The Thames Valley branch of the International Police Association (IPA) were having a walk and meal together in Abingon-on-Thames today.
“Servo per Amikeco” in Esperanto means “Serve through Friendship.”
The IPA is the biggest Police Association in the World with almost 420,000 members. The Thames Valley branch includes police officers (on active duty or retired) from the Thames Valley and the Metropolitan Police Service. The IPA was founded on 1st January 1950 because a police sergeant from Lincolnshire, England, Arthur Troop, wanted to create a channel for friendship and international co-operation amongst police officers, after the war.
One of the members was telling me he had recently visited police colleagues in Hungary, and will be going to Portugal later this year. They also have local social events. The chairman of the local association lives in Abingdon.
Visiting colleges in Hungary and Portugal! Little wonder crime is rife, Old ladies mugged in the precinct and that flipping pink Range Rover parks on yellow lines in west St. Helens all day? Seems our police force are al on a jolly !
Romanian criminals are using a loophole in the law to delay jail terms so they can get to Britain and then try to avoid extradition over the size of prison cells back home. ‘There are scores of criminals and suspects using the loophole. Courts in Romania allow it to happen. Once given permission to fly to the UK, they know their lawyers will stop them being sent back. Other EU countries are also said to be suffering in the same way. Recently courts ruled that two Romanian fugitives cannot be extradited because jail cells in their homeland are too small.UK judges say the cramped conditions contravene rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. The court insists prisoners must ordinarily be allowed ‘personal space’ of around three metres squared.
Your correspondent will be delighted to know that serving officers are too busy to come to our meetings let alone go on foreign visits. All of our active members are retired and doing things we did not have time to do when we were serving.
And that Janet is just one of the many good reasons we voted to leave the EU!
I would add that all the people in this party were retired and pay for these trips themselves
I think you’ll find, deedee, that the European court of human rights is nothing to do with the eu, and so we’ll still be subject to it’s judgments after we’ve left the eu. Leaving the eu will mean that we won’t necessarily be subject to judgments of the European court of justice, which is a different thing.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop the foreigner-bashing. Are there no UK criminals manipulating overseas regimes?
We really have got to stop seeing everyone who is not Anglophone as suspicious. It is not a grown up way of looking at the world or of living in it.
ers
Even visiting overseas police officers attract a rant. Is the welcome Abingdon offers? God help us!
I think it is a good idea for police forces to share experiences and information. People who have been the victims of foreign criminals in this country want foreign criminals to be banned. However, The EU has objected to the UK being able to check immigrants criminal records.
Tony I didn’t suggest that? PPJS I would like to think that looking at the world from a grown up perspective would, having the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge gained from many years experience of “life”, give one a better understanding?, the wiser folk will make judgments based on being in touch with the real world and not one of a closeted, rose tinted glasses view,
The meek shall inherit the earth, (but only if the stronger will let them)
Two years ago in his Easter address the Archbishop of Canterbury said it’s not racist to speak out against the erosion of the fabric of our society, or words to that effect
Deedee
Even police officers have days off and when they are visiting colleagues in other countries they do so in their own time, the same as any other profession. As mentioned all these members are retired.
However it would appear that individuals like you seem to think you control even the private lives of public servants.
You comment ” I would like to think that looking at the world from a grown up perspective would, having the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge gained from many years experience of “life”, give one a better understanding?, ” Then how about as a grown up you get your facts right before making such juvenile comments
Are you suggesting PPJS has no life experience to inform his opinions DeeDee?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating Iain (spelling ok?)
Just as we chose to digest ( or not ) what some say or write, will depend on our own perspective and opinion.
Being a good person (et Christian) is not about capitulating to everything that’s not to compatible to our way of life, if this country had turned the other check, so to say ( and as PPJS hinted at ) King Richard would not have been pivotal to the crusades and 1000 years later Churchill would not have bothered to have fought off the tirany of Natzism?
This blog is not a forum for historical interpretation, but (on at least one reading) the Crusades sowed the seeds of bad blood between Christians and Muslims for hundreds of years. We still live with the consequences.
I do not have a rose-tinted view of the world. I simply believe that we cannot have a serious discussion if we always take the worst examples of those we oppose and contrast them with the best cases of what we support.
BTW, Jesus advocated turning the other cheek, in order to discourage the retaliatory demand of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (which itself was a statue of limitations directed against punitive and aggressive revenge).
