Yep… gun free Britain, a haven of peace and tranquility… NOT!

ANdy…

Overwhelmed police force wants to farm out its murder inquiries
By Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

POLICE funding is to be overhauled to give greater flexibility on spending amid concern over staff targets. The Chief Constable of one of Britain’s biggest forces has admitted that officers cannot cope with the level of violent crime.

Steve Green, Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, said yesterday that current financing arrangements left his force unable to cope with the number of murders which have overwhelmed his officers.

The force, the worst performing in England and Wales, has had to borrow officers from other forces for investigations.Mr Green said he was preparing to “farm out” murder investigations to other forces because his detectives did not have the time to tackle them.

He plans to pass Category C murder inquiries, such as domestic killings, to other forces to investigate. Nottinghamshire has up to 30 murder investigations under way, including some incidents dating as far back as 1983 and 1988. It has run out of major incident rooms, and classrooms in training blocks are being converted for officers to work in.

Mr Green, who has been Chief Constable since 2000, said: “We are reeling with murders. We are in a longstanding crisis situation with major crime and it won’t go away overnight. Having police doing back-office jobs is one of the factors.” He said that government funding arrangements and the drive to increase the number of police officers was resulting in officers doing clerical work. There have been mounting complaints from chief constables that the current funding arrangements are a “straitjacket” which prevents forces from making best use of their officers and civilian staff in the fight against crime.

Cash from the Government’s Crime Fighting Fund can be spent only on extra police officers. The result has been a surge in police numbers in England and Wales to reach record levels. But as overall police budgets have become tighter, forces have let civilian staff leave and officers are doing their jobs instead.

Senior officers are pressing to be allowed more flexibility over spending money from the fund. It would allow them to hire civilian forensic analysts or civilian crime investigators rather than having to employ more officers.

The Home Office is preparing to create an overall Neighbourhood Policing Fund, which will give the senior officers some of the flexibility they are demanding.

But ministers are wary about relaxing the guidelines too much because they fear that without ring-fencing the drive to increase police numbers would falter as forces divert cash to other priorities.

Chris Fox, chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “The Crime Fighting Fund was an excellent way of increasing police numbers. We have been asking for more flexibility in how we spend from the fund. The Home Office would like to do it but it is difficult in the face of every political party focusing on more police officers now rather than on the totality of the police service.”

Despite Mr Green’s complaints about funding the arrangements, the difficulties he is facing also relate to years of under-performance that have allowed organised criminality and a gang culture to establish itself in Nottingham city.

In 2003 Nottinghamshire became the first force in more than a decade to fail a Home Office test on effectiveness and efficiency. Graham Allen, the Labour MP for Nottingham North, last night rounded on the Chief Constable, accusing him of demoralising officers. He said that he had talked with Mr Green twice last week but the Chief Constable had not raised the issue.

“Nottinghamshire Constabulary have got an extra 319 police officers since 2000, which is a serious increase. One has to ask whether they are being properly deployed,” he said.

Nottinghamshire is set to receive £132.8million from the Home Office in 2005-06, an increase of more than 4 per cent.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1524965,00.html

“We are reeling with murders. We are in a longstanding crisis situation with major crime and it won’t go away overnight.

No, it won't go away overnight since your stupid gooberment has methodically destroyed the ability of its citizens to protect and defend themselves for the past 50 years or more.   (not to mention the time and manpower you squander when you ARREST and PROSECUTE those "uppity" citizens that *DARE* to have the AUDACITY to actually think they can raise a finger to protect themselves from thugs, robbers, rapists and murderers.

And of course, the sheep (not you, Andy) in Britain continue to bleat, and not once do they consider that maybe disarming the citizens has emboldened the hard-corps criminals and caused this overwhelming of the police force.

You know, it's like our police force over here is AUGMENTED by an auxillary of over 60-80 million members, due to those 60-80 million citizens owning firearms.

Official Statistics for Violence in Britain 2002/2003

According to the Governments British Crime Survey:

In 2002/03, the total number of violent offences in England & Wales was 2,781,000.

These included:

501,000 incidents of domestic violence
942,000 incidents where the offender was an acquaintance
949,000 incidents where the offender was a stranger
388,000 incidents of mugging

The population of Britain is 60,000,000

Quoted: Official Statistics for Violence in Britain 2002/2003 According to the Governments British Crime Survey: In 2002/03, the total number of violent offences in England & Wales was 2,781,000. These included: 501,000 incidents of domestic violence 942,000 incidents where the offender was an acquaintance 949,000 incidents where the offender was a stranger 388,000 incidents of mugging The population of Britain is 60,000,000

 I say again!  Five percent of Britains are victims of violent crime!!!! Holy shit Batman! And there isn't a revolt??

