Women reporting serious crime being arrested and detained (immigration status)

[SardineReturns]

article on BBC today [[I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Victims of serious crime face arrest - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44074572]]

In case anyone really had doubts about who the police really "work for".

Going against guidelines to get "low hanging fruit" arrests, vulnerable victims of crime.

They were supposed to stop doing this after newspapers reported a few years back about the treatment of child slaves in the UK (mainly boys & cannabis farms but also those forced into prostitution and other forms of work) but here we have this.

I found this part ironic "There are fears the approach is stopping vulnerable people - including rape victims - reporting crimes, playing into the hands of traffickers."

Where rape is framed add a bad crime that is obviuosly usually reported. When in fact society sees it as a minor crime (unless there are extra circs like victim is a child, victim is also brutally beaten) and hardly anyone reports it.

Anyway, posting in case anyone hadn't seen it. Appalling behaviour by the police. And shouldn't the home office be saying no, not interested, crime victim? I suppose the police might not tell them that info.

This is the clickable link www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44074572

Thanks quarks

They’re covering it on the World at one now on radio 4.
Unbelievable. So awful

Caroline Lucas makes a case for there being a division between the police and the immigration department

Yes I think that should be explored.

Caroline Lucas makes a case for there being a division between the police and the immigration department

They aren't the same department, other than both falling under the purview of the Home Secretary.

Part of the reason for the closer working in recent years is that in the past there were many instances of the police arresting someone who had no right to be in the UK (perhaps entered illegally, perhaps overstayed their visa) and there was outrage at the lack of joined up working between agencies. Ditto with the prison service not working closely with the immigration agency to ensure that foreign national prisoners who should be deported after serving their sentence in the UK were actually removed promptly.

Thanks Olenna, useful to know.

If the police followed the home office guidelines rather than arresting victims in order to look their stats look better, that would be an obvious start.

It shows that with the police, it's not simply the crime that is important, but who the victim is. Some victims are more important than others, some are not important at all and some actually deserve punishment. This highlights this fact very starkly.

Some victims are more important than others, some are not important at all and some actually deserve punishment.

The police are in a difficult position, though, aren't they?

Let's take a hypothetical situation where a man has been the victim of a vicious street robbery resulting in him needing several stitches in his face and has a suspected broken nose. He attends A&E to get the injury seen to and he isn't able to go to work for several days because of the painkillers he is given making him sleepy and unable to drive.

Should he report this unprovoked attack to the police? Of course he should. Should the police be interested? Of course. Should the hospital treat him when he turns up in A&E with blood pouring over his face? Absolutely.

What about if he is an illegal immigrant? He came into the UK on the back of a lorry with forged papers claiming that he was an EU national but he's actually from a former Soviet bloc country that doesn't enjoy freedom of movement in the EU.

Should he still be able to go to the police and report the crime, and them take it seriously? Of course. And I also think that he should be able to access emergency care on the NHS.

But many people don't agree, and many more people think that if a police officer becomes aware that the individual reporting the crime is themselves a criminal (because, whether you agree with it or not, someone who came in on the back of a lorry is a criminal according to UK law) then the police have an obligation to follow up on that crime, as well as the street robbery being reported. Should the NHS have to report to the immigration agency that they have treated an illegal immigrant? View vary on that as well.

Now what if the victim of the street robbery is also a gang member and himself a criminal responsible for various things like drug dealing, car theft, breaking and entering. Does he still enjoy the same rights to access the criminal justice system and the NHS?

What if he is responsible for a trafficking ring? Can he still go to the police to report the attack against him? Can he get his face stitched up at A&E? And have no fear that the police might want to ask him a few questions about his own status and activities in the UK?

Personally I would be pretty pissed off with the police if they had sitting in the police station a known organised criminal who profited from the sexual exploitation of women but they decided that because he had also been the victim of a crime they couldn't do anything about his own activities.

You don't need to take hypothetical examples. You can take the actual examples used in the actual report where actual female victims of dv and rape were actually arrested, sent to detention centres etc.

You can find examples of victims who are not seen as victims at all by police, or deserving of punishment, by reading any one of a number of stories of how various forces have treated victims of crime, non immigrant victims of crime, over the last year.

I find the raising of hypothetical situations in order to minimise bad practice by the police a bit off, really.

If it's difficult for them to stick to home office guidelines by not arresting victims of rape, then let's find out why using the examples given.

Are you suggesting that some of the women in the article were pimps?

I may have misunderstood something. Otherwise, I don't understand why the response to an article about vulnerable women gets turned into one about pimps. Your suggestion is these women were criminals, I mean not just illegal immigrants but actually the perpetrators of very severe crime? Otherwise, the comment makes no sense.

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that people who commit serious crime should not be arrested if they are illegal immigrants.

The more I read and think about your comment the more it baffles me.

Why are you drawing equivalence between

A woman who is in the country illegally and is a victim of rape

And

A man who is in the country illegally, ego is between up, and is also a criminal who is running a sex trafficking ring

???

Ego is between up = and is beaten up