Stop and search

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Lord Carlisle of Berriew, Britain's one-man watchdog snapping at the heels of anti-terrorist legislation, has called on the government's stop and search system to be scrapped because it is poisoning relations between the police and the public. Like the system of criminal records checks which treats every parent helping out with school activities as a paedophile, it should go.

The present stop and search system was introduced under the Terrorism Act 2000. It gave the police powers to stop and search people, without having to give reasons, in areas specified by ministers. You might have thought the idea was to stop people with rucksacks who were eyeing up nuclear power stations or water treatment plants. But within weeks of the Act being passed, ministers declared the whole of London a stop and search area. So police can now stop anyone anywhere the metropolis, at any time, with no reason. As indeed, they do.

Of course, the bureaucratic mentality makes it worse, because in order to prove that they are not discriminating against particular groups, the police have to fill out yellow forms with your name, address, sex, height, race and much more on it. The result is that what ought to be a friendly enquiry ('You've been standing outside this government office quite a time, sir, can I ask your purpose?' 'Oh, simple as that, eh?' Very good, sir, thank you, have a nice day.') into something adversarial – and where the police have all the muscle: refuse to give your details or tell them not to be so daft and boil their heads, and you will be arrested. No wonder that the public now see the police not as their servants and protectors, but as agents of a bully state.

Eamonn Butler's DIY manual for fixing Britain – The Alternative Manifesto – is now out! Get it here.

Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime

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We are continually being told that the causes of crime are both complex, built into the very structures of our society, and simple: it's all inequality, innit? Poverty, deprivation, righteous anger at the greed of the rich: fill in your own quotations from Polly Toynbee here.

However, there's another theory entirey: that much crime, if not most of it, is opportunistic. It takes place because those who would have more and are willing to get more through either violence or other illegality meet up with those who have the more and cannot defend it. Our problem is of course that we very rarely get the sort of natural experiment that we need in order to test which of these two is correct: or, if we are to be fair, or both could have some relevance, which explains the greater part of it. Rarely, but not never:

The Baltimore example is that over the period of the recent blizzards – when most potential victims were stationary, and not accessible to the police, the crime rate dropped.

For example, murders – of which there were 18 in the first 37 days of the year – dropped to 0 in 9 days.

Now it certainly isn't possibly true that inequality, poverty, deprivation or righteous anger dropped in those days of the snowstorms. It's also most certainly not true that policing had anything to do with it as they were as trapped as everyone else. No, we're rather left with our second explanation: the root cause of crime appears to be the opportunity to commit a crime. When that opportunity isn't there, nor is the crime.

A state of distrust

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The ASI has long campaigned against intrusive government; they lack the right to pry into citizen's lives, and cannot be trusted to look after and use the information they amass responsibly. And now, new polling by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust suggests that the average Joe is becoming increasingly wary government activity too.

63% of those questioned were worried about the government holding data on them, up from 53% in the 2006 poll. 53% respondents now believe that ID cards are a 'bad' or even worse idea; a staggering leap from opposition of 33% in 2006. In addition, 56% of people think government power too centralized, while a massive 88% of respondents want local communities to have more say over decisions that effect them.

What these figures clearly show is that people are becoming fed up of government projects that gather and centralize information and power. Indeed, the significant rise in the number of people who are concerned about the Big Brother state is striking. The current low standing of politicians and past scandals with lost data have surely gone some way to increase the public's aversion to the retention of personal information. However, somewhere along line, New Labour's erosion of our privacy has also caused people to switch from thinking 'If I have done nothing wrong than I have nothing to hide', to having real apprehension about government's plans.

Obviously, the incumbent government is charging full steam ahead with Operation Observation, by rolling out ID cards on a (for now) voluntary basis to the 16-24 year olds of London. While both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have pledged to scrap the cards, neither party has developed a meaningful agenda to really break down the monolithic state that currently looms over Britain and sucks in political and economic power at every opportnity. In politics, too much information and power is held by too few, and the Rowntree poll results suggest that a tipping point in the nation's tolerance could well be approaching.

Power 2010: A Bill of Rights

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One of the many Power 2010 proposals is to introduce a Bill of Rights into the UK. As several commentators have noted, there already is one. However, this is not the main problem with the proposals. In fact, a Bill of Rights that set out the freedoms that people should enjoy as citizens (not subjects!) of the United Kingdom – bringing together both ancient liberties and new ones – would be a good thing.

As the authors themselves note: "A bill of rights is a list of rights that a nation believes to be of such value and importance that they deserve special protection - examples include freedom of expression, freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial.The purpose of a bill of rights is to protect the rights of individual citizens from infringement by the state."