Quoted: Official Statistics for Violence in Britain 2002/2003 According to the Governments British Crime Survey: In 2002/03, the total number of violent offences in England & Wales was 2,781,000. These included: 501,000 incidents of domestic violence 942,000 incidents where the offender was an acquaintance 949,000 incidents where the offender was a stranger 388,000 incidents of mugging The population of Britain is 60,000,000

where can I buy a catapult before they too are banned....

Chez Vito...lead the revolution....thinking photoshop t-shirts....

unarmed civilians, thousands of em

Taffy

Quoted: Quoted: Damn bud, in the US in 2000 there were a total of 1,424,289 violent crimes for a population of 281,421,906.  Of that 15,517 were murders and 910,000 aggravated assaults.   Eihter we let a hell of alot go unpunished here than there or you chaps may be a tad overestimating how bad our crime problem is here compared to there. I'm afraid the criminal has rights issue in the UK making a society of victims is impacting your crime rate the wrong direction. Tj

FWIW Tj,

The 2002/2003 Police figures for actual assault charges logged on 'charge sheets' was 835,101 charges of 'Assault against the person'…

The Government uses two sets of figures depending on how it wants to play things…

When it is trying to play down crime it only counts actual charges brought, reported crimes that don't result in a charge being brought are not listed as 'assaults' in the Official statistics.

So, although there have been two attemped burglaries and one incident of criminal damage at my home, as no one was 'charged' the incidents did not happen for the purposes of calculating the crime statistics. And as less than 1 in 10 burglaries now results in a someone being charged, hey preto! the burglary rate magically falls!

ANdy

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Damn bud, in the US in 2000 there were a total of 1,424,289 violent crimes for a population of 281,421,906.  Of that 15,517 were murders and 910,000 aggravated assaults.   Eihter we let a hell of alot go unpunished here than there or you chaps may be a tad overestimating how bad our crime problem is here compared to there. I'm afraid the criminal has rights issue in the UK making a society of victims is impacting your crime rate the wrong direction. Tj FWIW Tj, The 2002/2003 Police figures for actual assault charges logged on 'charge sheets' was 835,101 charges of 'Assault against the person'… The Government uses two sets of figures depending on how it wants to play things… When it is trying to play down crime it only counts actual charges brought, reported crimes that don't result in a charge being brought are not listed as 'assaults' in the Official statistics. So, although there have been two attemped burglaries and one incident of criminal damage at my home, as no one was 'charged' the incidents did not happen for the purposes of calculating the crime statistics. And as less than 1 in 10 burglaries now results in a someone being charged, hey preto! the burglary rate magically falls! ANdy

May I ask Andy, what keeps you there? 3 times a victim and the gov't won't help you, which is fine but the gov't won't allow you to help yourself which is a violation of a basic human right. Hell, Britain is on it's way to becoming a third world country with crime like that. I don't think they will change either. After WW2, they disarmed themselves. Where is the logic in that? Hell, seems like a small coup of organized terrorists could take the place over. Not bashing your homeland, just the people in charge. People have a right to be secure in their homes, hmm wonder where I heard that before?

Here's something interesting you might to hear about Euro-crime. True story. Although it took place in the netherlands not the UK. I was hanging out in Den Hague, looking for a pub i was to meet some friends at. Suddenly I was blocked by some black guy with a with a bad accent. He said to me in dutch "gimmie your money" but i played like a dumb american who did'nt understand him, Iwas like Huh? mac? what da hell yo talkin about? in my thickest brooklyn accent. Then he said in english, Give me your money I 've got a knife in my pocket. But obviously he never mugged someone who grew up in New york before!! I laughed and said 'motherfucker you better kill me.' He just stood there dumbfounded then we went at it, I knew he did'nt have a knife he was just a punk. Now in Den Hague it's kinda like Venice you could fall into a canal if you're not careful!! Then like a group of 8 English tourists came and tought we knew eachother and were fighting over a girl or something. They broke it up and called 'de politie' Then I told my story and guess what happened? they let us both walk !! Cause he did'nt have a knife! And they thought it was just a street brawl. The Nederlanders are cool but sometimes can be TOO tolerant!

bump for the evening shift…