Collapse of confidence in police

I don’t understand why sexism and misogyny is not classed as a hate crime. You simply cannot report serious verbal abuse or abuse on social media against women and even hope to get listened to. Even with sex as a protected characteristic.

Yet it is very well known that sexism and the escalation of abuse towards women is a common denominator in the backgrounds of men who go on to commit serious violent crimes. Including being a background behaviour in almost every single convicted terrorist. DV is there in most cases for example.

So if the real reason behind hate incident reports and recording is to spot patterns and prevent future serious crime, why isn’t this indication included? It’s overwhelmingly well evidenced and often referred to in the press when men are convicted.

But childish poems, leaflets quoting the dictionary and penis stickers on doors results in immediate action and unlimited resources being dispatched pronto. You can’t complain about lack of resources while at the same time applying that which you do have on wild goose (not gander) chases.

Really? I suggest you apply that smug, baseless assertion in the places around the globe which have draconian sentences. And very little crime

That is a pretty aggressive response, given that you have not provided any data to prove me wrong. Or are you allowed to make baseless assertions, and it's just me who isn't?

The US has 4% of the world's population and 21% of the world's prisoners. Its crime rates are considerably higher than ours. As some states have finally started to reduce incarceration rates, their crime levels have fallen link

Please show me the evidence of high incarceration rates reducing crime rates in any democracy.

There's a good article in the Times today with Jawad Iqbal covering the implications of Harry's case. Share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5c14ed62-51ca-11ea-b4ee-385bb4c8d255?shareToken=850c7d43a4b65d064eee519c7c3b0fa3

@BovaryX it's very hard when the mantra is 'trans rights are human rights' to remember that trans people actually have more rights under law than women do in terms of transphobia/misogyny. But we do need to remind ourselves of that.

Going slightly off topic, there was a comment on here referencing someone who had worked on the Labour Party manifesto who said that the the TRAs focus was 100% on this sort of thing, rather than the material things that would make an actual positive difference to trans people's lives, for example healthcare funding.

I think some balance needs to be restored

Friends have been attacked in their homes by strangers as well as husbands and the police do nothing.

But if you accidentally go into a bus lane or drive 4 miles over the speed limit then they are all over you like a rash.

I think that adds to the animosity

I would really, really love to see some evidence that this kind of 'hate crime' - ie writing something on Twitter - escalates into, well, anything really.

Whereas we do actually have hard evidence that DV escalates to murder (of women), rough sex escalates to murder (of women)...

And as always, I'm reminded that transphobia is a crime and misogyny isn't. So limericks bad, rape threats totally legal.

In terms of the police, centralising the force has been a disaster in Scotland, where I'm from. I called the police about a very drunk man on an off-road path a while back - he'd freaked me out but actually I was worried he was a danger to himself as there was a railway nearby - and the call handler just could not get a fix on where I was - not her fault, she had precisely zero local knowledge. Anyone who knew the area would have known where it was. I presume he was eventually picked up because The police then called me thinking I was the man's girlfriend, gave out loads of personal info and told me to come pick him up! A tiny example compared to those on this thread, but indicative of how easy it is to get policing wrong when you move resources away from the communities they are supposed to protect.

Prison might not work but for a time at least it keeps people off the streets.

The left wing have been peddling the BS mantra that criminals are victims and prison doesn't work

The police failing to act on crimes and incarceration are 2 different issues.

Prison doesn't work as a deterrent : it is an extremely expensive way of turning someone into a lifelong burden on society. It breaks social and familial ties, restricts future employment and leads to homelessness - all of which lead to reoffending, as ex-convicts have no other means of generating income or - in the 'best' case scenario, to ex-cons being dependent on benefits for life. Prison does work to keep the rest of society safe from dangerous individuals and should be reserved for those people, and for really persistent offenders for whom all other interventions have failed.

But none of that excuses police inaction.

Yeah I think the broken window idea has been pretty thoroughly discredited now - it was fashionable in the 90s after Malcolm Gladwell's book but even he has since walked it back. The crime drop occurred in places that did and did not implement those strategies. I think the first scholarly work on this was in around 2001 and it just keeps coming.

Also can't help but note that the UK police are perhaps following this strategy. Their "broken window" is arguments on Twitter and that is why breastfeeding women are being thrown in cells and losing their jobs. And why 120,000 non crimes are being put on the police records of ordinary people.

I think it was in New York that they started the 3 strikes and you are out. Automatic prison for quite a big sentence. I really think we should bring in something like this

I suggest you read up on how it played out in the States. It's widely recognised as having been a disaster that led to the mass incarceration and lifelong exclusion from society of hundreds of thousands of young men who would otherwise probably have grown out of petty crimes like cannabis possession or shop-lifting. It's also phenomenally expensive.

This graph shows what happened to the US prison population when 3 strikes was introduced in the 80s.

I think it was in New York that they started the 3 strikes and you are out. Automatic prison for quite a big sentence.

I really think we should bring in something like this.

I remember reading that in one area that most of the crimes were committed by a small handful of people.

Taking them off the street would actually mean freeing up police time.

This has been going on for some time now. I have heard so many stories of people who have done the investigating themselves, identified the culprit and no action taken. (if you google this you will come across so many examples)

I am sure cuts have had a part in this and the fact that they are now basically office based. This is from 3 years ago: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41633205

I did hear another explanation that many local police think they can identify the main causes of crimes as being one particular family / network of friends. And it is easier to monitor them and get a higher conviction rate that endless paper work for "minor crimes".

But as we know this has now speard into more serious crimes being dropped.

And creates an atmosphere where people feel there is no point. I heard on one phone in programme that someone had been out shopping with family in local shopping centre and they were in a sports shop. A group of young men walked in and started taking things they wanted off the shelves etc., and staff just stood there. Apparently this sort of "invasion" stealing had become so common staff had been told not to intervene and that it was built into insurance costs etc.. And then customers just went back to shopping!

And from follow up calls it didn't seem to be that unusual.

Friend had a gang of men invade her home with weapons. Dialled 999 whilst running for a bedroom where she barricaded herself in.

The police wandered around several hours later.

They didn’t bother taking fingerprints or even one of the weapons that had been left behind.
They just gave her a crime number

Another has an injunction out on her ex.
Him and his Male family members were parked on her driveway and banging on the front door shouting at her.

She called the emergency number she was given. They came out 2 days later
Apparently it is one word against the other.

Her ex takes no notice of the injunction because despite breaking it multiple times he knows the police won’t do anything

Mrsnoah2020 do you know I was thinking as I read the first part of your post ‘I bet the guy was a Freemason’. Unfortunately this has been my experience of the police also, although it was 20 years ago now and I’d hoped the force had really been cleaned up. The force I was involved with acted like complete thugs, and worked on the sides of the criminals who also happened to be masons. The corruption went right up through the CPS too. It was really quite shocking. I have never had any faith in the police again. Although I’m sure that the vast majority of officers are brilliant.

I called the police to look for my missing 11 year old dd. One arrived after she'd reappeared. Lone male police officer tried to go into dd's bedroom, alone with her (she was curled up in bed) and close the door behind him to 'talk to her'. Luckily her mother is a badass who was having fucking none of it, but imagine how many vulnerable kids that man must deal with daily who don't have a competant adult to look out for them.

I wasn't badass enough to report him though, for fear of repercussions.