Should the British army take some control of crime/security in the London area?

[pettswoodmumof3]

What do you all think? There seems to be a precedent in other countries of military involvement when crime reaches a certain level.
I have always been quite relaxed about crime statistics but it seems so many people are having a bad experience now and are scared and something needs to change. Just heard another horror story of two 16 year old girls being stop and fake searched by a gang in Blackheath village of all places. So many pointless knife deaths. Some Londonders I have spoken to say they think the criminals know they have the upper hand and that the police just don't have the time to show up quickly for offences like car theft. Do we really want to be the murder capital of the world? My kids are early teens and I have to admit I am starting to worry too (and I am definitely not a paranoid person).

Night time curfews for children under 16 = police state?

Any criminal activity perpetuated by teens at night can be dealt with under existing laws, provided there are police officers available.

All an additional curfew will do is criminalise law-abiding teens, and at some point, someone will get a caution for being out after curfew because they were putting the bins out or posting a letter for their disabled mum.

Where would you even set it? Anytime before 10:30pm, you are going to criminalise teens returning home from flipping army cadets.

No would rather more funding to go towards the police, courts etc

I am in favour of a national type service for young offenders right from the start of them offending. Physical hard work, vey strict conditions and training both academic and vocational training

politically, I sit firmly in the centre, I'm centrist too, if anything.

Are you saying no prime minister would ever go there because ideologically as a nation we believe firmly in a strong demarcation between police vs army?
No, I think no prime minister SHOULD ever go there. That this one might is something that worries me greatly.

I'm not sure what 'a more civil arm' of the military would look like. They're either military or not military.

Night time curfews for children under 16 = police state?

And illegal.

There was a case a few years back where a police force (from memory the Met ?) tried to use ASBO powers to create a curfew for under 16s in a given area. It was challenged and rightly defeated under human rights legislation as it was discriminatory, and too broad in scope.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jul/21/ukcrime.immigrationpolicy

You can have a curfew keeping convicted 16 year olds in. But not a blanket curfew that doesn't distinguish between innocent and suspected.

Discussions like this tend to descend quite quickly to pretty low energy thinking. Loads of people spray "why don't they ...." suggestions around in the complete whiffle-world of imagining it would never affect them. Stop and search ? Yeah, why not ? The more the merrier. Oh, hang on, do I look like I carry a knife ? What do you mean, it's for my own good, it's them you should be stopping. And it doesn't really take too long from there to realise what "them" is really a cover for.

People are more than welcome to piss away their own civil liberties. But I'll be damned if they give mine away.

I'm not sure what 'a more civil arm' of the military would look like.

Neither am I. But I imagine their catering will be done by the 1st vegetarian pig farmers, and they'll drink tea with dairy free milk from cows.

ID cards, and curfews. . . starting to sound very like South Africa under Apartheid.

ID cards, and curfews. . . starting to sound very like South Africa under Apartheid.

If you have any direct experience, the government would love to hear from you. They need to know what bits they're missing or got wrong.

Now, about racial purity laws ....

Why not actually solve the problem instead? Properly find the services that work with groups likely to offend (social services, state schools, fostering services, mental health services, rehabilitation services etc) in order to reduce the number of dangerous people out there. And properly fund the police so that are adequately equipped to deal with the ones that are out there.

If you have any direct experience, the government would love to hear from you. They need to know what bits they're missing or got wrong,

LOL.

Also, the police are already supported by armed forces in emergencies. However the military is not capable of enforcing civilian law (I know, believe me, court marshals are a joke). I know people who have worked in both fields and I’d take an expansion of the police force over military expansion any day. You have to consider the organisational culture as much as the practicality. The military has a very very ubhealthy internal culture which is five when they’re empowered to shoot other soliders/terrorists but not when they’re empowered to shoot civilians. That’s the question you gave to ask yourself. Who should be allowed to shoot me?

Re ID cards, they’re just inconvenient. I come from somewhere where it’s an offence to drive without having your licence on you which is ridiculous. You should only criminalise behaviour that interferes with the rights of individuals (e.g. killing someone, stealing their stuff etc). The government has no legitimate right to throw people in prison for doing things that Parliament doesn’t like.

No, the Army have enough to deal with and should only be used as a last resort. It's not their job. Why not stop cutting police funding instead?

Much better to address poverty / multiple deprivation, re-open our youth clubs, make sure young people have opportunities and are kept safe. Spend money on prevention.

That’s the question you gave to ask yourself. Who should be allowed to shoot me?

It's clear from this thread that for some people the question is "Who am happy for soldiers to shoot that isn't me ?"

The problem with whipping up a mob, where anger increases with IQ decreasing is that people never stop to think what a "criminal" is. There's no innate definition. A criminal is simply someone the state has decided is a criminal. So remember when people putting their bins out on the wrong day suddenly found themselves investigated using anti-terror laws ?

Also, I don't think it's a great idea to reward governments for their own incompetence by giving them more powers. If anything we should be removing powers from them as they are clearly incapable of using them properly.

Anyway, the biggest push back from putting soldiers on the streets won't come from UK subjects. It will come from the realisation that martial law in the UK isn't a great plug for "invest in us".

