Law Talk

Eldo said: "My step-mom, who is also a police officer, has told me much the same thing. I think it's an important quality in police officers and I respect it greatly."

I've always admired your step-mother, Eldo --- ever since you just mentioned her!


Eldo said: "So you think our girl should be charged and some kind of penalty be imposed on her? I don't know. Like I said, I need to think on this more."

This is where you differ from Petty and Me, Eldo - you think first and post second!

This is not to say we should not continue to fight the good fight - Orwell

That supposes all drugs are bad. And only bad. It might be a bad fight you are fighting.
Many works of art are the product of drug influenced minds.
There is good research that points towards drug use being crucial in the original development in humans of the language centres of the brain.
Most early civilisations use similar motifs- spirals, lozenge patterns, checkerboards- all common to hallucnigens implying they were crucial to humans developing societies and religous ideas.
And we wouldn't have Sergeant Pepper either! (or in fact most of the music and a lot of the literature of the 1960's and 70's)

I think we should fight for Good and stand up against Bad, Petty.

I don't, btw, actually think drugs are Bad. You see, drugs don't have souls (in my opinion) and so they cannot be corrupted, they are just a composite of inanimate ingredients.

It's Bad people you and I, and all Good people, must fight back against!

I've been mulling over something you said, Petty (which proves I'm paying attention - after a fashion). If I as a cop, smoked drugs, but didn't charge anyone with smoking drugs, would I then be a "Morally" better person in your eyes?

Shouldnt you be arresting politicians and bankers mainly then? And I say that less than half in jest.
From the point of view of the working class in society it seems that if your crime is big enough the police arent interested- not their business.
If I get money by deception in care work- say fiddling my expenses I get done by the police if I am caught.
Politicians and bankers commit fraud on a breathtaking scale and noone goes to prison.
There is a strong danger in my view of a growing sense of a law for us and no laws for them- and the police risk being seen as the bad guys in the middle who only punish the poor.

I am currently watching a BBC documentray on the london riots in the words of the rioters- and the viteroil against the police- the sense they are an enemy and they deserve what ever happens to them is shocking and worrying.
But the further the police get from seeming like they are serving the public, and the more they look like the enforcers of a rich political elite against the public the worse this will become I reckon.
Stop and search laws, the drug laws in general add to this (a poor person walking home from their dealer with their drugs in a poor part of the country is much more likely to be pulled by the police than a rich guy driving home from his dealer in a nice bit of town- drug laws disproprtionatly effect the working class).

If I, as a cop, smoked drugged, but didn't carge anyone with smoking drugs, then would I be "Morally" better in your eyes? - Owell

Less hypocrictal perhaps but morally better no- to be morally better you would have to decide that your actions and beliefs were incompatable with the job you signed on to do- the moral thing to do would be resign or not join in the first place.

Police are like the military in that they dont get to make the decisons about what they have to do their job is to do it- the choice therefore is to stay and do it, or if you disagree to leave.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Shouldnt you be arresting politicians and bankers mainly then? And I say that less than half in jest.
From the point of view of the working class in society it seems that if your crime is big enough the police arent interested- not their business.
If I get money by deception in care work- say fiddling my expenses I get done by the police if I am caught.
Politicians and bankers commit fraud on a breathtaking scale and noone goes to prison.
There is a strong danger in my view of a growing sense of a law for us and no laws for them- and the police risk being seen as the bad guys in the middle who only punish the poor.

I am currently watching a BBC documentray on the london riots in the words of the rioters- and the viteroil against the police- the sense they are an enemy and they deserve what ever happens to them is shocking and worrying.
But the further the police get from seeming like they are serving the public, and the more they look like the enforcers of a rich political elite against the public the worse this will become I reckon.
Stop and search laws, the drug laws in general add to this (a poor person walking home from their dealer with their drugs in a poor part of the country is much more likely to be pulled by the police than a rich guy driving home from his dealer in a nice bit of town- drug laws disproprtionatly effect the working class).

I'm not sure why - or how best to articulate my feelings - but Petty, your thoughts don't seem to obviously relate to my experience of the streets - and don't seem to be particularly relevant to what is actually happening on the streets!

Is it a gulf between the world of 'ideas and/or bureacracy", and the real world I know, that I'm confronting just now?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Less hypocrictal perhaps but morally better no- to be morally better you would have to decide that your actions and beliefs were incompatable with the job you signed on to do- the moral thing to do would be resign or not join in the first place. Police are like the military in that they dont get to make the decisons about what they have to do their job is to do it- the choice therefore is to stay and do it, or if you disagree to leave.

