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Community justice systems “taking law enforcement out of police hands” (20 January 2014)

Date: 20/01/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Community justice systems “taking law enforcement out of police hands”

Police may be oblivious to some serious crime being committed in cities, as communities take the law into their own hands and enforce their own justice, according to the Mail online.

The Chief Inspector of Constabulary Tom Winsor has said that in some areas of the Midlands, police are never called because the local community is dealing with serious crime like murder, rape or genital mutilation itself.

Mr Winsor said:

“There are cities in the Midlands where the police never go because they are never called. They never hear of any trouble because the community deals with that on its own.

“It’s not that the police are afraid to go into these areas – or don’t want to go into those areas.

“But if the police don’t get calls for help, then, of course, they won’t know what’s going on,” said Mr Winsor.

Three members of a Muslim Patrol operating in East London streets were jailed for harassing, assaulting and intimidating passersby in the area last year.

Referring to serious crimes like murder and rape, however, Mr Winsor said that there was no “honour” in honour killings – and added that they were murder.

Conservative MP Douglas Carswell said that the increase in certain communities meting out their own system of justice suggested a failure on the part of the police and the criminal justice system to win people’s trust.

“People don’t feel they can count on their police. Instead of placing blame with ethnic minorities, we should ask what it is that is wrong with the criminal justice system.”

The Mail reports that some Muslim communities in Britain now have their own Sharia courts to dispense justice in their community. A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain told the Mail, however:

“We all rely on the police to protect our communities and this can be only done through full co-operation and partnership.”

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