick up passengers 'because the buses needed to run on time.' Well it seems that in order to 'massage' crime statistics, the badgers are sometimes unjustly blamed for burgling sheds. All this is of course part of the Blair legacy where what is said is far more important than what is done.

I have to say I have always recognised much of what the Inspector describes and have a huge amount of sympathy with him and his colleagues. Yes a lot of the canteen culture displayed daily in the blog comment section is sometimes worrying, annoying and boorish, but it does us all a great service in probably painting a more accurate picture of British policing today than any HMI report, Police Authority comment or Chief Constables assertions. In many ways the police have suffered from more political interference than probation over the last twenty years or so, with more to come in the form of the ridiculous replacement of Police Authorities with elected Police Commissioners. I think it was hugely worrying when Chief Constables were appointed on fixed term contracts instead of on the same basis as Judges by indefinite Crown Appointment.

Actually mention of the Judiciary brings me on to an area where I have to part company with the Inspector. I guess it would be surprising if the probation view of the world were exactly the same as the police view because we clearly inhabit very different parts of the Criminal Justice System.  I always find it very disappointing and unhelpful when he has a regular 'pop' at the Courts for supposed inept or misguided sentencing, knowing very well that informed comment is notoriously difficult in the absence of full information. Sadly, just like politicians, the suspicion is often that the motive is to get attention from the right-wing press. 

But it's not just having a 'go' at the Courts that concerns me, not least because they can't answer back, it's also about a chap called 'Billy.'  This young man who is very well known to us all in the CJS is the source of much concern and heated debate. He has accumulated a vast number of previous convictions and whilst we bemoan him causing us enormous amounts of work and heartache, he is of course at the same time one of our best and most loyal customers. He might be reviled by the police, but paradoxically he helps to pay all our wages and ensures the mortgage is covered each month. 

Of course it could be said that it's just the job of the police to keep catching 'Billy' and hand him over to the Courts and probation service to try and stop him. True this is not a simple process and patently we only have limited success, but it is mainly our sphere of endeavour, not that of the police. We need to keep saying that the simplistic response of just locking 'Billy' up for ever-lengthening periods does not and will not work.

Politicians like Ken Clarke have now dared to say this and face down the 'lock 'em up and throw away the key' brigade and usher in some different thinking along the lines of addressing the underlying issues. It will be hugely controversial and there are dark forces within his own party who are still campaigning to get Ken Clarke 'reshuffled', but the tide has turned due to the pragmatic need to save money. I would have preferred to have won the battle on the basis of professional argument, but that's politics for you.