Just to be sure you know, Petty - I don't smoke drugs!

I have this queer and persistent idea that I as a policeman take a neutral role in society. Preserving the Peace, Upholding the Laws, that kind of thing, without Fear or Favour. I'm like Treebeard, really, not on anyone's side - forming a long thin blue line of like-minded individuals standing between Law and Chaos. I'm not saying that police can never be biased though - I just I don't feel so (when on Duty), and most of the cops I know feel the same way. We are trained to not allow our biases direct our actions.

"Is it a gulf between the world of 'ideas and/or bureacracy", and the real world I know"- Orwell

Yet that gulf allows for things like the London riots. Sparked by the police handling of the shooting of a black kid.
Rioters convicted were given brutal sentences- way above the norm for such crimes as an 'example'- yet at the same time our politicians had been mired in fraudulent expenses claims that ran into the thousands and thousands of pounds of tax payer money for individual MP'S.
Their punishment? A statement of apology to the House of Commons and banned from attending for a few weeks.

Bankers crash the entire economy through dodgy deals, illegal backhanders and rigging the markets- we pay to bail them out and noone seems responsible for it.

The ensuing sense of gulf is the space in which the riots bred and found a voice.
You may not see it on the streets any more than a London copper did a week before the riots- but they sure as hell did when the riots kicked off.

"Just to be sure you know, Petty - I don't smoke drugs"- Orwell

And you call yourself a musician! Hah!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:"Is it a gulf between the world of 'ideas and/or bureacracy", and the real world I know"- Orwell

Yet that gulf allows for things like the London riots. Sparked by the police handling of the shooting of a black kid.
Rioters convicted were given brutal sentences- way above the norm for such crimes as an 'example'- yet at the same time our politicians had been mired in fraudulent expenses claims that ran into the thousands and thousands of pounds of tax payer money for individual MP'S.
Their punishment? A statement of apology to the House of Commons and banned from attending for a few weeks.

Bankers crash the entire economy through dodgy deals, illegal backhanders and rigging the markets- we pay to bail them out and noone seems responsible for it.

The ensuing sense of gulf is the space in which the riots bred and found a voice.
You may not see it on the streets any more than a London copper did a week before the riots- but they sure as hell did when the riots kicked off.

"Just to be sure you know, Petty - I don't smoke drugs"- Orwell

And you call yourself a musician! Hah!

Not all creative people need drugs to 'enhance' their creativity. I can be fully weird enough, btw, without helpful subtances in my system.

I guess I'm low enough in the system, I can actually act locally (according the Moral prequisites that me Mother taught me!) while thinking globally.

Not all creative people need drugs to 'enhance' their creativity. _Orwell

Thats not the point- How can you gain the respect of your musical peers?


I think the police in the UK is a unique case- thanks to some blatant corruption, particularly in the MET in London- there is little trust that the police are fair, little trust that if evidence is lacking and they want to get you they wont just make it up.
Present the idea round here of police and fairness and you are likely to met by incredulity or laughter.

That attitude is not limited to the UK.

I agree that a fine moral sense plus the power you tend to think you have as a cop don't always segue well together with some cops. I'm probably lucky that I'm senior enough - and known enough - that things like arrogance and a 'bullying" attitude, don't happen (generally) in my presence - and certainly any corruption, big or small, is either not existent around me, or kept very carefully hidden from my ken! As I've alluded before, cops of my personal acquaintance generally act exactly as I would expect them to - which means as the "wider community" would trust they do.

No I dont suppose Eldo that attitude is confined to the UK, but has perhaps been highlighted here recently in a series of related events which made it more obvious.

At its worst people view the police as a sort of legitimised gang- they are something to be avoided and encounters with them are always a bad thing.
Being given a 'heads up' about police is common "Watch yourself the cops are down the street" is something you hear regularly.
Car drivers flash lights to complete strangers to warn them the police are waiting further down the road.
The police are not seen as a positive force in life. They are not someone you turn to- thats generally considered a means to make a bad situation worse- involving them.

