The Bitch, and Doing It With A Beat!
Well Darlings,Spin, fraud, and deception - to my mind they are all as despicable as each other and differ only in some small technicality. Today we live in a murky world where our everyday lives can never escape these evils. They are everywhere. From the politician right down to the high street trader, everybody thinks it is perfectly okay for them not to be straight and upfront with you - it is to be expected, so it doesn't really matter. What kind of a civilisation have we degenerated into?
Creeping in hardly noticed, as it was concealed in the small print of the 2006 Fraud Act (which so aptly came into force on April 1st - April Fools' Day), was a change in the law approved by the Home Office and the Police Chiefs which says that anyone falling victim to credit card fraud should report it only to their bank, and should not bother their police force with it - so all but removing this eventuality as a crime. We pay for our police forces to fight crime - it's what they do - not our banks!
Never mind that the police teams with expertise gained over many years in investigating card fraud are being disbanded; never mind that the investigation of card fraud will now be left to bank staff who don't have the knowledge, expertise or powers to do the job effectively; never mind the banks will now be able to manipulate the embarrassing card fraud figures to their own ends and mislead the public about the true severity of the issue - the establishment is extremely happy with this situation because yet another great swath of crime will, when the official figures are published, appear to be being tackled efficiently because the numbers will have decreased.
Since our crime figures now only consist of those crimes the police actually deal with, deceptively the trend appears to be improving when we all know it is a fact that the true crime rates are worsening. If they were not, how else can the crisis in our prison population be explained? And we all know those criminals that are caught and sentenced represent only the tip of an almighty iceberg. All the spin in the world about how crime rates are falling and that it is only our "perception of crime" which is at fault does nothing at all to change the undeniable facts or to pacify anyone. Physical assaults falling in your area? Just check out your local A&E figures before believing that one! We have over recent years been told of the results of even gun crimes which have not made it on to the official crime figures. Crime rates only appear to fall on paper because if a copper hasn't attended, then it hasn't happened - official!
On paper the crime rate for burglary appears to have improved - but many will argue, and convincingly so, that this is only because now far fewer people bother to report it. With so many people today unable to afford home insurance, a fact made abundantly clear with all the sad cases we see on our televisions following every natural disaster, what use is a policeman turning up three days later merely to issue a crime number for an insurance company? And even that crime number you may sometimes be asked to collect yourself from the police station!
People know all this; they are not fools. They know that unless they live in a very select area, or happen to be someone of importance, there is very little point in them reporting a crime - so fewer and fewer of them do. Today it is not unusual to hear stories of where the police have telephoned someone back hours after they have reported a crime to see if they are still needed. If the original call concerned social disorder or street violence, as may often be the case, then that much later a police presence usually won't be needed, and so there is another crime that escapes the official figures. A case recently reported in our local paper here told of several such telephone call-backs, and over many hours, before a lone policeman turned up. Are we wrong to expect a better service?
Today everything is to do with spin, fraud, and deception - of finding a way to deceive the everyday person instead of being fit for purpose - and I don't like it! I would far rather pay more taxes if need be (or have a government that wasted much less money on stupid ideas!) and live in a country where a policeman walking along the street was a familiar sight and not a rarity; where I could go into town on my own of an evening and not feel threatened; where I would not have to worry if my grandchildren were being mugged for their bicycles or their iPods every time they went out to play, or worse were being subjected to physical or sexual abuse; and where every single crime was efficiently followed up by the police.
Such a country would need a massive increase in police manpower and resources. That would be expensive, but still a price well worth paying - and contrary to what some people might think, done properly we would soon be living in far less of a "police state" than we do today. All the countless laughable and pathetic council-appointed jumped-up Hitlers out there at the moment costing us a fortune checking on the likes of litter louts and parking offenders should be replaced with proper policemen, those who once used to do these jobs. Along with such mundane tasks comes a whole load of local intelligence gathering, information, respect and familiarity that goes a long way towards fighting crime. Neither the allocated (and often frequently changing) to an area "community police officer" seen only on rare occasions these days, nor the monthly gatherings set up in many towns and cities where the public meet the police and may have their say, is any substitute for the real thing - a proper and dedicated bobby on the beat.
I doubt any police officer would actually relish the idea of returning to carrying out the duties they once used to on the streets. As for so many years now these tasks have been performed by almost any Tom, Dick, or Harry, they would probably think it was beneath them - but were it to happen I'm willing to bet they, and everyone else, would within months be pleasantly surprised at the result. Because we did not invest enough in our police forces, we eventually had to take away from them some of their duties which were then performed by council employees. It was a dilution of authority - one loved by local authorities and hated by the people as it produced a breed of worker happy to do their damndest to penalise their fellow man and put money in the councils' coffers. There were no depths that this small army wouldn't sink to in order to issue a ticket, and they came to be despised in a way no policeman doing that job ever had been. It was the start of an ugly game.
Where parking restrictions, and later the various types of yellow lines, were originally intended only to make our roads safer, as the councils saw the money coming in from those caught breaking the rules they soon realised they had discovered a gold mine, and before long those lines and restrictions became changed in order to produce the greatest possible revenue. So greedy did the councils become, they even laid claim to the highways in our towns and cities that the law states we have a right to pass along unhindered, and they rented back to us spaces on them. A war on the streets had begun between the motorist (the people) and local authorities. It is a war which has ruined our towns and cities, and has taken away all respect for authority. The consequence of all this is that children now grow up despising their local authorities, and many have no respect for them, the town, or for any kind of officialdom. Yobs didn't just appear like aliens - the society we created made them!