However, as is so common when talking about "Rights", the authors of this proposal go on to conflate two very different issues, and in doing so they undermine their case. At the very end of an otherwise quite safe proposal, they suggest that "it could include rights which we value as a society, such as the right to trial by jury, and even rights to welfare and public services like the NHS."

This is where the suggestion of a Bill of Rights goes wrong.

The successful American Bill of Rights and the Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen set out the freedoms of individuals and the limits of the state. They aimed to prevent the abuse of state power but did not give anybody a claim on anybody else (except the negative claim not to have their life and liberty infringed).

This is what a Bill of Rights should be for: we could call it a Bill of Freedoms.

By comparison, what is being suggested towards the end of the Power 2010 proposal strays into a Bill of Entitlements. This is fundamentally different from a Bill of Freedoms. Firstly, rather than setting people free, it makes people beholden to others; one person's entitlement is another's obligation (you are entitled to something; therefore I and all others must give it to you).

Secondly, welfare benefits should be decided by normal legislation. Only a parliament elected at a moment in time can decide what welfare society can afford and what should be provided by all to all, free at the point of delivery.

Thirdly, this might very well act as an impediment to reform. Almost nobody believes that public services do not need reform. But once a particular set of structures is locked in for all times by a Bill of Rights that is itself hard to change, reform will become massively more difficult. (I assume here that the Bill of Rights could not be overturned by a simple parliamentary majority – otherwise, how would it differ from current legislation?).

The aim of a Bill of Rights should be to protect individuals from the majority, not to subject the majority to the claims of individuals. By including entitlements within what should be a charter protecting fundamental liberties, the authors of this proposal have undermined its validity.

Inciting violence

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It is common parlance to hear that we should be free to speak, excepting of course if we incite violence. This has been especially common in the case of Islam4uk, where their defense rests principally upon the fact they have not been involved in promoting violence. Despite its ubiquity, I have never been entirely convinced by this position.

I would suggest that the promotion of violence is arguably not a valid excuse with which governments should be allowed to infringe upon someone’s freedom of association and speech. My objection is both deontological and based on the consequences of banning these freedoms. It is objectionable on deontological grounds because in a free society, people should simply be free to associate and speak freely. Instead of pulling people up for the possible results of their actions, their active part in or association with real violence against others should be the litmus test for infringing upon their liberty.

However, not everyone desires a free society, so perhaps my consequentialist objections could carry more weight. Firstly, it far from clear that there is less violence as a result of people being banned from inciting violence. This might seem counter-intuitive, but by forcing views (however abhorrent) underground, it is possible that more violence might result. It would thus be illogical to ban such groups. Secondly, as history teaches us, there are occasions where violence (particularly against those in political power) was morally defensible. As such, inciting violence is not always morally wrong and it is perhaps best left out of the hands of politicians to decide when it is and isn't.

This is difficult issue, so I would be interested to hear any thought for or against this position.

Islam4Uk: An issue of freedom

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As of today, Islam4Uk and its various guises have become illegal organizations, thanks to the discretion of Alan Johnson and 2000 Terrorism Act. Johnson’s justification for proscription is that that the group “unlawfully glorify the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism." In essence, the group openly takes a positive view of terrorism. Although members of the group’s previous incarnations have gone on to commit acts of terrorism, no member of Islam4Uk itself has been linked to any crimes of this sort.

The group’s main wrongdoing, and the justification for their proscription, has been to hold particular beliefs and to express them in such a way that the extreme majority of the UK are shocked, offended and appalled by them.

This should not be a crime. "If the group or individuals break the law, they should be prosecuted; but to proscribe the group as a preventive measure flies in the face of free speech. If we were able to ban organizations simply because we didn’t like their professed end goals, surely enough support could see the Labour party driven underground. Besides, banning an organization does nothing to change the attitude of its members.

An alternative way to deal with Isalm4Uk would have been to remove the income support that a number of the group appeared to live off, namely welfare. This would make sure that less public money was put towards enabling the group to have the time and means to propagate views that the vast majority of the nation find repugnant.

Why are crime statistics down?

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If you look at the latest crime statistics you are probably in for a surprise. Recorded crimes fell 5% to 4.7 million in 2009. Here are the latest stats for the UK:

• Violence against the person down 6%
• with injury down 7%
• Domestic burglary up 1%
• Offences against vehicles down 10%
• Theft from the person down 12%
• Criminal damage down 10%
• Robbery down 5%
• Drugs offences up 6%

Given the financial crash and concomitant job losses, unemployment is at new heights. So shouldn't crime be going up? Haven’t we always been told that unemployment, poverty, etc. is the driving force behind crime? Well, the latest facts from both sides of the Atlantic don't support this thesis and may never have, according to Heather Mac Donald in the WSJ. As such, the theoretical link between jobless numbers and the number of crimes lays in tatters.

