Police defend ‘ignore it until it goes away’ crime fighting tactics

(from Newsarse)

Police have defended themselves against criticism by Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, by saying that ignoring crime problems in the vain hope that they will go away is a long established policing tactic.

O’Connor claimed that the failure to properly respond to anti-social incidents was undermining confidence in the police force, something which forces across the country have strongly refuted.

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester police explained, “Confidence comes from predictability, knowing exactly what will happen, and I assure you the people of Manchester are completely confident in predicting our response to a call about what is essentially just some noisy children.”

“Ignoring something until it goes away is a long established technique for dealing with problems – my father, an alcoholic who died at 39, swore by it.”

“There are lots of things that go away if you ignore them for long enough – things like Big Issue vendors, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and member of the public reporting anti-social behaviour.”

Defended

Chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde explained, “The placebo effect is well recognised in science, and all the police forces across the UK are doing is imitating its effects.”

“You could call it a policing placebo – we say all the right things on the phone so they feel like they’re getting actual police action, but they’re not. Not really.”

“They think someone’s coming, but they’re not, and they think someone is investigating the incident, when they aren’t.”

“In most cases people feel better for it – but I admit, that every now and again someone gets bothered by some pesky kids.”

“At the end of the day we must remember that it was Jesus who said to ‘turn the other cheek’ – and that’s what we’re doing.  We’re turning it in the direction the TV in the station canteen and away from that gang burning a car at the end of your street.”

Living with Alzheimers

Todays press release by the Alzheimer’s Society has finally pointed out the giant elephant currently in the room of the UKs health system. Stating that the NHS currently does not have the training or resources in place to deal with the rising levels of patients with mental health issues this report is something that every single person in the country should be listening to, and getting angry about.

Please do not take this post to be anti-NHS as a whole, or an attempt to undermine the people working in it- far from it, I have been dealing with a close family member suffering from vascular dimensia (a very common form of Alzheimers) for the last 5 years – and have always found them to be beyond exceptional, working long and hard whilst being fustrated by lack of funding and assistance to go about their job to the best of their ability.

Alzheimers is one of the great unspoken diseases that is still (rather like most mental illness) hidden away, ignored and hoped to be avoided. In reality with a aging population this is a problem that will very soon be unavoidable, and out of control. In short (and I desperately hope this is a false prophesy for you) it is extremely likely that you will have to deal with the affects of Alzheimers to either yourself, or someone you hold dear.

So todays press release, a result of several months of research and investigation should worry us all- and whilst we are in a position to do something to make a difference, should be ringing every bell for it to become one of the major manifesto pledges of parties regarding the NHS in the forthcoming election.

I would like to make this a continuing story over the next few weeks, and would be really interested to hear your experiences and thoughts on the matter also. If you’d like to get involved feel free to drop a note below.

Gays, Smith, Harman and other Labour ‘feminists’

This is a repost from exactly a year ago about the government’s policing and crime bill, which contains provisions to outlaw the purchase of sex from ‘coerced’ prostitutes and should become law next year.

Whilst looking at the follow-up to the Guardian’s revelations about the government’s misinformation around the trafficking of women I thought I’d check to see if the impact on gay men had acquired any mentions following my year-old post. Bar a brief mention in an Iain Dale post I could not.

In comments on a Catherine Bennett piece defending the legislation such as this one the actual impact on prostitutes of policing is outlined:

The woman from the ECP didnt defend the sex industry on Newsnight. She said the anti-trafficking crusade, premised on false statistics, has been used, first of all to justify raids, prosecutions and convictions of sex workers working together from flats. It seems that immigrant women have been particularly targeted as anti-trafficking laws have been used as an extension of immigration controls to get them deported. www.prostitutescollective.net. Secondly, she said that this crusade has been used to justify the Policing and Crime Bill which under the guise of targeting demand, that is clients, would push prostitution underground and sex workers into more danger.

Those who claim that the Policing and Crime Bill would somehow increase womens safety say nothing about the other measures which would: change the definition of soliciting on the street to make arrests easier, introduce forced rehabilitation of those arrested, and the targeting of brothels for raids and closure (It is well established that working from premises is much safer than working on the street, as women can work collectively and support each other), increase police powers to take sex workers hard won earnings.

