No right to resist arrest

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

In the US (and elsewhere in the democratic - oh dear - world) citizens have no right to resist arrest by the police or security services. If they do they will be arrested for resisting arrest.

Even if the arrest is arbitrary and for no good reason no one, even, it would appear according to US Supreme Court ruling, has the right to resist such an arrest and if he or she dares to do so the arrest will be carried out with a reason, that of “resisting arrest”.

I am sure that we can all imagine that soon there will be a ruling that we have no tight to resist anything or we will be arrested for resisting and if we resit that we will also be arrested for resisting arrest.

One can but wonder who made up those laws to suit themselves. It is the same when we are told that policing is by consent and that none of us can withdraw the consent, however. Much like the “social contract” which no one had a choice about either and most of us don't even seem to know about it and those that do do not remember signing any contract.

What we need is a change of system, not just a change of government. A system where the people govern themselves.

© 2015

Technorati Tags: police,resistance,social contract,policing by consent

Neighborhood policing not sustainable with imposed budget cuts

Local police patrols in danger of being 'eroded' by budget cuts, despite drop in crime

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

While overall crime in England and Wales down 9 per cent on last year, reported rapes are up 2 per cent. Budget cuts, however, could seriously undermine the safety and protection of the public, regardless of the complacency of government.

The police services across the UK face fundamental changes to the way they operate after a report that come out on July 18, 2013 revealing that five forces will struggle with further budget cuts after the anticipated loss of nearly 32,000 jobs across England and Wales by 2015.

A report by the police inspectorate said that forces had generally coped well with 20 per cent cuts over five years but warned that local patrolling was in danger of being “eroded” and could have an impact on crime prevention programs. The report also raised concerns that the response times to 999 calls were rising in some areas.

The study was released after the Office for National Statistics reported a 9% fall in recorded crime for the last year, despite a rise in rape offenses and a 27% increase in fraud. The Government said the figures were vindication of radical reforms that had seen budget cuts and the introduction of elected police and crime commissioners.

Recorded crime, though, is a very questionable figure for some crimes are not, in fact, being recorded. All too often controllers refuse to log something as a crime, such as vandalism or break-ins into empty properties, for example.

Despite the fall in some recorded crimes five of the 43 police forces in England and Wales will struggle to find further cuts after March 2015, according to the report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. They include two of the smallest forces, Lincolnshire and Bedfordshire, which have fewer options to trim budgets and raises the prospect of police mergers in a radical change to the policing landscape. West and South Yorkshire and Northamptonshire also faces future problems.

The Government has opposed such changes and the election of 41 police and crime commissioners appeared to steer the debate away from senior police demands for fewer forces. But in a speech earlier this month, the policing minister Damian Green said he had nothing against mergers in principle where they are supported by PCCs and the local community.

The HMIC report said that the failure of forces to collaborate represented a major lost opportunity in cutting costs, but chief inspector Tom Winsor warned that mergers involved a “serious degree of disruption and expense”.

He highlighted some forces where there had been “mergers by osmosis” such as Kent and Essex which has a joint serious crime command. “Working smarter – doing things in different ways – will be necessary,” he said. “That will include greater measures of collaboration between forces and with the private sector and other parts of the public sector.”

And with private sector we can assume that the aim is to, more or less, privatize policing, and outsource it, including, despite that we are told otherwise, the patrolling of the streets, to companies such as G4S and security services that are operated by former military personnel, as are used for protection duties of many public officials on public events, including firearms carriers.

The report also raises concerns that in some areas, police community support officers and other community support officers (community wardens) – neither of who have the powers of arrest – have taken over the role of local patrolling. There is also evidence that volunteer specials are plugging gaps following the expected loss of 15,400 police officers by 2015.

In some areas, it would appear from the report, the neighborhood policing is all but done by PCSOs and community wardens already because of those cuts. It would appear that the British public are being conditioned to see fewer sworn officers on the streets and to accept policing by private companies. While, at the same time, being conditioned that they, the people, are not permitted to protect and defend themselves against crimes.

The Con-Dem coalition, led by the Conservatives, are hellbent on selling all of the family silver, so to speak, by privatizing all of the public services of the country wherever possible and even if it is not possible it is going to be done.

How did it go again on the ill-fated Apollo mission? Houston we have a problem. We indeed have a problem and it is the government.

© 2013

The role of the police

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

If you think that the police's job is to serve you and protect you then I suggest that you rethink that rather quickly. While the shield of most police forces in the USA does state “to serve and protect” the truth is a totally different one.

In a ruling some years ago the United State Supreme Court stated that it is not, repeat not, the role and duty of the police to protect and serve the public but that the role of the police is – simply – to enforce the laws.

Anyone who still thinks the role of the police is to do anything other than defend class privilege from the threat of economic and social justice after following events in Turkey needs their head examined.

And Turkey is but one example in a more or less crack pot regime and country anyhow. Demonstration have been almost as brutally smashed in Germany recently and in the UK time and again.

The task of the police today – predominately – appears to the protection of the ruling class and the protection of the 1% from the 99%. Shame that the majority of the officers who use force against the 99% have not, yet, realized that they are – themselves – part of that number and not of the other section.

While the police, such as the Bow Street Runners, from which the Metropolitan Police grew, as well as that of the Surete Nationale, was to keep the people safe from harm and crime things seem very different today.

If, as stated in the ruling by the SCOTUS the police's job is but to enforce the law and not to serve and protect then they are being used to enforce laws, whether just or unjust, and that is not what they are for.

As, because it is, so we are told, the job of the police to protect us from crime and harm, we, the people, are not allowed to protect and defend ourselves and have all self-defense rights (and arms) taken from us, but then the highest court of the land rules that the job of the police is to enforce the law and not protection of people and property, what does that make the people?

The answer is simple, is it not... slaves. Or, in fact, free as a bird, outside the law, who can be set upon by villains and law equally without protection.

© 2013