Former Met chief, Sir Paul, attacks justice system

Last week, The Telegraph’s Home Affairs Correspondent, David Barrett, wrote that Sir Paul Stephenson, who was Britain’s most senior police officer until his resignation in July last year, accused police and the courts of letting down victims of crime.

He singled out the victims of burglary as being poorly-served, saying that forces which failed to send an officer to every break-in were failing to treat the crime seriously, while courts were too often letting off offenders without a custodial sentence.

His remarks, in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, came the week after a judge was castigated for saying burglars needed a “huge amount of courage” to break into someone’s home”

Sir Paul said describing such a “heinous” and “evil” crime in such a way was “foolish and reckless”.

He went on to admit that with hindsight he was unsure he had always struck the right balance between pursuing tough sanctions for criminals and allowing the widening of softer, “diversionary schemes” for offenders during his 35-year career as a police officer.

Read the rest of the article at this link to The Telegraph

Calvin’s Comment

Whilst I can agree with a great deal of what Sir Paul has said I’m not quite sure he said it when he was in the job.  In my early days in the police force in the 1970s every single victim of burglary was visited by the police, but even then there was no guarantee that those caught and convicted of the offences would go to prison.

Burglary, which is often viewed as just another ‘property’ crime, is certainly a great deal more than that.  Some victims suffer physical and mental health problems as a direct result of an intrusion, which in turn places a burden on our health service, and even the neighbours of victims are affected, wondering if they will be next.  Some elderly people become so afraid of becoming victimised they fear to venture out.  This is a serious crime deserving of serious punishment.

So I too would like to see burglars going straight to prison on their first offence, but the problem is we don’t have enough prison places for them to go to!

One on-line comment to this article by ‘molsey mole’ about sentencing policy was interesting and reads as follows (edited):

A single burglary gets a "punishment"

A burglar convicted of 20 burglaries doesn’t get “punishment” X 20 – why?

A thief who steals £20,000 in a series of burglaries may get a few years in prison

A white-collar worker who steals £10 million in many transactions will get a similar sentence

Some sense of proportion is required.

Totally agree with you, molesey mole!