Ian Blair: twisted policing vision

Missed this earlier in the week, or only glanced at it from a different angle but we have:

Ian "I will not resign, I considered resigning" Blair wanting 'Judge Dredd' powers:(Telegraph)

Britain's top police officer was accused last night of paving the way for "Judge Dredd law" by proposing that officers should be allowed to by-pass the courts and confiscate driving licences, seize vehicles and issue anti-social behaviour orders on the spot.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said "modernisation" of the force should be carried forward by introducing "an escalator of powers" for the dispensing of instant justice.

Now while jultra is no expert on the history of the police I do know that Robert Peel's vison was that the Police's existence, actions and behavior were dependent on the approval of the public (currently gone with Ian Blair of course), the concept that police themselves are members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen and the seperation of Police and judiciary:

An important factor in Peel's plan was the separation of policing and the judiciary. Peel felt that the police should be responsible for one facet of the law, that being the prosecution phase. The trial, conviction and punishment phase would be placed in the hands of the judiciary. This concept remains virtually unchanged today.



These concepts were slightly redescribed by Sir Richard Mayne, the first joint Met Commisoner but are essentially the same. However it is Peel's principles which are important. Mayne himself lost the plot badly after a series of gaffs and bad policing and policy decisions (sound familiar?)

Obviously armed military personnel posing as police is a terrible idea, as are more powers that should be handled by courts, so it's not hard to recognize Ian Blair's vision as a twisted warping of what policing is actually about, designed to distort and pollute the role of the Metropolitan Police:

He acknowledged that giving police powers currently exercised only by the courts would be controversial but could be seen as legitimate if they were used by properly trained constables.

"There is something here about making justice more immediately apparent, not only to the offender but also to the society that the offender is irritating,"

Now of course the vision of policing in the UK has often been distorted, perhaps most horrifically and nastily with the indiscriminate collection and storage of DNA samples, a disgusting practice that is used to arbitrarily harass, most recently in the arrest of a guy with a laptop on the tube but what will become tens of thousands of British motorists DNA swabbed for minor traffic offenses.

Oh and who was pushing the extension of the DNA database to 'anyone arrested' in March 2003 when he was still deputy commissioner ?! Who d'ya think!

Truly there are good cops, bad cops, and super bad politically sick cops. All of this nonsense needs to come to an end. There is no middle line here, no compromise and no room for corrupt, depraved police chiefs whipping up yet more sick rubbish.