Thursday, January 24, 2008
The colour of crime .
A vicar has labelled police procedures as "bureaucratic nonsense" after an operator demanded to know his ethnic background before she would send an officer to investigate a burglary at his church. The Rev Simon Lane, 60, said that the woman also asked for his date of birth, claiming that the details were necessary if she was to give him a crime reference number.
Thames Valley Police said the information was needed to comply with the Race Relations Act, and to monitor which types of people were most often the victim of particular crimes. But the Home Office said there is no such requirement.
The vicar of St Andrew's Church in Wraysbury and St Michael's Church, in Horton, both Berkshire, said he called the force's non-emergency number last week after a break-in at St Michael's caused £700 worth of damage to a window.
"I find it rather offensive," he said. "I'm a vicar of a parish church - what does it matter whether I'm black, white or blue with green spots?"
...This is stupid and is all to do with managers' obsession with league tables. It also annoys me when people lie to get want they want, this case has nothing to do with the Race Relations Act. No wonder peoples' faith and respect for the Police is at an all time low. The job of the Police is to deter and solve crime rather than collate meaningless statistics to please politicians. It makes no difference to a crime the ethnicity or age of the person reporting it. These things happen and colour has nothing to do with it.
A vicar has labelled police procedures as "bureaucratic nonsense" after an operator demanded to know his ethnic background before she would send an officer to investigate a burglary at his church. The Rev Simon Lane, 60, said that the woman also asked for his date of birth, claiming that the details were necessary if she was to give him a crime reference number.
Thames Valley Police said the information was needed to comply with the Race Relations Act, and to monitor which types of people were most often the victim of particular crimes. But the Home Office said there is no such requirement.
The vicar of St Andrew's Church in Wraysbury and St Michael's Church, in Horton, both Berkshire, said he called the force's non-emergency number last week after a break-in at St Michael's caused £700 worth of damage to a window.
"I find it rather offensive," he said. "I'm a vicar of a parish church - what does it matter whether I'm black, white or blue with green spots?"
...This is stupid and is all to do with managers' obsession with league tables. It also annoys me when people lie to get want they want, this case has nothing to do with the Race Relations Act. No wonder peoples' faith and respect for the Police is at an all time low. The job of the Police is to deter and solve crime rather than collate meaningless statistics to please politicians. It makes no difference to a crime the ethnicity or age of the person reporting it. These things happen and colour has nothing to do with it.
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