ACPO proposes new domestic violence database

The latest wheeze to emerge from ACPO and the Home Office is yet another new law and order database – this one including individuals who are unconvicted, but against whom there exist unsubstantiated allegations of domestic violence. Critics are also not impressed by the fact that this and other recommendations put forward this …

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we...

have another ACPO and Home Office database holding the names of the morons who come up with these liberty reducing schemes so that we can ban them from policy making and public office?

creep... creep... creep... the gears of a totalitarian state come ever closer. all I am waiting for is Gordo to annouce there will be no general election. He can do this backed up by the spurious and badly defined anti-terrorism legislation that is non specific yet all encompassing.

[The Original Ash]

As the Paedo Finder General says...

"INNOCENT UNTIL SPECULATED GUILTY."

Just tattoo serial numbers on our arms and be done with it. I'm happy being a number if it means I can get my cable TV and cheap dentistry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday (November 19) was International Men’s Day....

... the wimmin kept that one quiet.

AC because I sleep next to a woman and don't want to end up as a male- and therefore non-statistic

[Anonymous Coward]

NAFD

Not Another F**king Database

Really - they must be ensuring jobs for plenty of IT firms and database engineers.

[Dan 10]

Oh please...

Yet another laudable cause being devalued by poor poliitics. If unsubstantiated allegations are included, and the definition of domestic abuse is still under debate, surely this strays dangerously close to putting people on a register just because they had an argument with their missus? After all, it's a sliding scale from a very heated "I hate it when you act like a stupid idiot" to a potentially illegal (emotional abuse) "I hate you, you stupid idiot", regardless of gender.

Oh sorry, it's not 'people', it's 'men'. Harriet Harman had her grubby mitts on this one has she?

[Anonymous Coward]

ACPO - Political Organisation

ACPO? I've just read, in the Grauniad, about Sir Hugh Orde complaining about politicisation of the police! And here's ACPO, supposedly representing senior police officers, actively advocating policy.

The Graiduan article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/20/chief-constables-police-tories

Un-flipping-believable.

As for the emphasis on "women and girls", are boys expected to fend for themselves? I suppose boys are just expected to take it like a man - including up the bum when getting raped by their abusers.

Alan Johnson just seems to want to let his predecessor's lunacy continue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flinging accusations...

Anyone who has been involved, either directly or indirectly, in a divorce knows how easy it is for the female partner to fling around rumours and accusations of domestic violence. It is naive in the extreme to suppose that anything like 100% of those rumours and accusations have any basis in fact.

[Ally J]

Very bad idea

When I was a local councillor, many years ago, we had a glorious case of malicious allegations of domestic violence. To cut a very long story short, the council ran up huge legal bills trying to evict someone on the strength of an unfounded allegation.

Bring something like this into 'force' and that sorry tale will be repeated everywhere. Let's at least have some vestige of proof involved....

[QuiteEvilGraham]

Oh dear

"These proposals are not new in principle and reflect an approach to policing and law-making that the present government has encouraged."

"The review suggests that ACPO would like to extend this power, arguing for police to be given the right to issue such an order without further recourse to the courts."

There is a widely-used term for places where the police decide what constitutes the law and enforce it without judicial oversight. Regardless as to this being perhaps a useful thing in individual cases, it always boils down to the same old argument. To keep the good people safe from the bad people, we just need to know who the bad people are.

Problem is, who decides who the "bad people" are? And how?

[lIsRT]

Gender equality is good.

Why do we still not have absolute gender equality in law?

It would be simple enough.

I am not a lawyer, but one could probably translate the following in to something legislatable:

"Where any law contains the word(s): male, man, husband, boy, father, brother, uncle, he, him, himself or any other masculine word; it shall be deemed to be equally applicable when the equivalent feminine word is substituted."

"Where any law contains the word(s): female, woman, wife, girl, mother, sister, aunt, she, her, herself or any other feminine word; it shall be deemed to be equally applicable when the equivalent masculine word is substituted."

[Anonymous Coward]

Next Up ...

... A database of all those people not already on one of the other databases. We know you're guilty, but we haven't decided "what of" yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the first people on it....

...can be all the members of ACPO and all our MPs and senior civil servants - as public-spirited citizens can send a flood of anonymous letters to the plods suggesting that all of these people may have been seen behaving in a dubious way at some vague point in the past - all totally untrue of course, but that's not the point. Simples! Shame to have to waste police time investigating them all though, when there are so main real crooks out there who could be nicked with a bit of solid, routine police work, rather than dodgy databases.

[Dan 10]

Anti-DB strategy

What would happen if I changed my name to <null>?

[CD001]

[e-mail]

I propose an online open database containing data on all members of the law enforcement community, their places of work and residence, information on their salaries, spouses and children - if they've got nothing to hide they've got nothing to fear, surely?

[Ted Treen]

Just a thought...

ACPO is a private limited company who appear to have granted themselves quasi-governmental powers.