Where are the expressions of concern or action to oppose this increased criminalization from those that claim to be concerned about victims? Did those women stop being victims when they decided to sell sex? What about the women working in Soho who were all raided a few months ago and were shouted at, called liars, threatened with prosecution. Or the women near Oxford Circus, one of whom had to lock herself in the toilet to stop the police taking (probably) illegal photos of them. Or the women in Baker Street who are raided three times in the last few months and who think they are being targeted because they are Black. Or the Black women from Leeds who was dragged out of her home in handcuffs where she worked ON HER OWN and prosecuted for running a disorderly house. Or the Brazilian woman who was convicted for trafficking for working with a few friends who she helped come over from Brazil, got imprisoned, nearly lost custody of her young son and is now facing deportation. Abuse of women doesnt seem to count with some people, who claim to care about victims, if the abusers are the police.

Convictions for offences like brothel-keeping (used against women working together with others) are soaring. More and more women are getting criminal records for what is essentially consenting sex, preventing those who may want to leave prostitution from getting other jobs, even when they are qualified for them. When New Zealand decriminalised prostitution five years ago the most dramatic change was that sex workers felt like they had more rights both to report violence but also to take action against harassment from employers. It seems that more women are saved from traffickers by other women in the sex industry than any government anti-trafficking crusade (especially if, when you look at how victims are treated, protecting vulnerable women doesnt seem to even be the aim.)

It is no accident that the Policing and Crime Bill is happening at the same time as the Welfare Reform Bill. That Bill abolishes Income Support, the only benefit single mothers and other carers have been able to rely on. Most prostitute women are mothers, especially single mothers. How many will be driven into prostitution by benefit cuts? So feminist ministers proud record will be to have driven women onto the streets with one bill, and arrest them with another.

