There are two different stories, which I think intersect, in the news media today. The Times reports that the UK police have given up punishing shoplifters. Some time ago the police in the UK said that they would not attend shoplifting to the value of £200.
Minor crime allowed to flourish in the UK because the police have abdicated their responsibilities
And, in my view, since then they've loosened that requirement even further so nowadays as far as I can tell the police don't attend even mass shoplifting by organised gangs at supermarkets.
It's become a free for all. The old adage that if you allow minor crime to flourish you lead the way to extreme crime applies in this instance. This should be zero tolerance. As soon as the police advertise to the world that they are ignoring all forms of shoplifting they are opening the door to crimes of other types including more serious crime.
The Times reports that: "Police officers have almost entirely ceased pursuing shoplifters despite the number of offences soaring to record levels, analysis of official figures reveals."
Tell me something new! We've known about this for years and years. There has been a gradual learning process by criminals that they are perfectly safe to walk into a supermarket and take items off the shelves as they wish and then walk out of the premises.
We've seen gangs of people stripping the shelves of steaks and salmon and walking out of the supermarket in complete impunity to prosecution. It is very shocking indeed.
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| One of the missing cats. A tuxedo (black-and-white). Photo by Judy Knowles. |
Burglary at cat rescue centre?
And that background is important because today, the BBC reports that animal rescue staff have been shocked by the mindless actions of burglars who broke into their sanctuary and let out rescue cats.
The rescue centre is called Compassion for Cats. It is based in Oak Hill, near Shepton Mallet, in Somerset. Judy Knowles, 71, discovered on Monday that the site had been broken into and doors had been left open for rescued cats to escape.
Eight of them are still missing. She is in shock she said. She reported the break into the local Avon and Somerset Police but I suspect that they will do little about it because, for me, their attitude is terrible as mentioned above regarding shoplifting.
It isn't just shoplifting. Burglars have been left alone to their devices for many many years. Burglaries were always rated as of very low importance by the police across the UK. This is despite the fact that burglars are very distressing to people because their home has been invaded by nasty criminals.
But the police just did not want to deal with burglaries and I suspect that they will do little or nothing about trying to find these rescued cats which have dispersed throughout the community.
Judy Knowles said that it appears that the elderly cats had been disturbed possibly chased around and some of them were very distressed. She can't understand why somebody would do this and it is noticeable that nothing was stolen.
Perhaps, actually, these were not classic burglars looking for money but animal advocates looking to release rescue cats. But that would be a terrible mistake because these cats were slated to be rehomed as that is the general intention of all cat rescue centres.
Anyway, this story is about the police actually. The police's failure to deal with what was once minor crime and is now a major crime because the country is looking at organised gangs carrying out shoplifting. This is no longer on individual deciding to nick something. It's far far bigger than that. Shame on the UK police.
The new Home Secretary said she'd do something about! Fat chance.
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