Jesus’ words have never commended themselves to policy makers. As G K Chesterton wrote:
“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”
No rose-tint there, I think…
I just looked back at Backstreeters original post to see how this debate had got to where it is: the founders of this organisation “wanted to create a channel for friendship and international co-operation amongst police officers, after the war” – what a pity that we can’t respect that laudable aim and try to practice a bit of it ourselves.
PS I am going to the Brendan Cox talk at Fitzharrys in a couple of weeks – anyone going to join me?
OK, here we go
Janet:
The figure for humane personal space for prisoners is 3 square meters not 3 meters square (the second is 3 X the space of the first). The Romanian prisons in question were able to provide a little over 2 square meters which is a small single bed.
As has already been said the European Court of human rights has nothing to do with the EU beyond the fact that member states are discouraged from trade deals with countries that refuse to be under its jurisdiction.
The EU does not prevent the UK from checking the criminal record of people from member states and preventing their entry if they are perceived to be a threat, in fact being in the EU gives us access to a list of wanted and escaped criminals.
Deedee;
The Archbishop of Canterbury did indeed make some mention of migrants and refugees in his Easter address. What he said was that it shouldn’t be seen as racist to ask what was being done to make sure infrastructure is in place to support them. Much like 3 square meters and 3 meters square the order is key. He’s saying it’s OK (in his opinion as Gods conduit to the Anglican people) to say there’s no infrastructure in place for these people when they arrive but not OK to use this as an excuse to refuse the entry of refugees. This is clear from his later remarks about the number of refugees accepted by the UK compared to Germany.
Seriously, surely no-one upholds the Crusades as international best practice anymore? It is interesting to note however that Richard was willing to negotiate a truce with Saladin because unlike many people of the time (somethings just don’t change) he didn’t see Muslim people as sub human but rather as people to be respected.
Reductio, correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Richard and his Lionhearts fight to liberate Jerusalem ( the home of Christianity) from Saladin who was claiming it as the centre of Islam? Was Saladin not an invader? Enlighten me please? Hitler invader? Mousolini invader? Galtieri invader? Emperor Hirohito invader? Sadam Husain invader? So it was ok to fight to stop these invaders but not so Saladin?
Deedee, I’m pretty sure the Jews had Jerusalem as their spiritual home before Christianity muscled in. In fact I’m also pretty sure that the first Muslim occupation of Jerusalem was quite happy to allow the Jews to remain but the first crusade came along and slaughtered them all, Jews and Muslims alike, (in the name of Christianity, of course so it was OK). It’s difficult to draw the distinction between invader and liberator especially when you’re going back that far in time so you have to resort to how an invading/liberating army behaves. It’s fair to say that the crusaders in many many cases did not behave well. Plus, fundamentally the crusades were not about liberating Jerusalem for the Jews, they were about invading it for the Christians.
Three square metres is approximately 10 square feet (5 feet by 2 feet, or six feet by twenty inches). You can get a bed in, but it’s a narrow bed and door will have to a sliding one. Of course, what you do is make the cell six feet by three and a half feet and put in two bunk beds.
Three metres squared is approximately 100 square feet (about the size of the kitchen in a 1960s council house).
The practicalities of detaining people… Thanks for the reminder Reductio
One square meter is just shy of 11 square feet and so 3 square meters is about 33 square feet.
Fundamentally, discussions about incarceration hinge on ones perception of its purpose, which broadly speaking falls into 4 categories
1) Punishment – based around some concept that the universe needs to be rebalanced to make up for an offence.
2) Deterrence – the nature of the incarceration is such that it deters others from offending.
3) Protection – the rest of society are protected from the further actions of an offender while they are incarcerated.
4) Rehabilitation – the offender learns skills, mechanisms and ways of thinking that make future offences less likely.
It’s a fascinating subject ppjs and thinking about what we hope incarceration to achieve must inform our opinion on prisoners rights. If, like me, you believe it to be a combination of all 4 then clearly you have to treat prisoners humanely and with dignity or you are courting Karmic disaster with 1) and vastly reducing the chances of 4) happening. Conversely if you make things too comfortable you are failing on 1) and 2) and possibly 3). Ultimately, it’s all about balance as so many things are.
Three metres is just under 10 feet, so a three metres square is about 10 feet (length of each side) squared = 10 by 10 (100) square feet.
Largely agree with your analysis of purposes of incarceration. Deterrence is the most problematic, but it undoubtedly part of all penal policy.
Thanks for considered and constructive comment.