Not that people want anarchy- everyone knows you need police- but the more laws they have to enforce which are unpopular, be it drug laws or increasingly draconian fines for minor driving offences ect the worse this sense of us and them with the police gets.


or kept very carefully hidden from my ken- Orwell

Thats a very scotshobbit way to put things Orwell, yi ken?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:At its worst people view the police as a sort of legitimised gang- they are something to be avoided and encounters with them are always a bad thing.

Collective guilty consciences can do that to you.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Being given a 'heads up' about police is common "Watch yourself the cops are down the street" is something you hear regularly.?

So what are they doing so as to fear police notice?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Car drivers flash lights to complete strangers to warn them the police are waiting further down the road.?

I notice that here too, especially when I'm off duty. It does encourage one to drive fast and have fatal accidents. Morally I can't agree with that.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The police are not seen as a positive force in life. They are not someone you turn to- thats generally considered a means to make a bad situation worse- involving them.?

I find we're the first people folk turn to when the shit hits their personal fan, including people who hate us as a matter of (ignorant) course--- even burglars, for example, when they themselves are burgled! Oh the hypocrisy of the genuine Criminal! (I remember once receiving a report from a gentlehobbit who reported his illegal drugs had been stolen! )

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Not that people want anarchy- everyone knows you need police- but the more laws they have to enforce which are unpopular, be it drug laws or increasingly draconian fines for minor driving offences ect the worse this sense of us and them with the police gets.?

Maybe ALL minor driving offences should be repealed then? If no harm is done (in the Small or Big Picture) then they might be obsolete.... Drug Laws, I might add, may be unpopular with you, Petty, but not necessarily by the Majority of folk.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:or kept very carefully hidden from my ken- Orwell

Thats a very scotshobbit way to put things Orwell, yi ken?

I thought I could better reach you if I spoke a bit of Scotshobbitish!

I'm familiar enough with that attitude Petty because everything you just described is true in America too (and I have no doubt that it's also true in Australia and many other places). There are plenty of events that alienate people towards police that have occurred here as well. I think the attitude you describe is understandable to an extent but it's not very unhelpful, particularly because it's politicians who bear the responsibility for the laws you don't like, not the police who have to enforce them.

Eldorion wrote:I'm familiar enough with that attitude Petty because everything you just described is true in America too (and I have no doubt that it's also true in Australia and many other places). There are plenty of events that alienate people towards police that have occurred here as well. I think the attitude you describe is understandable to an extent but it's not very unhelpful, particularly because it's politicians who bear the responsibility for the laws you don't like, not the police who have to enforce them.

I think you guys overstate this anti-Police attitude. I would argue (and I fear I'm going out on a limb here), most people respect what police do, even if they have their occasional gripes about getting a ticket for driving irresponsibly (or charged for beating their wives, or stealing a pig), and don't like the occasional police officer they meet who is an out and out prick - the same officers I butt heads with, though fortunately, I don't know many of the latter on a day to day basis. I think you guys with your Lefty mentality can't see the wood for the trees! But I would still fight for your right to be such lah-dee-dah Intellectuals! Indeed, that's what the whole thin blue (democratic) line is all about with me!

Obviously the level of anti-police sentiment is going to vary depending on the social circles one moves in. Being a young person attending a state university with lots of wannabe hippies I have no doubt that I'm exposed to a higher level of such sentiment than I would be in some other circumstances. My point was more that such sentiment is not limited to any one area than to say that it is a majority-held opinion (though it probably is in some neighborhoods).

It will always be the case that those who have to enforce laws have to deal with the people they enforce them on- regardless of who makes them- that might not be fair but its unlikely to change.

So what are they doing so as to fear police notice?- Orwell

Most often nothing- but if you go that way you might get stopped and searched or just hassled for a bit if they are bored enough- its symptomatic of the attitude that the police are best avoided whereever possible. They are seen as unnecessary trouble.

Regards drivig laws and the myriad of other minor 'new' crimes tha have cropped up- there comes a point where there are so many laws it becomes increasingly hard to avoid breaking at least the odd one.
This is not a problem of the polices making of course, but again its the police who have to enforce it.
Policing can only ever work when it is by the concensus of the people being policed- the police here at least seem in real danger of losing that consensus.
In my lifetime atititudes to police have altered dramatically.

My father was a perfectly lawabiding person (buckie aside of course) worked hard all his life never in any trouble, in his fifities he got a job as a clerk of the court- it quickly shattered his exisiting views that the cops were the good guys.
He talks with sheer disbelief at the cavalier attitude they had to their side of the law- comparing notes before court cases ect and making sure they squared up- that sort of thing- all of whch is illegal but which was common practice.
When people of my fathers generation lose faith in the police something is seriously amiss.

