Policing - new material (62)
01 November 2002
Are Miscarriages of Justice being identified and remedied? Is the Court of Appeal dispensing fair justice? Can Miscarriages of Justice be prevented? A MOJO critical analysis and review of the efficiency of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Criminal Court of Appeal. Miscarriages of Justice Organisation, April 2002, pp.34. This report considers the CCRC ("miscarriages of justice are on a steep incline and...the CCRC is failing to deal with them adequately.") and the Court of Appeal (has "returned to trends and cultures which the legal profession find unacceptable."). A third section deals with the 1995 Appeal Act and Sex Offence legislation, while the annexes cover sample CCRC cases and extracts from some MOJO case files. Available from MOJO, 52 Outmore Road, Sheldon, Birmingham B33 0XL, Tel. 0121 789 8443, email Mojo National@aol.com
A First Digest of Cases. A Selection of cases handled by the Police Complaints Authority. Police Complaints Authority 2002, pp.38. This publication was, according to the introduction, "written to illustrate the diversity of cases handled and to give an insight into the way in which complaints against the police in England and Wales are investigated and decided upon." It does neither and fails to even consider the concept of a genuinely independent body that might restore public confidence in a woefully inadequate bureaucratic institution.
Taking up arms, Mike McBride. Police Review 6.12.02, pp20-21. Dicusses the range of "less-lethal" weapons available to the UK's police forces.
Achilles Heel, Tony Cross. Police Review 6.12.02, pp24-25. The latest Home Office figures show that black people are eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than other ethnic groups, four times more likely to be arrested and are over-represented in the criminal justice system. With new anti-terrorist measures this will inevitably increase. But, according to Met Federation chairman Glen Smyth, the public should "get real" about the stops, while in his article Cross argues that "management tools" can be used "to create a balance".
De Tampere à Seville: Bilan de la Securité Européenne, vols 1 & 2, Cultures & Conflits, September 2002, pp.169 & pp.173. These volumes look at developments in European security between the October 1999 Tampere summit and the Seville summit in June 2002, a period of conflict between governments and protest movements strongly marked by the 11 September attacks on the USA. It includes essays and documents on subjects ranging from police cooperation and the creation of a "space of freedom, security and justice", to common European policies on immigration and asylum, including analysis of the effects of the Amsterdam Treaty on police institutions and the treatment of third country nationals. Didier Bigo and Elspeth Guild's introduction talks of an unprecedented speeding up of "the transnationalisation of governance on a world scale" seeking to prevent a similar transnationalisation of protest through legal measures, "soft" law and regimes of exception that suspend the rights of individuals. They stress the progress made in the EU in relation to the repressive agenda set in Tampere which was not matched by guarantees in terms of individuals' rights. Europol and Eurojust are seen as allowing the coordination of prosecutions and allowing "jurisdiction shopping", whereby "the most cynical prosecutors analyse information received from Europol" to ensure that "criminal charges are brought in those countries" where defendants will have the least possibilities of defending themselves. Available from Cultures & Conflits, Centre d´Etudes sur les Conflits, 157 rue des Pyrénées 75020 Paris, France.