Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Rough Justice

I like the idea of Rough Justice as the title of the new Spider Shepherd book, but the master Jack Higgins used it last year! My thinking cap is still on!

This just in from the chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales. The new book is about vigilante cops, police officers who are fed up with the criminal justice system, so what Paul McKeever has to say fits in really well with what I'm writing.

The Government has created a "hokey cokey" criminal justice system that fails to tackle persistent offenders, the leader of rank and file police officers has said.

Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said officers are "sick to death" of seeing the same criminals again and again.

He told Home Secretary Jacqui Smith at the Federation's annual conference in Bournemouth how many officers view her with "real suspicion and distrust" after a series of clashes over pay, pensions and workplace reform.

He said: "It's in out, in out, let all the prisoners out. In out, in out, shake the system about."

Mr McKeever branded the belief that constant modernisation and reshaping of the police will solve crime more effectively as a "big lie".

He said: "We and the people we serve are being failed by the rest of the criminal justice system.

"A criminal justice system that isn't working and is seen by many people as being there to protect offenders' interests above the interests of law-abiding members of the public.

"Rather than addressing the real problem of ineffective sanctions, ineffective education programmes and ineffective rehabilitation the focus is on us, the police, to detect the same people more often and bring them before the courts again and again."

Mr McKeever said police are left in a "constant state of flux" as politicians constantly demand change.

He added: "This means we will never be left alone as we can never be seen as fit for purpose, otherwise politicians would themselves have to be answerable to the electorate as to why crime goes on being committed.

"In effect, in the eyes of politicians, the police are the problem that needs to be solved, when the reality is that it is the criminals who are the problem and we are the solution."

8 comments:

Jack Stonecipher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jack Stonecipher said...

Sorry, my first post was rather cryptic, to anyone but, Steve. So, I should have said, You can name the new book, "The Extras", as in extralegal, which the police in the book as vigilantes are acting as, in mopping up after the wreck the existant legal system has made of things.

Unknown said...

Hi Stephen,
Your name arose while I was talking to 'Jack' (from Hodder) at Matt Hilton's book launch, so I thought I'd check out your site.
Interesting post, including a helluva lot of sense.
Conclusion: to protect the public, build more prisons. (There's no other way.)
Problem: no Government will, as by the time they're built they could be out of power.
Conclusion: the only justice is in fiction!
Regards,
Col

Anonymous said...

"Street judges" springs to mind. Or even instead of a red judge, perhaps a "blue judge" to indicate that they are police.
Anyhow your call ultimately, me I'll just read it.

Cartouche

Anonymous said...

Hi Stephen

I have read your book "Rough Justice"and I like it...
Im swiss and only 13 years old
but i like this fantastic book.

Stephen Leather said...

Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed it!

Jenny Gilmore said...

Hi Mr. Leather,
You had posted a thread on Amazon (which I can't seem to find now, with my lack of computer skills)concerning a new novel title as a counterpart to "Rough Justice". How about "Smooth Lies?"
Sorry, I keep sending in ideas...they just keep rolling around in the back of my brain! Love your books, they are a great place to escape to!

Anonymous said...

Hi Stephen, just finished the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. As a serving officer I was left in a bit of a dichotomy of agreeing with where the officers were coming from and believing in the need not to overstep the law. Just as an aside, it was found that NPIA were the instigators of the "outlawing" of the term "nitty gritty", stating, wrongly, that it was a term used to refer to the slave trade. I believe that the term pre-dates the slave trade and refers to the gritty bits of stone ground flour found at the bottom of a jar of flour when making bread. There is no basis for it being a racial slur and NPIA (and subsequent trainers) have supposedly been corrected on this inaccuracy.