The army are there to defend us from external enemies,
to help in natural disasters like serious flooding
and to support the police in genuine emergencies where their skill set is appropriate

The army should be allowed to do their proper job and train in between times for doing this.

They shouldn't be used as a cut-price alternative to do public service jobs for which they are not trained,
just becuse government has cut funding for those services

Police go through extensive training,
exclude some recruits that the army accepts

• and are paid a lot more than squaddies

If you want to tackle crime, then be prepared to pay taxes for more trained police officers
also for courts, probation officers, prisons ....
and for social workers & services to stop so many kids turning to crime

The army are there to defend us from external enemies

The army are there to do what they are ordered to do. History tells us this. We can keep your aspiration, of course, when we can designate striking miners as external enemies and send the troops in - all very Churchillian.

ProfessorSlocombe, I think that's a bit snitty what you say to BigChoc. The two of you actually appear to be in agreement but you're twisting and reinterpreting BigChoc's words.

Up until the army is deployed to suppress strikes happens, it'll be comedy gold on MN. I look forward to the threads complaining of the inadequate response to their parking dispute from two overwhelmed 19-year-old squaddies.

Regarding kids/teenagers turning to crime, do you think that in most cases a teacher/GP/parent/friend was worried this was likely to happen to that kid? And if they worried/knew - what or who could have helped them? Once you are in the criminal justice system with a criminal record, there is no wiping the slate clean even if you just "slid" into it. Should there be a reporting system for such kids? Or does that also offend civil liberties? Is there actually anything anyone can do?

We need harsher prisons and prison sentences. More police funding. Show people they are not above the law. People commit crimes because they don’t expect to be caught, and if they are the sentences are too lenient.

Wrong and wrong again. It's been proven time and time again that increasing sentence length and making prisons harsher don't do anything to reduce crime.

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/about-sentencing/sentencing-myths/

If we really want to reduce crime rates we need to address the root causes, mainly social, educational, economic inequality.

The majority of criminals are young men from poor backgrounds. Young boys from the poorest areas, especially minorities, are falling way behing in educational attainment and it doesn't take a genius to work out what that leads to.

A poor education = limited opportunities to improve their lives.

Imagine being a 12,13,14 year old boy with no hope of going to uni or college or getting an apprenticeship and being faced with a life of insecure minimum wage jobs.
You then look around and see other boys like you running around in designer clothes with the latest phones. You see older boys, who were like you too, with top of the range cars, wads of cash and a nice place to live.

All you need to do to have all that too is hide this packet in your room, delivery this packet across town, sell these packets in the park etc etc.

It's not hard to see why so many go down that route and at the end of the day even if they're caught and go away for 5-10 years in your miserable prison they're still going to come out with the same lack of opportunity and the same choices.

Until we sort out the inequality in our society crime will always pay.

Re ID cards, I actually support the introduction of these. We have them here and it really makes life easier. You should carry the card at all times, most people stick it with their phone now days.

Want to open a bank account, you don't need electric bills etc etc you just use your ID card, it states your home address on it.

If you move house you apply for a new ID card (free), the only thing that changes is the address - you have 14 days to this.

Want to sign up for a cell-phone w contract - use your ID card, no other docs needed.

Want to prove you are over 18 to buy cigs/wine - the card is the one of only two allowed IDs, the other is a foreign passport

Want to buy a car from someone knowing that they are who they claim to be - ask to see their ID card, no card = no sale.

Want to rent a house out? Take a photo of their ID, will make potential future issues easier as if they leave and rent someone else you can get ask court to access their new address in order to recover arrears.

The ID number is their NHS equivalent number, any company that employs them, school, uni whatever will make a copy of the card and the number follows them for life,

All foreigners who gain residence (students, workers, spouse) get a card/number too which is there number for everything.

Using someone else ID is v serious and prison sentences start at around 5 yrs.

Lost ID cards have something like a 85% found and returned rate, if you find one you take it to the local PO who register post it back to the person free of charge.

Up until the army is deployed to suppress strikes happens, it'll be comedy gold on MN. I look forward to the threads complaining of the inadequate response to their parking dispute from two overwhelmed 19-year-old squaddies.

It happened in 1910 (if I remember correctly) against striking Miners in Tonypandy, but no deaths were reported, and later in 1911 they were deployed to several towns against striking railway workers, resulting in 2 deaths in Liverpool

You don't need to go back to 1910 ... you can see what having the army on the streets doing the polices job was like in the 70s in Northern Ireland. I recall at least one car of teenagers getting shot (they all died) at a checkpoint.

I really don't want an obvious military presence in my city. It would feel too much like Northern Ireland in the 1970s/80s. I have relatives there and it felt very oppressive.

I'm not sure what 'a more civil arm' of the military would look like. They're either military or not military.

Like France's Gendarmerie, Italy's Carabinieri, or Spain's Guardia Civil, perhaps. It's an established model in Europe. But it's not "putting the Army on the streets", it's a distinct police force with its own recruitment and training.

Like I mentioned before something like that isn't the British way, as it were. We should be investing in the civilian police forces we have.

(And Spain's Guardia most recently got global fame for using force to disrupt Catalonia's referendum. Is that really what we should look for for inspiration?)