Watch Your Back in Britain

...The uncomfortable reality is that law enforcement and crime prevention have paid the price for a concentration of national budgetary expenditures on the troubled National Health Service, the crumbling public transportation infrastructure and the struggling school system...

...This has made a mockery of a justice system where suspects supposedly are not taken to court unless the prosecution believes it has a firm case...

...AN argument is raging here over whether locking people up is always the best way to lower the crime rate and rehabilitate offenders...

...Some senior figures in the judiciary are completely opposed to imprisoning individuals who have committed comparatively minor infractions because it puts them in the company and under the influence of indisputably dangerous villains and on the road to a lawless life...

...Of course, it is important to keep the overall picture here in perspective...

...Their computers frequently contain incorrect information—or none at all—about reoffending criminals, undermining proper sentencing procedures...

...Granted, police throughout the Westem world are habitually critical of courts and their procedures...

...Despite spending as much as one-fifth of their time attending to paperwork, they often make mistakes in the necessary follow-up to arrests...

...When officers are out on patrol, various inexcusable factors sometimes influence their performance...

...All this has given rise to a sense of despair and unease in England about the failure of the authorities to cope with an increasingly ugly crime situation...

...The increase in youth crime is attributed to a deci ining community spirit in Britain, the abrogation of parental responsibility, the shortcomings of the education system, and lax law enforcement standards...

...In many areas the police are severely understaffed and inadequately trained...

...In particularly heinous cases, efforts are made to let victims know when their jailed attackers are to be set free...

...At times the emergency 999 number is answered by a recorded message advising people to telephone elsewhere...

...evidence is not in hand and arguments are clumsily organized...

...But they became alarmed by the proliferation of drug use and "black-onblack" offenses—a trend that, among other things, has focused particular attention on members of the so-called Yardie gangs from Jamaica...

...Now it is the prosecution that is often the joke...

...That can mean fitting them with electronic devices capable of tracking where they are at prescribed hours, or it may merely mean a stipulated community service stretch doing such tasks as clearing rubbish, painting an old age home, or helping to care for disabled children...

...A former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, flatly maintains, "Prison doesn't work...

...They have included government assistance for extending closed-circuit television monitoring of public places...

...Everyone heard about American singer Liza Minnelli's chauffeur saving her from being robbed...

...Some of those efforts have had dramatic, if temporary, results...

...A 20 per cent hike in gun crimes is forecast for this year...

...But special "armed response" units are currently on standby or patrol in many inner cities...

...No one appears to know the identity of the woman or exactly where she lives...

...Britain's prisons have run out of space and already cannot accommodate those who are proven guilty and givenjail time...

...The defense also tends to engineer repeated delays, exhausting the commitment, patience and memory of witnesses...

...The government's Audit Commission found that last year alone the CPS failed to follow through on 11,000 potential prose cutions, with little or no documented reason...

...When first elected five years ago, the Prime Ministerpromised his government would be "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime...

...A Canadian journalist here required hospital attention and was left with long-term health problems after being savagely assaulted by a man who went berserk in a London supermarket...

...In 1980 a writer could observe without exaggeration that "An individual can walk without fear of attack, alone and unarmed, in virtually every part of London, even in the dead of night...

...The tale is probably apocryphal...

...A recent study showed they were able to take action on only 24 per cent of recorded offenses...

...Youth crime, meanwhile, has been especially vexing...

...and the establishment of Police Priority Areas to target dangerous neighborhoods...

...Whatever the reasons, the authorities do not seem able to deal effectively with it, or with strengthening law and order at every other level...

...Nevertheless, one in five police stations has been shut down over the last few years...

...Within minutes two police cars and a helicopter, dispatched from adjacent districts, arrived to take her into custody...

...Harder to imagine is what the consequences would be if the judicial process worked properly and more wrongdoers were made to pay for their transgressions by being put behind bars...

...Only one in seven of those still functioning is open 24 hours a day...

