Let Them All Go.

I am sure you all remember the fiasco over foreign criminals not being deported after release. This "crisis" occurred earlier this year and an emergency unit was set up to catch the bad guys. Time was of the essence as some had only been released several years before.

Personally I don't see why we bother sending foreign criminals to prison in England at all, when we could just deport them straight away. In fact, we should deport them before the investigation even starts, that way we could save money and police hours. Anyone who has spent time in an English prison is breaching the rules of their migration to this country, by wasting public money in a selfish manner. Why can't they commit their rapes and murders in their own country? In any event, I see no problem with letting them serve what we deem to be a suitable sentence for the crime, and then sending them away as a second punishment specially reserved for foreigners.

The point of all this is that the unit set up to recapture the undeported has been disbanded. Apparently those still outstanding are "probably dead or abroad". This is how I account for anyone I have been unable to arrest, when what I really mean is that they weren't in on the three occasions I had time to knock on their doors.

When I have a named suspect to arrest, I usually do the following:

• Knock on his/her door once at a time I am almost certain he will be out.
• Ask the next shift to try at a more likely time (this means they will do the paperwork if they get him).
• Forget about it for a few days until the Emailing Unit contacts me with a snotty email.
• Try to locate the paperwork where the other shift have left it - usually in a random tray in a random office somewhere, sometimes not even in my station.
• Phone up the offender on his/her mobile and arrange for them to attend the police station, preferably at a time when I am not on duty.
• If they show up, all well and good.
• If not, complete a "wanted" file. This means the paperwork goes into a drawer somewhere and I never think about it again, and one day the guy will be brought in by a special squad being paid time-and-a-third to do so.
• The victim will usually withdraw the complaint at some point during the next few months, which means I can retrieve the wanted file and throw it away. Alternatively, having got away with his crimes so far, the suspect will go ahead and murder the victim. Either way, it is a minimal amount of work for me.
  

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