Is this happening to gay male prostitutes, particularly migrant ones? I simply don’t know but there’s no reason to think it might well be. And, given the widespread disinterest, infact the frequent hostility, shown towards similarly marginalised LGBT asylum seekers, even those from places like Iran, there’s no reason to think that the ‘gay community’ would rush to defend them if it did.

~~~~~~~~~

Re-post

News that Jacqui Smith – bless – has found a compromise and will outlaw hiring prossies who have pimps.

This is a somewhat watered down version of what was being pushed by various Labour ‘feminist’ MPs – the so-called Swedish model of ‘prostitution law reform’, which completely outlaws paying for sex.

I’m indebted to blogging colleague Cosmodaddy who has dug up research showing that this ain’t working:

Again it’s a seductive argument, but bear in mind (which Prostitution Reform do not) that although the criminalisation of men using female prostitutes in Sweden (the model being adopted by Jacqui Smith) was accompanied by legislation decriminalising the selling of sex, there have been undesirable outcomes:

When the prostitution market disappears underground it is harder for the authorities to intercept the persons that really need help. In Gothenburg many young women seek help to detoxify because of their addiction to heroin and almost all of them have sold sexual services. But the city’s prostitution group (social workers) seldom comes in contact with these women because they don’t show up on the streets today.

The risk of infection have gone up because if a sexseller gets infected with a sexually transmitted disease, and the authorities advise customers to the sexworker to contact them, many are afraid to do so.

If a client meets a sexworker that he/she suspects is in need of help the client is scared to contact for example the social services. Anf if a customer meets a sexworker that he/she suspects is the victim of sexual trafficking that person is today scared of going to the police. Before you could obtain evidence against traffickers and pimps based on customer’s testimony. These days they aren’t likely to participate in trials and if they are forced to testify as the same time they are prosecuted for buying sex their testimony are not credible in the same way.

I used to work in HIV prevention, OF COURSE driving sex underground isn’t a good idea! Any HIV worker worth their salt will tell you this.

If you want to stop trafficking of women the answer is policing of criminals. Full, stop. Anything else (‘let’s make a law!’) is showboating.

But further, I found the original proposals from Harman et al anti-gay. Yes, anti-gay. Not ‘good for the gays’ as the Jews might put it.

I immediately thought when the Labour ‘feminists’ trumped up this idea – they’re forgetting the gays. Again.

Gay male prostitution is not generally pimp-driven, it’s a small business. Of course there are issues (self esteem and body fascism to name but two) but just as with Andrea Dworkin and her 80s fantasies about what gay male porn was it’s not the equivalent of the heterosexual version.

Largely from my Australian experience, I had numerous friends who dabbled or supported themselves for a while or did it for a one-off. It didn’t make them community outlaws. The experience wasn’t damaging, as it might be with women. Yes, some guys on heroin do it but they weren’t even gay. Gay male prostitution is part of a sexualised culture which many feminists plain don’t like.

Just as with Dworkin the collateral oppression of gays passed Harman et al by. That they actually have ‘oppressive’ power – despite being supposedly power-less women, despite being cabinet members – passed them by.

Must be the gay=male thing.

And they were trusting that Laura Norder will play fair (if they were thinking of us at all, which I doubt). When experience tells us otherwise (just look at Terror law misapplication).

Feminists are not always the allies of gay men. Lesson.

Postscript: I note that this proposed law apparently has something about funding ‘drug dealers’ in it – that is. it’s not just about pimps. Laura Norder will make a meal of gay prossies using this ‘law’. Bless Ms. Harman + Smith et al for creating this … not.

Postscript: Harman and Smith’s incompetence gets more obvious:

Human trafficking police unit to close

Britain’s only specialist police human trafficking unit is to be shut down after two years because of a lack of funding, the government said today.

A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed that money for the Metropolitan police team, which totalled £1.8m in the first year and £700,000 in the second, would no longer be available after April.

Experts and campaigners reacted to the move with dismay. Denise Marshall, the chief executive of the Poppy Project, which helps trafficked women after they have been rescued, said she was appalled at the decision, which would have a “hugely detrimental impact”.

“This is at best foolhardy and at worst discriminatory,” she said.

Postscript: I shall be continuing this meme on pinknews. In the meantime, my friend Tania Hurst has a few thoughtful comments (nod, well worth quoting in full):

At the moment in this country it’s widely seen as socially acceptable for men to pay for sex (whether with women or other men). In current law it is the prostitute selling sex who is viewed as the criminal – not the person buying the sex.

Whether a prostitute has “freely chosen” a sex industry profession, or has been forced into it (by pimps or traffickers) is largely seen as irrelevant and unimportant by the customer.

The question is: how does one change the perception that having sex with a man or woman who has been “forced” into prostitution is wrong – and that this is effectively rape? One way is to make a law against it.