...Accordingly, on July 17 Blunkett announced several fundamental changes that have aroused civil libertarians...

...A Criminal Injuries and Compensation Authority exists to counsel injured parties and make at least a gesture of recompense to them...

...But he is here right now," she protested...

...Despite his reputation for being tough on crime, Home Secretary David Blunkett has felt obliged to call on the judiciary to cut down the number of convicts who are incarcerated...

...I've shot the burglar...

...There is no telling what he might do...

...And the Probation Service, whose function is the rehabilitation of inmates, is underpressure to get them paroled as soon as possible...

...When policemen who do catch criminals see the futility of their efforts, the effect on their morale can be imagined...

...Repeat lawbreakers are subject to Anti-Social Behavior Orders, some of which are widely dismissed as laughable...

...The clever woman waited a few minutes and then called again...

...After they were unable to produce sufficient evidence for a conviction in the racially motivated murder of black 16-year-old Stephen Lawrence nine years ago, for example, an independent inquiry controversially concluded that the British police were institutionally racist...

...The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the equivalent of a national district attorney's office, is almost invariably not up to its job...

...When 250 London traffic officers were diverted to assist in an antirobbery operation, the undertaking was successful...

...The resulting escalation in reported lawlessness prompted some leaders of the black community in London to call for the police force to resume its suspended random stop-and-search initiative...

...The average age of burglars is 17...

...Coad insists the so-called care-in-thecommunity approach is a flop...

...Many are doubled up in small cells designed for single occupancy...

...Judges are left fuming and impotent...

...The majority of first offenders who are given community sentences," he says, "have significantly higher reconviction rates than those given immediate custodial sentences...

...Seeing a group of teenagers taunt and verbally abuse a policeman outside his London station house, an American friend of mine asked the officer why he did not do something about it...

...Not only has it risen steadily in recent years, but violent attacks by youths jumped 20 per cent last year...

...The victim was told by the police that since the assailant had no previous record and was acting under stress, he would receive a community service punishment at most if prosecuted...

...In a wonderful British comic movie some years ago, The Dock Brief, a judge was so appalled by the incompetence of a defense counsel that out of pity he acquitted the perpetrator...

...If denied parole at that juncture because of the severity of his offense, he is likely to be automatically released after six years unless he committed another violation while serving time...

...measures to help vulnerable witnesses testify in court without fear of intimidation or assault...

...In addition, about 2,000 cases annually are thrown out of court because of the limited resources or ineptitude of the prosecution...

...QUESTIONS have even been raised about whether deficiencies in Britain's long-respected judicial system are contributing to the country's climbing crime rate...

...She immediately telephoned the police, who told her, "We'll have someone with you within the next two hours...

...Peter Coad, director of the British Criminal Justice Association and a former Home Office adviser, has declared: "It is a national scandal that persistent offenders have in Aided material, physical and often lifelong emotional trauma on their victims [when released], even when under the supervision of the Probation Service...

...Although anxious to pursue the matter, the journalist was finally persuaded he would be wasting his time if he did so...

...With Crime on the Rise Watch Your Back in Britain By Norman Gelb London A story that is making the rounds here recounts the experience of a woman who heard someone breaking into her home in the nearby countryside while she was upstairs alone...

...In another of countless cases, a man who reported youths smashing a car parked outside his front door was told the police no longer respond to such incidents...

...A person found guilty of a major crime short of murder and sentenced to, say, nine years in prison, is eligible for parole after three...

...Critics of the prevailing practices claim the well-being of convicts is higher on the agenda of British justice than the safety of the public...

...Since becoming Home Secretary last year, Blunkett has tried to rum the corner with a steady drumbeat of actions—55 in all—aimed at detecting and reducing criminal behavior in Britain...

...Furthermore, he points out, community supervision inflicts unmanageable workloads on the police services...

...But true or not, the anecdote is credible...