When I grew up it was my town, and following my parents' example I respected it and looked after it. No-one today can do that; no-one today has a town anymore - they grow up in a local government controlled zone saturated with rules, regulations, and jumped-up officials who want to control their every breath. Yes, we rebelled as all young people do: staying out late, crazy fashions, loud music and strange dances - but we never trashed the town, it was our town and we loved every inch of it. On a night out the worst we would get for eyeing up the wrong person in a bar was a black eye, not a knife in the ribs or a glass in the face. Overall, we respected people and property.
The establishment hates admitting its mistakes, and people shun turning back - they say you can't go back, it would never be the same. Well, it obviously wouldn't be the same. We live in a technological age today, and mostly people aren't so poor - but I have a gut feeling, and it is based on an era I lived through, that were many of the restrictions imposed on us removed and the bobby on the beat once more became just about the only visible sign of authority on our streets, within a generation society would start to improve dramatically. The police would regain all the widespread respect that is now only a distant memory to them, and the youngsters would grow up into an environment they felt was pretty much theirs to look after, and not to be trashed. Life would be better - and with that crimes would be fewer.
By removing many restrictions and rules, the cost to the local authorities would be considerable, but not immense. If you take away all the expense of buying parking meters and restriction signs, the cost of installing them, maintaining them, and servicing all those meters daily along with the cost of the despised army that have to patrol it all, not forgetting the line and box painting in the roads that seems to never end, and then allocate that vast amount of money saved to our police forces to go towards extra manpower, it starts to have its possibilities. The local authorities could easily recoup the money they would be losing by providing a few decent and reasonably priced car parks. In most places they will own enough land and properties to do this quite easily. These car parks would soon be filled because a town with fewer restrictions would attract far more people, and once the streets were full they would happily use them without feeling they were being penalised. If we now add to this scene of contentment the extra police and put them back on the beat, social disorder will decrease - and even more people will begin using the town, now including it in their social life of an evening. More and more businesses will spring up to service the extra people, and that is more and more money going into the council coffers - and the only sign of officialdom: the friendly bobby who will soon once again command the respect of everyone.
A pipe dream? Maybe - but isn't it worth a try? If we continue on as we are, twenty-odd years from now really doesn't bear considering. Large parts of our towns and cities will be no go areas for any decent person. Street after street will have boarded up shops, and even new developments being built today will succumb. The yobs on the streets will snuff out a life with no more thought for it than swatting a fly - and as news stories over this past year have shown, some already do that today. Society will be split in two. Police in riot gear, and with armed officers, will be a regular sight on the streets of a night trying to maintain law and order, and total anarchy will be looking more a probability than a possibility. Farfetched? I wish it was, but similar scenarios are being written about more and more frequently by people who look beneath all the spin and the happy events we all seem to remember and base their predictions on the continuing, and rapidly increasing over the past ten years, degeneration of society and its values. But whatever tomorrow does turn out to be, it has to be accepted that it won't be better than today unless we make some drastic changes to the way we live - and very soon. So much has been tried, and as a result so much has become worse, that I feel the only safe and realistic route is backwards to a system that was proven to work. From there, the natural progression of things will no doubt take us off on a different route, but any time that route might appear unfavourable we should never again be frightened to retrace our steps and start again.
Once policemen were proud of how well they managed their beat. They would enter a street and immediately know if something was wrong. They would come to know all the local people and their habits, and those people would be eager to give them information. The beat bobby was a much-loved part of the local community, people would invite him in for a warm and a cuppa on a cold day, and as such a part of everyday life he knew everything and everybody the community knew. Of course there was still crime, but it never had the chance to get out of control. It was a system that worked well, and today with faster cars and better back-up coupled with all the marvels of modern technology it would work even better. We made a great mistake when we first put our police in panda cars - it should only have been in addition to the constable on the beat, never instead of him. Lancashire Constabulary lays claim to having the first panda cars in operation, Ford Anglias, in 1965. It might be worth noting that since the early seventies, about the time the bobby on the beat started to become unknown to kids growing up, spiralling crime has never looked back!
Give our police the manpower and the resources to return to doing all the things we require of them, all the things they once used to do, and we shall live in a much safer country. Crime, all crime, is for our police to deal with and no-one else - not our banks, not our councils directly, and certainly not the jumped-up council appointees who have never gained the confidence, love and respect of the public the police once enjoyed when doing those jobs. Losing the man on the beat lost our police forces a hell of a lot of credibility and public respect. It also lost us a lot of community spirit. At a price it could be regained. I say it is a price worth paying.
For society to be what we want it to be, some things just have to be paid for no matter what they cost. Our lives are all the better for the local pub, the convenient shop, the post office, and the much-missed bobby on the beat. They are an essential part of our lives; they bond our communities together and give them spirit. Under-used they may be at times in some areas, but we still need them. What are we without them? The answer is becoming increasingly apparent!
See you next week . . .
"The Bitch!" 22/06/07.
About the Author
"The Bitch!", a weekly UK News Review column, is hosted by the author and columnist Michael Knell. These articles appear on the Blackpool Gay Directory website, but are not specifically gay in content. More information on the author: http://www.michaelknell.com and on the directory: http://www.astabgay.com.