Panorama: Crime And Punishment

Former Member

Did anyone see this programe, here is a handy link explaining all about it

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/02/05/ftjeremy05.xml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/default.stm

Its a much repeated story the police will arrest a law obiding person for standing up for them selfes but will ignore criminal teenage gangs.

I mean particularly the teenage yob who killed someone ends up getting 18 months, the same sentance funnly enough thet the police tried have imposed on a father and son who help a teenage criminal in their shop for the police to arive.

Is there a real problem with law and order now lots of people will say its no different now than it was 30 years ago, but I dont think so.

When I was young the teenage gangs had a fear of the police if not respect


The programms best part is the interview with Tony McNulty what an absolutly clueless idiot trying to justify charges against people for making a youth apologise to his mum. Ill bet if Tony JMcNulty calls the police they will come out pretty sharpish and actually artrest people.

Former Member

I didn't see it, but I heard McNulty's suggestion if you saw a thug beating an old woman was to jump up and down and create a distraction.

That said a few years ago some girls were mugged down our street, some bloke walking his dog chased them and in the struggle the dog nipped one of them (no blood). The peelers spent as much time trying to find out about the bloody dog as the fact that some girl had been punched in the face and her bag stolen.

Former Member

In my eyes (and I'm in the uni library, will check out the links later), the police would rather arrest people for speeding or with parking tickets than people who are actually causing a nuisance. To me, it seems more like they're running a business than being there to protect people.

I remember this one time, all of us had come from halls and were sitting on the field opposite and a community support officer comes over and says "excuse me, I heard you've been smoking a bit of the whacky baccy" and we obviously hadn't been. We were going to set up a barbeque but he told us not to... He was about twenty one and started lecturing us, admittedly some of us couldn't help but smirk (he wasn't all that tall either). Then he went off on us, threatening to confiscate our alcohol because we might "give it to the kids who are skateboarding in the park" and then starts with the "how many of you have actually been arrested???" Surely that's none of his bloody business!!!

If that's the attitude of the police and community support officers, then no wonder people don't respect them. I've been in before after being spiked and they wouldn't even take my story because I said my friend had been spiked too and they wanted to interview him as well. They wouldn't interview me alone.

A girl I know had been raped and said they didn't take her seriously...

My brother's flat got broken in to... What did they do? Nothing. In fact they weren't too polite either.

If the police want people to respect them, they have to start giving other people respect. Admittedly the gangs are a problem, but if they're out chasing people who aren't even drink driving and breathalising them for no reason instead of fighting real nuisancesa then why should people respect them? We pay for them... They should be working for US.

That's just my experiences from North Wales (a lot of policemen from that area were sacked after being found to be incredibly racist). I've been told in Surrey that the police rarely turn up if you phone them and you're being burgled.

To be honest, with my own experiences of the police, I'd trust my hands wrapped around a baseball bat ten times more than a 999 call to protect myself and loved ones if I ever get broken in to (then of course, I get sued by the burglar for abh :rolleyes: ).