This law is making a distinction between prostitutes who’ve “chosen” to work in the sex industry from those who are being “forced” to have sex (by pimps or traffickers).* [see note below]

The new law isn’t criminialising everyone who pays for sex, but it is saying buying sex from women (or men) who have been “forced” to have sex (by pimps or traffickers) is not acceptable. This woman (or man) has not freely chosen to have sex with you – you are raping them. You have a responsibility to recognise this and to know the difference when you go out to purchase sex.

I’m in agreement with (what I think is) the motivation behind this law: 1) making it socially unacceptable to purchase sex from someone who’s been forced into it. 2) reducing the demand for and ultimately the numbers of prostitutes who are being forced to have sex.

The real question is whether this law is the right way to achieve the objectives? Can the negative impacts that your article has highlighted, be mitigated? For example, maybe customers could be exempt from prosecution if they report to police that they believe a woman they had paid-for-sex with was trafficked or pimped? Are there other ways of getting HIV and substance-abuse services to prostitutes?

Or are there other better forms or combinations of legislation? Closing down the Human Trafficking police unit doesn’t seem particularly helpful if you’re trying to reduce the numbers of trafficked women. But prosecuting traffickers alone hasn’t changed the perception that it doesn’t matter whether the prostitute you pay for has been “forced” to have sex with you or not.

—————-

I have a couple of issues with your original article:
1. The UK law appears to be different from the Swedish law: the Swedish law is criminialising everyone who pays for sex; the UK one criminalises the purchase of sex from a prostitute who’s been forced to have sex. This is very different – and you can’t assume that the negative impacts will be the same.

2. I don’t see how this law is prejudicial against gay prostitution (although I accept that the original proposals criminialising all paid-for sex may well have been). If a man buys sex from a male prostitute who isn’t being forced into having sex, then no criminal offence will have taken place. If gay male prostitution is not generally pimp-driven as you say, then this law doesn’t sound like it’s going to have any impact on gay prostitution and their customers at all!

* [I've put "chosen" and "forced" in quotes: I'm not going to get into a debate about whether a heroin addict and/or a previous victim of child abuse is really making a free choice when they sell themselves; nor am I going to discuss the varying levels of exploitation/protection that may occur in prostitute-pimp relationships]

As I said in discussion with Tania this, (my point) isn’t about heterosexual prostitution (which I may have an opinion about), it’s about the ‘collateral impact’ of law on the gay ‘community’. Tania’s point “it’s widely seen as socially acceptable for men to pay for sex” is worth quoting because I don’t think this is true and another example of something I don’t think is true in the gay community!

This idea underlines the gulf in understanding of how this issue relates in these two worlds.

And this community isn’t going to give much of a s**t about people like prostitutes – there is zero comment already on this proposed law. There are a lot of issues here, but it’s unlikely that many of them in relation to gay prostitutes are being even vaguely considered. That’s my point.

Our Undead Democracy

Last Friday Vote for a Change held a protest outside the Houses of Parliament in support of a more proportional voting system. The zombie theme was supposed to signify that our voting system is dead but going on anyway and destroying our democracy in the process. If you support a referendum for proportional representation to be introduced as the UK’s voting system click here.

Standing Up To Hate

Last night I attended a vigil in Trafalgar Square for Ian Baynham, the gay man recently murdered there. I’ve written recently about why gay hate might be so much in the ascendant once more, but last night was cause for optimism. Thousands of people – gay, straight, white, every ethnic minority under the sun, older, younger, you name it everyone was there to make a stand against hate. Friends and family of Ian’s were in attendance, some of them spoke and shared their private memories of a man lost because he dared to stand up for who he was.

The video is of TV personality Sue Perkins, reading out a list of people lost to homophobic hate in the last ten years. It was sobering to experience, and remains sobering to watch.

Vigil Planned for Ian Baynham

Join me at the vigil the week after next for Ian Baynham, the gay man murdered in Trafalgar Square:

A vigil has been organised to pay tribute to Ian Baynham, the gay man who died this week after being attacked in London’s Trafalgar Square.

The event was planned by members of a Facebook group called 17-24-30, which remembers those killed and injured by Soho bomber David Copeland. It was responsible for organising the London vigil after the Tel Aviv gay shooting in August.

It will be held between 8 and 10pm in Trafalgar Square on Friday, October 30th.

Reassuringly there have been arrests:

Police hunting for the killers of a 62-year-old gay man who was beaten to death in Trafalgar Square have arrested two 17-year-old girls and one 18-year-old boy.

Ian Baynham was attacked on September 25th. After suffering brain damage, his life support machine was switched off on Tuesday.

According to a Metropolitan Police spokesman, the girls were arrested at their homes in south-east London, as was the 18-year-old male.

They are being held at separate police stations and will be questioned.

