National Crime Agency launches officially today

Widely described as "the British FBI", the NCA is the replacement for an unwieldy, and ineffectual organisation known as SOCA, or, the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It is made up of several branches, including a cyber crimes division (who have already made the news by arresting a London teenager recently), border policing, economic crime, organised crime, and the CEOP branch, who protect children from online predators and traffickers.

www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk...

The Agency came fully online today, which leads me to ask some questions, and make some observations about the subject of law enforcement in my nation. You see, to be less of an ineffectual bunch than those they replace, the NCA are going to have broad, vaguely defined powers, powers that our regular police force do not have.

My questions are, why is it that the powers given to this new organisation, are so ambiguously defined? If these powers were necessary, then why were they not given to existing forces, rather than organising some totally new group, or rebranding the old one, which is more like what is happening? And finally, how can the people be assured that the powers that the NCA have, will not be abused, as are those of GCHQ and the intelligence services?

The police and security services in my nation have been accused of heavy handedness before now, notably during the Jean Charles de Menezes death scandal. De Menezes, was killed after being misidentified, chased through the streets by armed police, and then shot nine times in the head on an underground train.

If the NCA have broader powers than the fellows who did that, then how are we going to ensure that those powers do not extend to blowing a mans head to ruin, based on nothing more than a mis identification, and a persons natural reaction to being chased through the streets by armed men?

Here is a link to the website of the NCA.

www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk...

And here is another link, this time to the BBC news article on the launch of the new agency.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Your thoughts ladies and gentlemen?

reply to post by TrueBrit


An important thread TB, and promoted.
The first thought you addressed that ran me a mental flag was your describing the 'ambiguously worded power structure'.

For the record: when it happens across the pond, the literal extent of carte blanche enjoyed is pushed until a lawsuit or tort is experienced. Either the injustice is allowed to stand without describing agency restrictions (out of the court's purview) and nothing becomes called taboo-- or the free arguing with the people's tax funding may result in some invisible 'line' not to be crossed, and again no punishment attached to the injury.

In any event it's always cheaper to step on toes and argue about how hard later than to metaphorically not issue jackboots initially.

My contention over sloppy legislation or chartering is the designed-in, concealed provision for abuse by the agencies... and an extreme cost to the people alone.

reply to post by derfreebie


What you say about carte blanche actions being undertaken until challenged is one of the things I am most concerned about. Obviously, I would support an effective method of policing, but not at the expense of due process, or indeed if it lead to the jailing or harming of the innocent.

There is no use in our law enforcement agencies gaining power, if they are not going to increase their morality at the same time, otherwise they will become a greater threat to innocent citizens, than those they are sworn to capture and prosecute!

This is your government aking the same route as the USA.
The creation of these new police" forces are really a cover for developing the concept of a police state.....wake up pardner they are trying to keep and maintain control while we ourselves are getting wise to their totalitarian rip off....s

reply to post by stirling


I think that our nation taking on the policing solutions that are used by the USA, in any massive way, would be a great error. The reason I say that, is that even disregarding my beliefs regarding the reasons why the US deals with matters the way it does, the UK has totally different policing needs. Our population has different cultural and economic drivers, effecting the population of its territory.

And our criminals, by and large, have a much reduced tendency toward the use of illegal firearms and the like, although there are exceptions to that general rule. To have a bunch of gun wielding loonies running about in uniform is not going to be conducive to the sort of intelligent policing we would like to see. What we want to see is MORE police, not police with broader powers.

What we need is a police presence on our streets which is visible, everywhere, and never more than one minute and fifty seconds from the scene of a reported crime. What we want to see is a police force in which every member comports themselves with a massive degree of respect for the public, and a moral code so inviolate that any one of them would sooner die than go on the take, sooner cut out their own eyes than turn a blind one to serious offences.

In short, if our whole police force was properly supported, fairly run, and populated exclusively by those whose love of justice is the only reason that they joined at all, then I am not sure this new organisation would even be necessary!

It sounds like Great Britain just got it's own version of Homeland Security.
Unlimited powers, completely unaccountable and most likely managed by political appointees with no Law enforcement experience.
My sympathies to the people of Great Britain.

reply to post by Asktheanimals


Although I am not given to alarmism, I must say that this new agencies construction and remit concern me somewhat. I believe in justice. I even believe that justices aims are often stifled by law. But the answer to that should be to write better law, not to increase the powers law enforcement have.

The police, in my opinion, already have the power they need, but successive governments in my country have scuppered the entire systems efficacy in terms of the capacity of the law enforcement community, to perform the role for which it was originally designed. They have increased the level of responsibility that the police have, in terms of maintaining security, but allowed laws to be passed, and edicts from Europe to infect our system, that make it near impossible to bring the guilty in society to an effective trial.

I have trouble with the idea that the way to solve this, is apparently to give the police so much power that they could break not only the law, but also potentially behave unjustly toward people. I worry that these powers will be most often used on people who have committed what I can only describe as crimes which are only called such a thing because of political expediency.

We have had undercover coppers here in the UK, father children under their aliases, have long relationships, six years in one case. We have had wrongful deaths at the hands of heavy handed officers, bad shootings, as previously mentioned, and institutional racism claims made against entire police forces, which, while commonly referred to by people as an out, rather than through genuine grievance, are prevalent enough that entire operations and initiatives have been enacted, at the tax payers expense, to investigate and monitor that situation.

Is giving the police more power the answer, if they have already abused that which they have already, normally to the detriment of every single one of us? The next time there is a massive demonstration in London, will the NCA be calling the shots, and will those shots be rubber bullets and tear gas, or are anti terror laws going to be used, to allow more punitive measures to be bought against people while they use their right to free speech?

The kind of questions this issue raises are, in my opinion, far more troubling than the possible result of leaving things as they are in law enforcement.

Britain has been a police state for a very long time! Soft policed and not jack boots for sure, but police state nonetheless. According to the BBC, the NCA will be reporting directly to the Home Office, AKA The Home Secretary, AKA The Cabinet.

This new agency gives the police no more powers than they already enjoy, it merely gives the government the right to make policing decisions they have been making all along on the quiet.

I think what we are seeing is the shift from the covert to the overt and I think the strategic planning was designed to soften or condition the population to accept government controlled policing. I wonder if the Police Federation rank and file are happy about this?