I missed this at the weekend

'Police leaders attack government' over plans for elected commissioners. You have to say they have a point. I've not seen any evidence or even research on this, or even much in the way of theoretical justification save some hand-waving about 'local priorities' and, according to Nick Robinson on Radio 4, 'using the power of consumerism to shake up the police bureaucracy', whatever that means.

Quite why Police Authorities (made up in part of local councillors) can't do these things, or be reformed in some way to do them if that's what we really want (and I doubt it), is not entirely clear. It seems to be almost entirely designed to be an eye-catching initiative which hasn't been thought through at all. The level of criticism directed at the government from police bodies is pretty unusual, especially so early into a new government, and will hopefully give the Home Office pause for thought.

Women commit crime too - shock revelations

It must be a signal of my decadent, pinko, liberal, moral relativism but I really can't get too worked up about stories like this.

Or rather, I think any increase in violent crime is a bad thing, no matter who's doing it, and the fact that women/girls are involved is surely much less important than the acts of violence themselves. Is a mugging or stabbing worse if it's perpetrated by a women? I can't see that it is.

There always seems to be a kind of submerged sexism in stories like this - almost as if women not conforming to meek and law-abiding gender stereotypes is somehow more disturbing than the crimes they are committing. Or perhaps female criminality is a particular potent example of the 'world gone mad' narrative which permeates much discussion about crime and policing. "Teenage girl muggers? Whatever next! We're all going to hell in a handcart" etc etc.

Anonymity for men accused of rape

This just feels wrong. But I'm not totally sure why. I guess it's partly because the accused in other cases don't get the same protection - although the 'accusers' in other cases don't get anonymity, as rape victims do, either.

Perhaps it's a genuine case of the intention being worse than the act. Apparently this move is intended to protect men who are falsely accused, which immediately makes it seem as if false allegations are common. I've never seen any real evidence that this is the case, so it really makes it look like women who come forward with an accusation of rape will experience another layer of doubt, suspicion and difficulty.

Guardian 'datablog': the DNA database

I like this 'Datablog'. Although it's pretty scary to see that some police forces already have over 10 per cent of the population in their area stored on the DNA database.....

It's also interesting to see how many sample are stored each year - over half a million at the moment. This just reaffirms how many people come into some kind of 'negative' contact with the police during their life time. Presumably each sample stored is new individual so these are not the same people being caught up again and again.

This puts the 'most crime is committed by a small number of individuals' meme in a new light. There is undoubtedly some truth in this claim. But, equally, doing something which leads to an arrest - and a DNA swab - appears to be a pretty common thing (although we should remember that an arrest certainly does not confirm guilt). Outside the 'hardcore' of prolific offenders is a much larger group of people who, perhaps only occasionally, even just once, get arrested.

Media and other representations of 'the criminal' are usually essentialist and of course profoundly negative. Do we really think the 12.5 per cent Northumbrians who have samples stored on the DNA database conform to this stereotype? I doubt it. So how should we think about them and, more importantly, how do we try to ensure that, having been arrested once, they do not go on to be arrested again? Indeed, how do we stop them doing things that might lead to an arrest in the first place? Given these are likely to be, to a large extent, ordinary people, 'lock them up and throw away the key' really shouldn't be an option. So what is?

Neo-Nazi terrorists

It's a point many others have made many times, but I think it bears repeating (yet) again - why does the constant drip, drip of Neo-Nazi terrorists caught, charged and convicted not excite more comment from the press? If these two were Islamists, particularly given the father/son relationship, we would presumably now be being treated to another wave of hand-wringing (can you have a wave of hand-wringing?) about the failure of multi-culturalism, the lack of assimilation, segregation in our cities etc. Yet this story, where it is covered, is treated like the aberration it probably is.

Obviously that was a rhetorical question - we know why stories like this aren't covered more. The people involved aren't brown, Muslim, and haven't moved to the UK from places about which we know little and care less.

But what I find particularly repellent is the way in which ordinary Muslims are constantly asked to 'condemn' Islamist terrorists, as if they are somehow complicit if they don't. I wonder how many of us White Anglo-Saxons will be asked to condemn this pair and their ilk? In the absence of Nick Griffin appearing on the TV (and perhaps even not then), precisely none, I'm guessing.

(More) utter insanity

Good see that many people are prepared to support Paul Chambers in appealing his conviction.

But what's really scary is the number of 'Comment is Free' commenters who think he got what he deserved. For example:

"If you can't do the time. Don't do the crime!

What are we supposed to do with bomb threat hoaxers. Keep writing though so that others get the message. Threatening to blow up airports even if you think it was amusing just isn't funny."

Which just goes to show that some people will support the CJS system no matter how daft are the decisions it takes. 'Over-legitimisation', you might call it - a willingness to support an authority even when it makes crazy decisions. Although strictly speaking, it's legitimacy pure and simple: acceptence of decisions irrespective of their substantive content.

Utter insanity

Well, you wait ages for a post, then two come along at once. This frankly beggers belief, and probably requires no further comment other than an expression of outrage......

I think I've moaned before about poor laws and poor prosecutions which can only serve to de-legitimise the entire criminal justice system, and it's hard to think of a better example than this.

It's not illegal to take photos!

Not much action on here recently, so to get things moving again ....

.... why oh why do they keep doing this? Once called by the security guard the officers involved had a duty to turn up and have a quick chat with Mr Smith. So why not just leave it at that? What happened to the common sense John Yates called for last year? What on earth was the point in searching the photographer in such an apparently hostile manner? Police often claim they stuck in the middle in situations such as the one described and get the blame from both sides. And this is often the case. But when one side is so obviously wrong, what's the point in escalating the situation, rather than use a bit of nouse to defuse it and let everyone go on their way?

Police also have a duty to be fair and neutral. But this is not the same as always steering through a mid-point in every argument (so in this case the man was searched, perhaps in part to appease to security guard and to demonstrate that something was being done, but no further action was taken). Fairness and neutrality is about assessing the rights and wrongs of a situation, deciding on an appropriate course of action, and then explaining it to those involved. If that had happened in this case, I doubt we would be seeing headlines about it in national newspapers.