Makes you wonder whether Jan Moir blames him for his own murder, doesn’t it?

The Carter-Ruck Flashmob

Yesterday saw a small but determined flashmob form outside the London offices of libel law firm Carter-Ruck. Carter-Ruck remains at the centre of a legal and political furore over the super injunctions understood to have been used by the firm to try to prevent reporting of its client Trafigura’s involvement in this story, as well as to prevent reporting of the Minton Report (which confirms the waste was dangerous). The participants in the flashmob wore gags to reflect their anger at Carter-Ruck’s sifling of free speech for the benefit of their client, who would rather punish those who reported its wrongdoing than take responsibility, apologise and make amends.

The Vote for a Change Debate

Come back here from 1915 BST to see my liveblog of Vote for a Change’s debate at the Houses of Parliament tonight. One side will support reform to a more proportional voting system, the other will support the status quo – first past the post. Comments will be extremely welcome here and on the liveblog as I go, and if I figure it out in time you should be able to tweet to the liveblog too.

Should be lively, and should be interesting.

The Gravy Train

Vote for a Change’s Gravy Train is travelling between constituencies, to inform people about their campaign for a referendum to decide for us to decide how we choose our politicians, rather than leaving it to the politicians:

I think Sal Brinton is right when she says that our current voting system too often means MPs know they aren’t going to be thrown out by their constituencies if they don’t represent them adequately – it’s contrary to what democracy is supposed to be about and people are stopping voting because of it. We need to move to a proportional system of representation urgently to make every vote count. Call for a referendum here. You want it? Make it happen.

Oh and tell Vote for a Change here where you think the Gravy Train should visit next. Your constituency?

Come to the Voting System Debate!

Vote for a Change have arranged a debate in Portcullis House next week between those advocating radical change and those supporting the first-past-the-post system.

It’s at 1930 on the 13th October. Click here to secure your seat!

Find out about LGBT asylum issues via Twitter

LGBT Asylum News (formally Save Mehdi Kazemi) is now on Twitter. Follow us to get notified of all new posts.

You can also subscribe via RSS or email.

The site, which welcomes new contributors, covers general asylum issues as well as news from all over the world – largely the third world – which relates to LGBT asylum seekers.

Can we twitter our way out of the recession?

A few days ago, through reasons I can’t face going through yet again I found myself marooned in the small village of Thanet, which, apparently, is somewhere near Reading. Upon finding out that the next train I could get was about an hour later I posted a comment on the twitter site that simply put – ‘Stuck in Thanet for an hour, is there anything good to see?’. Within minutes I had 4 messages with suggestions. This got me thinking…

In the last year Twitter has expanded by 1,840%, Facebook now has 300 million active users which, if it were a country would make it the fourth largest country in the world. With alarming regularity we seem to be deluged with a new social media site claiming to be the ‘next big thing.’ 69% of the entire UK population is now online. Businesses seem to be slowly cottoning onto the possibilites of using this for their own advantage, check out Ford for really interesting usage of social media to change the perceptions of their company. Even Gordon Brown has now got a Twitter, and who can forget his first appearance on YouTube?

Despite all these facts social media is still viewed in certain circles with slight suspicion, and I think this has meant that we have missed a trick in kick starting the economy.

If we look at Britain as a company it is obvious that something somewhere recently has gone horribly wrong. In a business prospective if this was happening it would trigger a full internal review – checking that all parts of the company are paying their way, are as productive as possible, accountable for their role, and if not making the necessary changes. As the world is getting smaller, with better transport, bigger supermarkets and the internet, the sense of community and belonging has slowly evaporated from small communities. But there is no reason not to use the internet to combat this.

In times of hardship people always bemoan the downfall of the ‘high street’. People start looking inwardly, trying to balance the financial need of shopping as cheaply as possible with the responsibility of helping the smaller businesses maintain their income. The smaller businesses struggle with maintaining footfall, keeping people in the town center rather than out of town shopping centres through one way or another.

The idea of using social media to get out of the recession is as simple as it is effective. Every town employes a marketing and communications specialist. This person is employed by the town for the town and as such has no political affiliations. The role of the position is to market the town to the inhabitants, and also the people from outside the town. They use email, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and any other means possible to brand their area and make it as attractive as possible. They organise events during the year in the town centre and market it appropriately. They liase with local businesses and leisure industries in a bid to try to drive tourism to the town and use these to kick start the economy in the towns again, all the time putting it in the faces of the local community.

