UK Police Chief demands Government Targets be scrapped

Chief Supt Ian Johnston of the Superintendents Association is to attack the whole concept of Government crime fighting targets and demand they be scrapped.

He has a point. Government and Nu-Lab in particular seems to have a sort of 'Midas touch' in reverse, where every thing it touches turns to crap – but without the redeeming possibility of it being composted and therefore of some use.

Government crime fighting targets are yet another example of where in the galloping pursuit of yet another sound-bite, or unexamined quick-fix policy, the full ramifications are not properly thought through and the law of unintended consequences bites NU-Lab on the backside yet again.

What actually happens is that the limited targets are concentrated on, often to the exclusion of actually doing the job properly.

In the case of the police that can mean, instead of responding to the needs of their local population, in a given area, they can end up arresting victims, as well as perpetrators to get extra ‘detections’.

End up arresting, or reporting people, that would be more effectively dealt with differently, or do not actually need dealing with in the first place.

Thus producing the ‘right’ figures becomes a ghastly parody of what the public actually wants and the police begin to loose the general support of the public.

Government needs to consider much of it’s policies and legislation very much more carefully than it does.

It is in far too much of a hurry to legislate and ‘reform’ to bother to make sure what it does is not seriously flawed. It has weakened scrutiny further by weakening/pulling the teeth of the House of Lords. Consequently much of what Nu-Lab have done since they came to power is flawed.

Some of the chickens are taking longer than others to come home to roost, but come home they inevitably will, sooner or later. As they do Nu-Lab tries to cover it with spin where they can.

There is of course little they, or any of us, can do about the increasingly large proportion of legislation and directives imposed on us by Europe and it’s court.