By what right do they do this?

The facts are that virtually all Chief Police Officers are fast-tracked social engineers in thrall to NuLab, and they are far more interested in political posturing and positioning than running an effective police service.

Methinks cleaning out the Augean Stables should be highly prioritised by an incoming non-Lab government.

Since they're ALL professional establishment politicos, I won't hold my breath...

[Anonymous Coward]

The figures are bogus

As AC 11:54 pointed out, at times of divorce things get very heated. I have never in my life hit anyone, man or woman. I can disagree but never end up in anything more serious than a discussion.

All it took at my divorce was a chance remark from my ex wife when she was asked why she had followed a particular course of action, that she was "afraid of what I might do", and that was it. Enough said - people read between the lines, assumptions were made, people put 2 & 2 together and got 5.

The point is, as uncomfortable and embarassing as that was for me to deal with at the time, as time has passed, the memory has faded, and friends know what was true and what was not. I am now even on friendly terms with my ex and she acknowledges it was a mean and groundless thing to have said. But if this bill had existed at the time, I could well have ended up on a register as being at risk to somebody when I clearly am not, interfering with my life and relationships for the rest of my life. Once you are on there, like the other databases, there will be no way off again.

If you are talking a register of those men *AND WOMEN* CONVICTED of DV, then that is different.

Perhaps a register of those who have made false accusations should be kept instead.

[Ihre Papiere Bitte!!]

WTF?

"Financial abuse"???

"I want that £500 handbag"

"We can't afford it"

**BOOM** You're on the database, and you'll never get laid again.

[Ted Treen]

@AS 13:49

"Perhaps a register of those who have made false accusations should be kept instead."

That would be the payroll list of most Police personnel above the rank of Sergeant, then...

[Trevor Watt]

Is this ACPO Ltd?

The Limited Company set up to make jobs for retired high ranking police officers by making them database analysts/administrators, advisors etc.

And as the databases ACPO run are run by a limited company then they are exempt from FOI requests. www.acpo.police.uk/about_pages/free.html

[Alan Brown]

FOI coverage

FOI regulations make it quite clear that any organisation operating under contract to a govt body, or performing a governmental function is subject to FOI coverage, SUBJECT TO A DETERMINATION BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE (caps for emphasis). I suspect that's to comply with EU law.

I have tried a couple of times to request determinations on a couple of bodies which claim to be regulators or which have been delegated authority by regulators.

The result isn't so much being fobbed off as the requests just being completely ignored - and all records of such requests mysteriously disappearing.

i wonder why that is?

[Christoph]

Guilty of being male

A new crime to go with "Driving while black" - "Being in a relationship while in possession of a Y chromosome".

Presumably the malicious allegations permanently stored in this database will go into the enhanced checks when you try to get a job.

And if that means you are refused a job, that will feed back into the original database as more rumours to be held against you.

Once that has gone back and forth a few times you will be banned from so many places you'll have to live on Rockall.

[Anonymous Coward]

@the figures are bogus

If you look at the family courts accusations of DV fly around like confetti at a wedding (bad analogy I know)

In most cases its false.

In my own divorce each allegation was chipped away at until my ex wife had to admit it had no basis, even the attempts by her corrupt police colleagues to convict me of something I didnt do eventually fell flat when presented with the evidence prior to court (4 failed trials and 37 pre trial review hearings!)

If you heard Sandra Davis from Mischon de Reya on five live the other day talking about the family courts and contact you will start to realise how twisted and evil a scorned woman can be when it comes to those arenas (and credit to her for saying it).

Women use kids as weapons in divorce and now they can have a new weapon to mess up mens lives with the false allegations database.

How about a database in the public domain where men can register exes on the basis of there mental instability, tendency to gold dig, nagging etc etc. I bet that would be popular and could have some value and the hairy arsed man haters at wimmins aid wouldnt like it which is always a bonus!

Paris, what would her entry say

[M Room]

Not a lot left

As things are running, their seems to be little that you can do as a male without ending up on one database or another. It is becoming a risk to be a man LOL.

One possible line of defence is to claim that you are a lesbian trapped in a male body.

Anyone for a sex change?

[ElFatbob]

So no surprises here then...

ACPO wants to give itself more powers, conveniently avoiding any legal oversight.

And making a database of of suspects based on hearsay is better than actually dealing with the problem - just a domestic, after all.....

[Ted Treen]

@M Room

There appear to be many "public Servants" who are prime candidates for a sex-change....

...If only we could determine from what, to what...

[Anonymous Coward]

Harriet Harperson

This has the ring of Harriet Harperson about it. She does love to create all these women only schemes - sometimes to the detriment of the female sex because she is so evangelistic about it that she doesn't see the unintended consequences.

[Anonymous Coward]

@lIsRT

Good in principle, but how would you apply it to laws concerning, say, reproduction and fertility?

Fire, as they didn't have one of a bunny being boiled.