...Not surprisingly, there is a widespread feeling in Britain that unruly youngsters can commit wrongs with impunity...

...These leaders had previously reviled the searches as an essentially racist scheme...

...Until recently, the police themselves only carried firearms here when on diplomatic protection duty...

...with the disillusioned victims [of crime] looking on...

...the promotion of stronger community partnerships for tackling crime and the menace of narcotics...

...But opinions differ sharply on where to draw the distinguishing line...

...Yet Sir John is not far off the mark where Britain is concerned...

...Although more and more inhabitants of rural areas feel deprived of protection as levels of lawlessness reach new heights, the problem is greatest in the country's major cities...

...Today a person is far more likely to be mugged in the British capital than in New York City—or to have his home burglarized, or his car stolen...

...One resident in the north of England, frustrated that the police had not prevented repeated burglaries of his house, was in fact jailed for shooting an intruder in the dark out of fear of being attacked...

...The Yardies are held partly responsible for the rise in the use of guns in England...

...For lesser sentences, the release policies are more lenient...

...Sorry," came the reply...

...the review of timeconsuming paperwork procedures so that patrolmen can spend more hours walking their beats...

...The time has come, he says, for a major reform of Britain's criminal justice system...

...He shrugged resignedly and said, "What would be the use...

...To cite one example, a 16-year-old girl who had spread anger and fear in her hometown through countless acts of property damage, theft and threatening behavior was banned from the town's main street...

...So far, it has been neither...

...But the traffic tangle in the capital also requires the deployment of more cops, so they could hardly be spared indefinitely...

...CPS lawyers commonly come to court poorly prepared to deal with the case on the calendar...

...Both violent crime and robbery are up sharply...

...In most instances, the jail term imposed by a judge is totally misleading...

...The Chief of London's Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, says bluntly that the system favors lawbreakers: "All too often the criminal trial is simply an uneven game of tactics played out by lawyers...

...Though public possession of firearms is, with very few exceptions, strictly banned, people with criminal connections can now readily acquire evenheavyduty automatic weapons...

...It is an extremely distressing situation, and with the absence of funds for building enough new correctional facilities, no convincing solutions are in sight...

...Criminals given up to four years can expect to serve no more than two, and sometimes merely a few months...

...As if that were not bad enough, three of four persons in custody are brought to busy courts late for their hearings, further raising the odds against conviction...

...Prison, says Blunkett, should be a last resort in less dire crimes...

...Though institutions for confining the worst youthful offenders have been set up, the overwhelming majority receive care-in-fhe-community penalties...

...Among other things, Blair contends, it has to be rebalanced to take greater account of the victims of crime— meaning, in the widest sense, the whole society...

...We're very short-handed and simply don't have anyone available...

...Prime Minister Tony Blair, on the other hand, has apparently decided that the disturbing stories being prominently reported on television and headlined in the newspapers have spotlighted a situation that can no longer be left to existing institutions...

...Given the paucity of funds for prison construction, the predominant view in the government as well as the judiciary is that whenever possible, perpetrators of crimes are best dealt with "through rigorous, supervised sentences in the community...

...Even for weightier cases, judges are being urged to reduce the length of sentences...

...Norman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...That led to an overdue examination of officers' racial attitudes, and subsequently to greater reluctance on their part to take action against suspects from minority groups responsible for a high proportion of the crimes committed...

...The present Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, has gone so far as to instruct magistrates to incarcerate only those found guilty of the most serious crimes...

...New guidelines reduce the minimum "life" sentence for most homicides from 14 to 12 years, with required terms for more heinous murders upped to 16 years —but there are no minimums set for cases of "exceptional gravity...

...Don't bother sending anyone," she said, "I've taken care of the problem myself...

...But most visitors to Britain are unlikely to personally become aware of its law-and-order difficulties...

...Perhaps worst of all, in the past two years, 15 of every 16 offenders brought to trial were acquitted...