VIOLENCE BY ANY OTHER NAME?

Back in September 2013, the Home Office commissioned HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for England and Wales to look at the way our Police Services deal with domestic violence.

The report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has looked at how all 43 forces in England and Wales responded to domestic violence understandably does not make pleasant reading and contains some grim statistics.

It is time, I think to finally seperate the word ‘domestic’ from what is simply violence and to change the way offenders are dealt with. Serious consideration needs to be given to removing the reliance on initiating prosecution for the repeat offences from the victim to the Police Service, some preliminary work in this direction was done in Lambeth, by the Metropolitan Police Service in the 1990’s, but more work clearly needs to be done.  

While reform of the law in relation to domestic violence is long overdue, there has been some progress but we are continually confronted by grim statistics in relation to domestic violence. The HMIC report has criticised some aspects of the way both Gwent Police deals with domestic violence and the victims of domestic violence.  HMIC has accused Police forces of unacceptable weaknesses in relation to dealing with incidence of domestic violence and this despite domestic abuse being linked to 8% of crimes and police chiefs stating that abuse was a priority.

The HMIC investigation revealed that of some 600 domestic assault files, half did not include pictures of injuries - a standard piece of evidence for a prosecution. Police, the HMIC report noted, receive more than one million calls a year relating to domestic abuse and almost 58,000 victims - the vast majority of them women - were at risk of serious harm or murder.

The report stated that three women a fortnight were being killed by a partner or former partner and a third of all assaults recorded by the police related to domestic violence. In an exceptionally critical report, HMIC have said that chief police officers need to recognise that domestic abuse constitutes a major problem that demanded comparable resources and focus to those devoted to tackling other high volume crimes such as burglary.  The report noted that only eight out of 43 forces were responding well to domestic abuse.

HMIC noted that it had significant concerns about how Gwent Police responded to some victims of domestic violence, it noted where there had been improvements and made specific recommendations for improvement for Gwent Police. Historically our Police Services had a poor record when it came to dealing with domestic violence, with offences of violence in a domestic context being effectively written off. At the end of the day violence against a person, is violence against a person, the setting (‘domestic’ or otherwise) is irrelevant, it is an offence.

A CRIME IS A CRIME

Let’s not waste any time trying to find anything logical in this brutal murder in Woolwich – there is nothing logical to be found. This evil act  is utterly unjustifiable and a life has been lost. As Billy Bragg said on Thursday, “The barbarous murder of an innocent man on the streets of London yesterday is shocking. What he did for a living cannot be used to justify what happened to him”. Such unjustifiable violent acts periodically emanate from the more fanatical corners of some sections of our communities. As has been said elsewhere the Woolwich murder has no more to do with British government policy than the Boston Marathon had to do with Chechnya. Terrorists and want-to-be terrorists or jihadists thrive on coverage in the media; the perpetrators of the brutal murder on the streets of Woolwich don’t deserve the oxygen of publicity. Violent people will often try to justify their actions by claiming that they are "political" we don’t need to do it for them. They will only be encouraged to do so if politicians appear to agree with them over their misguided motivations. The police and security services are best placed to prevent it, not the politicians. Extremists and fanatics may be attracted to use violence; we can and should treat the perpetrators of such crimes as criminals. Hannah Arendt’s book ’The Banality of Evil’ about the trial of holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann, detailed the relationship between idiocy and evil – this same relationship can be found in the history and justifications of past jihadist attacks which have nothing to do with religion. Whatever their claimed cause there can is no justification for their actions. The life of Fusilier Drummer Lee Rigby has been lost in the most brutal of circumstances and a family left in mourning for their lost loved one. We would do well to remember that above everything else.

PAYING THE PRICE FOR A FREE PRESS

Gadzhimurat Kamalov, the founder of a newspaper that has reported on corruption and police abuses in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan, was shot dead outside the offices of his newspaper Chernovik ("rough draft"), in Dagestan's capital Makhachkala, on Thursday. Kamalov founded the newspaper in 2003 and had edited it for several years and remained its publisher until his death.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has noted that Chernovik staff have been persecuted and harassed by the authorities. The CPJ called Kamalov's murder "a massive loss for independent journalism in the North Caucasus, Russia's most dangerous place for reporters". Violence (nominally political and wholly criminal) remains rife in Dagestan, where police have been battling Islamist insurgents since the 1990s.

The CPJ notes that Russia has one of the worst records in the world for attacks on journalists, with 18 unsolved press murders since the year 2000. Whether or not there is a list of journalists who happen to criticise the policies of the Russian Government (and some of the local corrupt elite's activities) is a mute point but there do seem to be an awful lot of coincidences.

