UK: Police Can Now Arrest for Any Offense [View All]

[kpete]

Sunday :: January 01, 2006
UK: Police Can Now Arrest for Any Offense
A new law went into effect in Great Britain today, allowing police to arrest for every offense, no matter how trivial:

Police are to be given sweeping powers to arrest people for every offence, including dropping litter, failure to wear a seat belt and other minor misdemeanours.

The measures, which come into force on Jan 1, are the biggest expansion in decades of police powers to deprive people of their liberty. At present, officers can generally arrest people if they suspect them of committing an offence which carries at least five years in prison. They will now have the discretion to detain someone if they suspect any offence and think that an arrest is "necessary".

This reminds me of Rudy Giuiliani's program to clean up Times Square and other areas by arresting the squeegee men that wanted to clean your car windows. It's taking the broken windows theory of policing to new and dangerous heights.
http://www.talkleft.com/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/29/narrest29.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/12/29/ixportaltop.html