As I walked along Sumatra Road yesterday in the early evening, a burglar alarm rang out in a house about ten along from where I’m moving out of. Out of twenty houses along that stretch of the road, there have been half a dozen burglaries in the last two months (including my Moslem neighbours who were robbed whilst they were at evening prayers in the mosque in late June, and myself two weeks ago).
The modus operandi is identical and no fingerprints are ever found, suggesting that either the burglar is a police informant (so they don’t want to catch him because British police are not allowed to employ an informant with a criminal record), or he wears gloves and has some skill. The ‘local’ police based three miles away admit that they are surprised at the recent crime spree in the neighbourhood: burglaries may have trebled in the area this year.
Today, having dialled 999 and explained that there had been a number of burglaries in the area I gave my name and address and assumed that a normal response would occur: either nothing or at least 20 minutes response time. I cannot honestly say that the service was worse than I expected.
When I called back I was told that the control centre would not send anyone unless there was evidence that someone was actually inside the property. I asked if this happened frequently and was told that 95% of alarm call-outs were a waste of time. If this is so, I’m surprised that burglar alarms are even allowed in this country.
So the solution is obvious: if a neighbour is burgled, call the police saying that you’ve shot a burglar, give the address you think the burglary is in progress, then drink a couple of glasses of whiskey, before the cops arrive to either protect their informant or crush an attempted self-defence, so you can claim to have been confused. Do NOT try to get in a car. You don’t want to risk losing your driving license.
As for being burgled myself, does anyone know a pig-farmer?
What would happen if the neighborhoods that are experiencing a rash of burglaries and assaults were to institute a ‘neighborhood watch’ type of system?
In the US there are communities that have gotten together with the police and instituted a system where the residents patrol and/or watch their neighborhoods. Sometimes, the mere presense of the neighborhood watches is enough to reduce crime.
I’ve read about some neighborhoods in the US where the police response was extremely poor and cooperation between the police and citizens almost nonexistent. Some of the citizens took matters into their own hands in creative ways so they didn’t become vigilante groups.
The creative ways included neighbors in either a van or car with a video camera who would respond to a call by another neighbor of a crime in progress.
The people in the van or car would videotape the crime and show it to the police. Helped catch the criminals. Many times the criminals would run away when they saw the video camera.
Another way involved an alarm being raised by a watcher that would signal a certain amount of nearby neighbors to come out of their houses and confront the criminals. The neighbors were not to be armed, but I think some had bats to protect themselves.
When the various neighborhood watches first started they were very controversial. The spector of ‘vigilante justice’ was raised. The watches did go forward and reduced crime in the neighborhoods that had them.
I was just wondering if something similar had been tried in the UK? If not, would something like this work if people tried it?
I was burgled about a year ago. Two officers came later that night, followed by a forensics officer to dust for fingerprints the next day. I was suitably impressed. The last time I’d reported a crime to the police (for a cloned credit card, because the bank wouldn’t return the stolen money from my account) they told me straight out they couldn’t be bothered investigating – it wasn’t worth it. Happens all the time, we have people with faulty windscreen wipers to interrogate.
About a month later, I had a phone call from a man who’d bought something stolen from my flat – he knew quite a lot about the people who sold him the stolen goods, and said he was willing to talk to the police.
I got in touch with the relevant officer who tried to sound vaguely interested, but kept emphasising how good it was that I’d got one single stolen item back. They didn’t bother talking to my ‘source’, even though I’d passed on his name, address and phone number.
I’ve seen a statistic that says anyone has a 87.5% chance of escaping detection for committing a crime in the UK, based on the ratio of reported crimes to arrests (8:1). It’s a very ropey statistic to say the least – but when the judiciary is suggesting burglars shouldn’t recieve custodial sentences, it sounds more and more tempting.
As for your fingerprint-less burglaries, a popular MO is to wear socks over the hands – avoids any chance of being charged with ‘going equipped’.
Assuming you’re white and your Muslim neighbours aren’t, are you aware that under current English/Welsh law, they could report their burglary as racially motivated, but you couldn’t? All that’s required as evidence of a racial motive is the say-so of the victim. People considered ‘white’ can’t report non-violent crimes as racially motivated.