DISORDER, POLICING AND PROTEST

Very little (or nothing) in this world is a simple matter of being black of white; there are many shades of grey in between, especially when it comes to how large demonstrations are policed and even more so when there is resultant disorder which is splashed across the TV and the Press subsequent to the events of the Student protests. One thing, however, is very true, little is added to the eloquence of your argument by trying to stove in the head of a Police Officer.

We should ask (and it is proper in a free society that we do ask) searching questions about the Police tactics (especially 'Kettling') used by the Police at large demo's - I have been on both sides of the line so to speak and have seen both sides of confrontational demonstrations. I can accept that in heated or tense situations a Police officer at the end of his or her tether after hours of provocation (from the usual suspects the SWP and their ilk) might on occasion be less than polite when he or she asks people to move out of the way or along. It is worth noting that press photographers have lived with this sort of thing for years, but, there is no excuse for excessive force or violence. This does not, however, make it acceptable conduct or excuse blatant brutality.

One thing to remember is that there are those amongst the thousands of peaceful and law abiding demonstrators who attend demo's, there are those (and this is by way of experience and observation rather than the near permanent hysterical rant usually found in the pages of the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph) who do systematically direct what can be best described as focused and targeted hostility towards our Police officers for their own ends.

Whether we like it or not there are those who are looking to provoke a tangible public reaction for their own purposes, and who are more than happy to hide behind more naive and inexperienced demonstrators at large demo's and high-jack peaceful demonstrations. Now Police officers are effectively empowered to use reasonable force providing that it is proportionate to the situation they find themselves in, if excessive force is used by either side then it should be fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Any Police officers who knowingly or maliciously crosses the line when it comes to acceptable standards of behaviour should be firmly dealt with; as should any demonstrator who likewise may have crossed the line of acceptable behaviour. It is important for us to develop and retain a sense of perspective, we should remember that the vast majority of Police Officers and the vast majority of demonstrators did not cross the line when it comes to acceptable standards of behaviour at the Student protests, only a very small minority of people at the protests did so.

At the end of the day we are dealing with Policing by consent within a democratic society and it is important to remember that Police officers are only human and may react, as would anyone who has been subject to systematic provocation at the hands of a very small minority hell bent on inciting or causing trouble by provoking a reaction from harassed Police officers.

Now it works both ways because the public would expect overly thuggish or aggressive violent behaviour and the use of excessive force towards peaceful demonstrators and similar behaviour from demonstrators towards our Police officers, to be dealt with. Violent conduct from public servants to the public and from the public towards public servants is not, has never been and never will be acceptable and should be subject to the full penalties and rigours of the law - not trial by media or the Daily Mail.

Policing and Disorder

Nothing in this world is a simple matter of black of white; there are many shades of grey in between, especially when it comes to how large demonstrations are policed and even more so when there is resultant disorder which is splashed across the TV and the Press subsequent to the events of the G20 protests.

While you can (and should) ask searching questions about the tactics used by the Police at large demos, and I can accept that in heated situations a Police officer might be less than polite when he or she asks people to move out of the way or along. As an aside, it is worth noting that press photographers have lived with this sort of thing for years, but, there is no excuse for excessive force or violence.

One thing to remember is that there are those who attend demos, who systematically direct what can be best described as targeted hostility towards Police officers. There are those who are looking to provoke a tangible public reaction for their own purposes, and who are more than happy to hide behind more naive and inexperienced demonstrators at large demos.

Now Police officers are effectively empowered to use reasonable force providing that it is proportionate to the situation they find themselves in, if excessive force is used by either side then it should be fully investigated. Any Police officers who cross the line when it comes to acceptable standards of behavior will be dealt with; as should any demonstrators who likewise may have crossed the line of acceptable behaviour.

It is important for us to develop and retain a sense of perspective, we should remember that the vast majority of Police Officers and the vast majority of demonstrators did not cross the line when it comes to acceptable standards of behaviour at the G20 protests, only a small minority did so.

At the end of the day we are dealing with Policing by consent within a democratic society and it is important to remember that Police officers are only human and may react, as would anyone who has been subject to systematic provocation at the hands of a very small minority hell bent on inciting or causing trouble by provoking a reaction from harassed Police officers.

Now it works both ways because the public would expect overly thuggish or aggressive violent behaviour and the use of excessive force towards peaceful demonstrators and similar behaviour from demonstrators towards our Police officers, to be dealt with. Violent conduct from public servants to the public and from the public towards public servants is not, has never been and never will be acceptable and should be subject to the full penalties and rigours of the law - not trial by media.