It has long been argued that thwarted expectations turn the disillusioned youth towards crime. From there emerged the logic that crime could best be fought by a higher income distribution. The logical consequence of this mindset is that the police can do nothing really to bring crime down. That’s why the police in Britain have been content to report that crime figures are “stable". Now the facts have taught politicians and the police a lesson.

Looking at CCTV

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Britain is the most watched nation in the world with around 4 million CCTV cameras installed across Britain. The London Borough of Wandsworth has a higher number of them than Dublin, San Francisco, Johannesburg and Boston combined. Cameras can be easily installed by local councils, and are a way to visibly display that an issue is being ‘tackled’. However, the exponential rise in cameras simply serves to suggest that as a nation we cannot be trusted, and that if we are not being watched over we are somehow unsafe.

The ‘success’ of CCTV cameras in securing convictions has often been used as an excuse to support even more invasive forms of state monitoring. However, statistics show that CCTV cameras simply do not work. The crimes actually caught on camera fell by 70% between 2003/4 and 2008/09, while in London only one in seven crimes solved involved the use of CCTV. Many cameras are ill-positioned, lack film or are of such poor quality that they can’t be used as evidence in court.

Spending on CCTV guzzles three-quarters of the crime prevention budget, and so provides very little bang for our buck. £500 million was spent on new cameras in London between 1996 and 2006. This is £500 million that could have been spent on a number of better measures, such as employing or training police, and tailoring crime-fighting strategies to suit local areas. Coating the country in all-seeing-eyes has proved to be an expensive and inefficient use of resources, and dramatically reducing the number of cameras in the UK would be a good way to rein in profligate spending and create a freer society.

Quit kit

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I am increasingly tempted to start smoking once more. Given the authoritarian stance that the government takes against the partaking of tobacco, it is only a matter of time before lighting up will have the lure, excitement and increased health risks that came with drinking in prohibition America.

The latest in the ongoing war on smokers is the government’s 340,000 quit kits, set to cost the taxpayer in excess of £700,000. Disturbingly, as part of this latest campaign to conincide with New Year, a video once again shamelessly attempts to laden parents with more guilt for smoking. Smokers are increasingly being attacked and ostracised by a government that is more concerned with controlling, than in letting people determine their own lives. If they continue to infantilise the people of this country, any remaining and necessary willpower to quit will be destroyed.

But more than this, the government is undermining the discovery process that customers are undertaking in attempting to quit smoking. By backing certain techniques and technologies in its quit kits, alternative and potentially better solutions for those that wish to stop smoking are being crowded out of the market by  NHS subsidies. It is the company’s that best appeals to its politicised agenda that wins.

A better policy would be one where people were treated as adults, built upon the foundation of the freedom to smoke on any private land with the owner’s permission. Instead of taxing the poor and remarkably inelastic smoker, the governent should instead redesign the health system so that the resulting health costs are borne by the smoker. But this is not likely to happen any time soon, not least because of the £9.9 billion in tax revenues brought in each year to government coffers. Instead of passing on the cost to smokers, as things stand smokers should be getting a rebate from the government. Perhaps one that could allow them to go private to deal with any smoking related diseases free from the underperforming NHS.

Czech Drug Policy

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As of January 1st, the Czech Republic’s drug policy is changing. While the personal use of illicit drugs was decriminalized a year ago, possession of the vague “larger than small" amount of a substance still lead to prosecution. The difficulty the public, police and courts faced in judging this amount has lead to government clarifying the levels acceptable for personal consumption, such as 15 grams of Marijuana, 4 tablets of ecstasy, a gram of cocaine and 1.5 grams of heroin. Setting out the law in a clear way and using common sense to designate a ‘reasonable’ level of drug possession makes it easier for all to monitor and respect the law.

While any move from the outright prohibition of drugs is positive, Czech reform is half-baked. The possession of drugs (apart from small amounts of certain drugs) remains a crime; this will ensure that drugs will continue to be procured, trafficked and traded illegally, and often by large organized gangs. The total ‘cost’ of drugs is thus likely to remain high. The new reform does allow the Czechs to own a small number of their own cannabis plants, which is a positive step in allowing the controlled production of illicit drugs to take place. However, such tolerance must be applied to the whole of the drugs market.

The fact remains that to minimize the damage of drugs they must be dealt with maturely and logically. If they were to be legalized and subsequently regulated in a method similar to tobacco or alcohol, the source and quality of substances would be better regulated. Drug use would become safer, the scale of drug use could become better monitored and those needing help may be more likely to ask for it. Personal liberty would also be increased, which is no bad thing. The moves in Latin America, Portugal and the Czech Republic to adopt a more sensible drugs approach should be encouraged. Perhaps in time our own leaders may learn that you cannot legislate a problem away.