Not that it would do your neighbours any good of course, although I suspect the police would pretend to be more interested in solving the case.
This LA Times story reports the same thing happening here.
It’s too bad you chaps across the pond can’t own handguns.
I live a couple of streets away and was burgled a few months ago (in our case the break-in happened in the afternoon whilst we were away at work). After phoning 999 at about 5pm, a couple of policemen finally arrived on our doorstep around midnight, just as we were getting to sleep. When the flat upstairs was burgled I seem to remember them taking even longer. Good to know that you can always expect such great service for all that money you pay to L.B. Camden in Council Tax, isn’t it?
If British society is reluctant to expose its criminals to injury while pursuing their chosen trade, then HMGovernment should encourage its citizens (subjects) to shoot/kill burglars.
This will soon deter further burglaries as well as shrink the existing manpower surplus in that labor category. In the long-term, this will reduce burglars’ injuries suffered at the hands of the propertied classed. Think of it as animal control.
After all, the few must sometimes sacrifice for the good of the many.
Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?
Do you have ‘class action’ lawsuits or something similar in Britain?
If so, could the residents of a town form a class to sue the government for a tax refund based on non-performance of services contracted and paid for?
Heh! “attempted self-defence” – the new crime of the century.
It’s so out of kilter that it would be humorous, if it weren’t so sad.
Doug Collins:
No, we don’t have class actions (I’m glad to say).
And no, you’ll never get your money back… there isn’t a contract, and the Crown is invulnerable in any case, though its agents are not entirely beyond the reach of the courts.
There exists an action for breach of statutory duty. But if you want to take that line you need to show such a duty exists, and in general there’s no duty to prevent, pursue, or prosecute crime.
Further, assume such an action would lie, whom would you sue? The local police authority. Which would pay your damages, and all the costs (public bodies always appeal as expensively as possible, remember) out of your next Council Tax bill. Even if you win, you are poorer, the lawyers are richer– and the bureaucrats have indirectly punished you for your intervention and are actually more secure…
There was a case recently in Wales, where a burglar was caught in the act by the warden of some retirement apartments. With the help of some of the residents, the intruder was detained and the Police called. It still took them nearly two hours to arrive.
FWIW, my take on the story is here
Reminds me of story I read recently here in America.
A man woke to find people raiding his garden shed, so he phoned the police to explain the situation. The dispatcher told him that all units were busy and to stay in the house and wait for police to show.
He hung up. Five minutes later, he phone the police again and told the dispatcher that he shot the burgulars, and please send an ambulance for any survivors.
Within 3 minutes he had 4 squad cars and and ambulance outside his house. When the police chief discovered that the burgulars had fled, unharmed, he turned to the homeowner and said “I thought you said you shot them all!”
And the homeowner said “And I thought you said all units were busy!”
Neighbourhood watch schemes in the UK are now regarded with a lot of suspicion by the police – anything they feel that has the potential to be some form of vigilantism group has to be stamped on as soon as possible, whereas in the 80’s and 90’s those same groups were regarded as a bonus to assisting officers in community policing.
I would dearly love to know as to what constitutes a crime where the police from any British force will turn up with sirens blaring within minutes of the emergency call being placed. We recently had a problem on an ‘open’. a normal street, film location where 2 “gentlemen of leisure” (drunken bums) insisted on staggering around knocking valuable stuff over, causing a nuisance and then threatening my crew with violence. Despite 2 police offcers being in eyeshot of the scene they would not interfere until backup arrived – some 20 minutes later when the drunks had staggered off. They actually made moves to arrest my assistant when she accused both of them of cowardice and took down their numbers for further action, a matter we avoided by filming them and threatening to send the film to ITN.
By the police’s cynicism I feel we have been castrated of our means to defend ourselves and our property in the UK now. The cavalier attitude of many forces now seems to be that any property loss has a price which your insurers will cover, and that sentimental value is just that … sentimental. We either get penalised for trying to take action against burglars (not Tony Martin, but there are other far more apt cases in the UK now than his) or we get penalised for attempting to take a pro-active stance against crime.
All while the blind beggar covers his guidedog’s eyes with both eyes and says “I see no crime rate increase”.