I think you guys overstate this anti-Police attitude.- Orwell

I am not really stating an attitude at all- I am speaking entirely here from my own day to day experience and listening to what people say around me regards police. And Im not talking about crims here but neighbours, friends, family, work collegues- this attitude I am expressing it isnt my own or confined to one or two folks I know.
Maybe if I moved in more middle to upper class circles it might be different I dont know- but down here near the bottom this is the attitude I hear most of the time.
Or to put another way if a friend told me the police were parked up round the corner I would pick a different route even though I should have nothing to fear from them. But I dont trust them enough for that.

It's all devolves on a personal feeling then? And it's not a reflection of the general societal view... Phew!

I think you mentioned that business of Cops swapping notes. Where I am, it's legal for us to corroborate each other's evidence, Petty. Here one member compiles a brief, and the others who assisted leave him (mostly) to keep notes. We are part of this process of note taking (being present, that is) and so can use his notes of the time to refresh our memories down the track. It's not (at least definitely MUST not) be used to distort or change or "marry-up" accounts. Anyway the point is, it's a legal part of the process here. So I know none of your Father's shock, though I understand it, knowing what you've told me about your system. What we do is adopt the notes of whoever is Informant. We can be drilled about our testimony in the box - and usually vigorously so, to test our individual truthfullness. That's only fair. Um.. why didn't your Father blow the whistle on them? Even by anonymous letter? Or did he?

Is there anything about you that would attract automatic police suspicion? Or does everyone, Man, Woman and Child attract a quick frisking? In your case, might it not be the smell of cannabis, perhaps? Or the eye-dilation of mushroom use? Just asking, ya ken?

Cheeky bugger Orwell.
Tonight for example my downstairs neighbours friend got stopped for no readily apprent reason- she is a young lass in her 20's. She was asked some questions and sent on her way- an inconcvience no more- but an unnecessary one that breeds resentment.

With the notes thing - the polices notebooks are supposed to be given to the court without the officers getting together first to make sure their reports all match-but its common practice for them to get together and sort it all out first, despite it being against the law.
And no my father did not complain. Why not? Because he didnt trust them not to persecute him for making trouble for them.
The same reason no one bothers making complaints to the police complaints commission- everyone knows they look after their own.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Cheeky bugger Orwell.
Tonight for example my downstairs neighbours friend got stopped for no readily apprent reason- she is a young lass in her 20's. She was asked some questions and sent on her way- an inconcvience no more- but an unnecessary one that breeds resentment.

With the notes thing - the polices notebooks are supposed to be given to the court without the officers getting together first to make sure their reports all match-but its common practice for them to get together and sort it all out first, despite it being against the law.
And no my father did not complain. Why not? Because he didnt trust them not to persecute him for making trouble for them.
The same reason no one bothers making complaints to the police complaints commission- everyone knows they look after their own.

Maybe if enough 'annymous" letters are received by the press, and enough of a stink is made, things might change. Mind, I seriously doubt your police force is as corrupt an organisation as you make out... mmm.... yes... this might be a good idea.... {{{ }}}

As to the girl... mmm... was she pretty?

If not, she probably seemed suspicious...

I dont think its as corrupt as that either- but it has some practises that have been going on so long they are sort of inbuilt now.

I should for the record (police or otherwise) say I have had 2 majorish run ins with police both in my early 20's.
I was arrested on suspicion of possesion and taken to the station, strip searched and questioned then released (I hadn't actually done anything wrong or had any cannabis on my possesion (more by luck than innocence I admit)-and back then all cannabis here was what was called 'soap bar'- which is a sold variant and doesnt have a strong odour at all, nothing like grass).

The second time they had got a tip off I was growing plants- which is quite funny I cant keep a simple houseplant alive for more than week!- and I had my door put in and a mob of police gave me a very unpleasant time, wrecked my flat, riped my couch open, tipped all my drawers on the floor and acted very unpleasantly the entire time before leaving with nothing (they were totally wrong I still dont know why they thought what they did I've never grown anything except my hair) and without so much as an apology. Nor do they pay for damages.
So my own views are probably somewhat coloured by those incidents too.

The girl is pretty yes.