Criminal Justice

I see the recriminations and the political blame game has erupted between the police and the politicians.  David Cameron has apparently at long last realised that some senior police officers are playing their own political game and unless he does something about it the electorate will blame him! Do you know we might just have some reason to thank the stupid, young criminals who caused the riots because they exposed the senior police officers to charges of incompetence.

They were so busy analysing their own positions and the reaction to their reaction that they forgot that people were losing businesses and criminals were running riot. Their failure to respond immediately meant that they failed everyone. They failed the public (as usual) but more importantly they failed their own front line officers many of whem knew that they should be responding.

Now David Cameron is proposing to talk to a top American cop who has already cleaned up the gang culture in his local town. Predictably howls of rage from the top police brass. The BBC have wheeled in uniform after uniform raging at the politicians for not backing them. Not a hint of contrician that so many people lost their homes and businesses.

The truth is that our whole criminal justice system has to be reformed if we are to return to being a civilized country again.  Initially we must return to a uniform presence on our streets . The young offenders must begin to fear the law again.

Then we must punish offenders. No more light sentences, short sentences, ASBO's, warnings or community orders. At the moment criminals and more importantly young offenders don't respect or fear the law and they laugh at magistrates who have so many constraints placed upon them.

Then we must revamp the prisons and put prison offices back in charge. Get rid of the luxury goods and keep the lawyers away from the prisoners.  The complete system must be reformed so that the public and the victim is considered before the 'rights' of the offender.

Until David Cameron imposes himself on the criminal justice system then he will fail. Tinkering at the edges will not be sufficient. Margaret Thatcher had to confront the unions but Mr Cameron has a much more difficult job because he almost has to tackle everyone in the criminal justice system.

He would however emerge a national hero and would probably be the Prime Minister for as long as he wanted if he brought sanity back to the nation. Finally beware of those who are echoing the words 'knee jerk'; they are only defending a system which brought about the recent riots.