On one hand there's a lot to be sceptical about. For one thing, the story is rather vague about what's actually meant to be going on. It suggests that ANPR is being used to pull people over, with the subsequent encounter being used to get an arrest and/or seizure by any means necessary. Which is always possible, but the key quote...
"In short, officers do not have a complete understanding of the law, use flawed databases to justify immediate seizures, fail to adequately research and evidence the basis of their belief and almost certainly knowingly seize vehicles just to satisfy service and personal performance targets,"
... says nothing about the middle class specifically. And the paragraph about the 'soft-crime initiative' is a bit of a red herring since most parking fines are not given out by the police.
Furthermore, the current police target regime, APACS, says nothing about arrest rates that I can see - although it does mention asset recovery, which might be relevant. So what are the targets the police are meant to be meeting?
Finally, what's wrong with stopping the 'mostly law-abiding' on those occasions when their otherwise apparently high standards slip? As we so often hear in relation to anti-terrorist activities, if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to fear, surely. Or does this is not apply to the middle class, who should have to fear nothing even if they've done something wrong?
But there might be an important point buried here somewhere. Although the new HO targets don't seem to mention arrest rates (I keep saying seem because the HO guidance is horrendously complex and I can't face going through it properly), and definitely push public perceptions as the most important measure, has this sunk down to the operational level? Or do local managers still prioritize arrest rates and similar concerns?
This would certainly go against the spirit of the new target regime. But more importantly, as the Indy story rather clumsily suggests, targets based purely on arrest rates and the like seem almost certain to end up having negative unintended consequences in terms of pissing people off. Officer's use of discretion is central part of British policing, and what's more the public know this and expect police to take account of the circumstances of a case when making decisions (see this paper, for example). Anything which encourages police to make decisions based on external criteria seems likely, in the UK at least, to damage the relationship between police and public.
Which, to their credit, is something the HO does seem to have taken on board. Which is why stories like this, if true, are so disappointing.
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