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From a practical point of view, the police in the UK are far too starved of resources to investigate mysteries where there is no realistic prospect of prosecuti

by foldr 3y ago

From a practical point of view, the police in the UK are far too starved of resources to investigate mysteries where there is no realistic prospect of prosecuting anyone for a crime. To do this would require dropping higher priority investigations. I also think that it would be overreach for the police to do this kind of thing. The UK is not a police state (in theory at least). The police have no business investigating anyone who they don’t suspect of having committed a crime. In this case, of course, there were reasonable grounds for suspicion and so there was an initial investigation. However, once it became clear that there was no realistic prospect of proving that anyone in the apartment was legally responsible for the young man’s death, there was nothing for the police to do. It's easy to get sucked in by the fascinating story told in the article and forget that legally speaking almost everything turns on the last few minutes before the man jumped – about which we know almost nothing. If he didn't jump in response to an imminent threat to his life, then good luck making any kind of criminal case. >To avoid a scenario where 'clever people' wander around the country leaving a trail of bodies in their wake because they keep covering their tracks effectively. In this case the only person who could realistically be guilty of murder or manslaughter (Sharma) is now dead. So we need not fear that he will kill again.

curtisblaine 3y ago
It always strikes me as odd why they're too starved to investigate unexplained deaths but at the same time they're not too starved to investigate misgendering tweets[1]. There are two explanations I can offer: - misgendering tweets are more important than unexplained deaths - police would be less starved if they allocated their priorities better 1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527
- sparks1970 3y ago
  Don't entirely disagree but the investigation of misgendering tweets most likely doesn't need anyone to actually leave a desk so a "thorough investigation" sounds like the police are doing a lot but really it's a bit of clicking and scrolling. To claim the same level of effort for an unexplained death would take a LOT more effort and expertise - but if (I don't know) they are weighted the same in crime statistics the police are going to go for these easy wins all day long.
- zo1 3y ago
  Not only that, but it strikes me as "secondary" law making. I.e. Bureaucrats, politicians, police chiefs, etc get the power to "repeal" laws by simply not enforcing them, under the cover of "lack of resources". Using a software dev analogy. It's like each case is a feature ticket, and then constantly grooming the backlog so any feature related to say "GDPR" is marked as too-large and pushed to the bottom. Rather, case-files should be completed FIFO with very clear rules and thresholds for when it can't be meaningfully resolved. Same goes for prosecutorial discretion. In summation, commentary from my side: "WTF is wrong with these people, I'm surprised society hasn't fallen apart."
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    > I'm surprised society hasn't fallen apart The UK is going to fall apart because the level of corruption has reached the scale that nobody who's competent and prepared to do a good job (i.e. moral people who see doing a good and thorough job as a core value) wants to put up with it any more. It's too visible. I studied Computer Science in the UK and the very first job I got (in central London providing service to names you'd certainly recognise) was with this absolute cowboy outfit managed service provider that was providing about 1/4 of the services it claimed to provide. Backups? Yes, you're getting billed for them, no, they aren't happening. Hot spares? See above. Redundancy? See above. On call? See above. The lying was endemic and it was gross. I developed a chronic drinking problem while working there and I really do think working/being in an atmosphere of bullshit affects you in some sort of karmic way. The UK is going to fail if they don't drastically change trajectory because everyone who isn't gross is going to leave, and the tap of infinite numbers of exploitable Poles has been turned off.
- foldr 3y ago
  The police in the UK don’t always allocate their resources wisely (and have innumerable other faults). However, this seems to me to be a case where the police correctly stopped allocating resources to an investigation that wasn’t going to get any closer to building a criminal case against anyone. I think it’s fair to call your second bullet point a ‘hot take’. Police funding was hit hard by austerity and the effects of that are still with us. It’s not credible or evidence-based to attribute the overall shortage of resources to overpolicing of tweets (however annoying and stupid that may be considered in itself).
- pixl97 3y ago
  Right, I'm sure they had the entire force of hundreds of officers looking into this... And while you're correct that the article you linked is a bullshit waste of time, it probably represents around .005% of the forces allotted time in a year. There is no big gotcha here, other than the reality that politics is a part of policing.

by foldr 3y ago

curtisblaine 3y ago

It always strikes me as odd why they're too starved to investigate unexplained deaths but at the same time they're not too starved to investigate misgendering tweets[1]. There are two explanations I can offer: - misgendering tweets are more important than unexplained deaths - police would be less starved if they allocated their priorities better 1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527

sparks1970 3y ago
Don't entirely disagree but the investigation of misgendering tweets most likely doesn't need anyone to actually leave a desk so a "thorough investigation" sounds like the police are doing a lot but really it's a bit of clicking and scrolling. To claim the same level of effort for an unexplained death would take a LOT more effort and expertise - but if (I don't know) they are weighted the same in crime statistics the police are going to go for these easy wins all day long.
zo1 3y ago
Not only that, but it strikes me as "secondary" law making. I.e. Bureaucrats, politicians, police chiefs, etc get the power to "repeal" laws by simply not enforcing them, under the cover of "lack of resources". Using a software dev analogy. It's like each case is a feature ticket, and then constantly grooming the backlog so any feature related to say "GDPR" is marked as too-large and pushed to the bottom. Rather, case-files should be completed FIFO with very clear rules and thresholds for when it can't be meaningfully resolved. Same goes for prosecutorial discretion. In summation, commentary from my side: "WTF is wrong with these people, I'm surprised society hasn't fallen apart."
- 15457345234 3y ago
  > I'm surprised society hasn't fallen apart The UK is going to fall apart because the level of corruption has reached the scale that nobody who's competent and prepared to do a good job (i.e. moral people who see doing a good and thorough job as a core value) wants to put up with it any more. It's too visible. I studied Computer Science in the UK and the very first job I got (in central London providing service to names you'd certainly recognise) was with this absolute cowboy outfit managed service provider that was providing about 1/4 of the services it claimed to provide. Backups? Yes, you're getting billed for them, no, they aren't happening. Hot spares? See above. Redundancy? See above. On call? See above. The lying was endemic and it was gross. I developed a chronic drinking problem while working there and I really do think working/being in an atmosphere of bullshit affects you in some sort of karmic way. The UK is going to fail if they don't drastically change trajectory because everyone who isn't gross is going to leave, and the tap of infinite numbers of exploitable Poles has been turned off.
foldr 3y ago
The police in the UK don’t always allocate their resources wisely (and have innumerable other faults). However, this seems to me to be a case where the police correctly stopped allocating resources to an investigation that wasn’t going to get any closer to building a criminal case against anyone. I think it’s fair to call your second bullet point a ‘hot take’. Police funding was hit hard by austerity and the effects of that are still with us. It’s not credible or evidence-based to attribute the overall shortage of resources to overpolicing of tweets (however annoying and stupid that may be considered in itself).
pixl97 3y ago
Right, I'm sure they had the entire force of hundreds of officers looking into this... And while you're correct that the article you linked is a bullshit waste of time, it probably represents around .005% of the forces allotted time in a year. There is no big gotcha here, other than the reality that politics is a part of policing.