This, done well, could have far reaching implications. Giving people a reason to to head into the town centres, to take more pride in the area they live in and to spend that little bit more money than they were expecting to would kick start the economy in the town, larger events would give locals a reason to bring friends and family from outside the area into their part of the world. It would also establish a sense of community, something that has long been lamented as lost in certain circles. If the smaller elements of the economy start to work again the cogs of the big wheels will slowly grind into action once more.

What do you think? Obviously there are a few issues in this idea, but as always I’m interested to know what you may think! Leave a comment and hopefully we’ll be able to throw the ideas round to something a bit more well rounded. In the meantime I’m off to try to become king of Facebook.

The German Pirates Are Coming

The German general election may be under a week away, but Germany’s young people have already started to vote, and they’ve voting for the Pirate Party in huge numbers:

The youth organization U18 aims to promote political awareness among the German youth and traditionally they hold their own election prior to that of the adults. This year the Pirate Party was one of the surprising winners.

This Friday more than 120,000 youngsters cast their votes at one of the U18 voting booths. Of these, a massive 8.72% voted for the Pirate Party that currently holds one seat in the German Parliament.

The result of this election is encouraging for the Pirates, who already had a great run at the European election earlier this year where they surpassed some of the established local parties in some districts.

“The outcome of this election shows us that young people recognize the importance of ‘having a vote’,” Pirate Party Charmain Jens Seipenbusch said. “The fact that many of them have chosen us, shows that young people find it important to defend their civil rights and that the Pirates tackle the crucial issues of the 21st century.”

The ‘real’ German federal election is scheduled for 27 September, and the Pirate Party hopes to gain a few dozen seats in the German Parliament so they can do something about increased Internet censorship and abuses of copyright by multi-billion dollar companies.

It remains to be seen whether they’ll actually win a few dozen seats or not, but the generational appeal of the Pirates is clear, at least in Germany. It’s an interesting trend to observe, whilst the Pirate Party UK continues to grow and find ways of differentiating itself from the other, smaller liberal parties:

We are not a party of careerist politicians like Labour or the Conservatives, who parachute in favoured candidates into their safest seats, irrespective of the fact that their candidate has hardly any connection with the people they are supposed to represent. Even the Greens have gone down that route, by handing their most winnable seat to their party leader. Unlike other parties with established hierarchies, PPUK needs popular and charismatic individuals to step forward, and not wait to be approached. Individuals with the skills, passion and commitment to convey the importance of pirate politics to a sometimes sceptical world cannot afford to wait for the party to find them or wait for a process to officially pick candidates, as we will only know where to fight based on the data we have. Likely candidates need to make themselves known and to come to the fore now, and to do so by building the local teams of supporters.

Britain however has a significant hurdle for the Pirate Party UK to overcome: the-first-past-the-post voting system. Germany has a proportional system which allows for the views of young people meaningfully to be represented; the same is not true in the UK. If young people in the UK really want their votes to start counting they’re going to have to start supporting campaigns like Vote for a Change, and insist that the voting system in the UK is changed to a truly proportional one, not simply an alternative vote system, which would retain most of the same flaws in representing votes meaningfully. Quite possibly very good news indeed for the Piratenpartei; the Pirate Party UK however has a far more complicated mountain to climb, and needs to pick its political battles with disproportionate consideration.

(via Glyn Moody)

Friday Protest at Parliament

From Vote for a Change:

Open to visitors – but closed to voters.

That’ll be Parliament this weekend.

As part of the city wide Open House event, Westminster’s doors will be thrown open to the public on Saturday and Sunday.

But as you and I well know, our voices as citizens will remain largely shut out from the building.

Help us make some noise about that fact this Friday. Sign up now to join us at Westminster as we protest about Parliament being closed to democracy:

http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/ClosedToDemocracy

We’ll be gathering at 10:30 a.m. at the St. Stephen’s Gate entrance to raise awareness about the urgent need to give voters a say in our political system – right on Parliament’s doorstep.

Sign up now to join us Friday morning:

http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/ClosedToDemocracy

Hope to see you on Friday for what should be a fun and fruitful event.

Willie Sullivan
Vote for a Change

I’m a Photographer Not a Terrorist

On Saturday I attended the flashmob at Canary Wharf by the I’m a Photographer Not a Terrorist project, in support of photographers’ rights. Most people don’t realise Canary Wharf and other, similar, not-quite-public spaces have restrictions on photography, in large measure in the name of combatting terrorism. Here’s a slideshow of my photos of what was a highly successful event by a project strongly supported by this website.