Met chief stunned as violent criminals are bailed again and again “This isn't a theoretical risk”Britain's criminal justice system is facing an increasingly uncomfortable warning from the country's top police officer. Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley says he is “flabbergasted” by the number of suspects charged with serious knife and firearms offences who are being repeatedly released on bail — sometimes after being caught carrying weapons for the third or fourth time. And he fears the consequences are already beginning to show. “We are seeing stabbings and in one or two cases homicides committed by people who would previously have been on remand in custody,” Rowley told the London Policing Board. “This isn't a theoretical risk.” That is quite a statement from the man running Britain's biggest police force. 34 firearms suspects already on bailThe figures are particularly alarming. Rowley revealed that 34 people charged with firearms offences in London are currently on bail awaiting trial. In nine of those cases, he said, shots had allegedly been fired during confrontations. Yet the suspects remain out of prison while their cases proceed. Rowley said the same problem was increasingly appearing among repeat knife offenders. People are being arrested for carrying blades. They are charged. They are released. Then they are allegedly caught with another weapon. And released again. Again. And again. And again. That repetition is what appears to have pushed the Met chief from concern to outright disbelief. The tag problem is explodingElectronic tagging was supposed to provide another layer of control over offenders released into the community. Instead, the number of breaches is soaring. In London alone, breaches by bailed suspects increased from 2,977 in January to 4,408 in July — an increase of almost 50 per cent in six months. Breaches can include disappearing, contacting victims, breaking curfews, attempting to remove a tag or entering prohibited areas. And here comes the really depressing part. Rowley said police arrest offenders for more than 95 per cent of those breaches, take them back before the courts — and then, in the vast majority of cases, nothing changes. Police spend the time and resources making the arrest. The offender appears before the court. And then the cycle starts all over again. “Nugatory effort”Rowley's description of that process was unusually blunt. He called it a “nugatory” effort — essentially a futile exercise. That raises a rather obvious question. What is the point of imposing bail conditions if repeatedly breaking them produces little or no meaningful consequence? A system that repeatedly tells an offender what they cannot do, watches them break those conditions and then releases them under essentially the same conditions risks becoming less of a deterrent and more of an administrative ritual. And criminals notice when the system stops frightening them. The sword at Notting Hill CarnivalOne recent case illustrates the problem perfectly. A repeat knife offender on bail was reportedly caught attempting to take an 18-inch sword into Notting Hill Carnival. It was allegedly his fourth blade-related offence of the year. Rowley told the policing board that the suspect had already been through knife referral orders and was nevertheless bailed again. For the Met chief, the issue was not simply the individual offender. It was the message sent to everybody else. If someone can repeatedly be caught carrying weapons and still return to the streets, what exactly is supposed to deter the next person from doing the same thing? The prison overcrowding trapThe problem is closely connected to Britain's chronic prison overcrowding crisis. Labour's sentencing reforms are intended to reduce the prison population and prevent the system from running out of space. The government's argument is that prison should be reserved for the most serious offenders and that excessive use of short sentences has failed to tackle reoffending. But police chiefs are warning that reducing imprisonment creates another problem if adequate alternatives are not available. Some offenders who previously might have been remanded in custody are instead remaining in the community. And police are then expected to monitor them. That is where the system begins to creak. Police are becoming the revolving doorThames Valley Police Chief Constable Jason Hogg has also warned that the bail problem is symptomatic of a criminal justice system in crisis. His force deals with roughly 4,000 court-bail breaches every week, he said, with conditions unchanged in more than 90 per cent of cases. That means police officers can find themselves dealing with the same people repeatedly. Arrest. Court. Release. Breach. Arrest. Court. Release. And round it goes. For victims and the public, that can look less like justice and more like a revolving door. The government points to falling knife crimeThe government insists the picture is not nearly as bleak as its critics suggest. A spokesman pointed to an 11 per cent fall in knife crime since Labour came to power and a 26 per cent fall in knife homicides. And ministers are right to point out that bail decisions are ultimately matters for the independent judiciary. But that doesn't answer Rowley's complaint. The Met Commissioner isn't claiming that every person released on bail will commit another offence. He is warning that a growing number of repeat weapons offenders are being released despite repeatedly demonstrating that previous conditions have not worked. That is a different argument. And one that is considerably harder to dismiss. When police lose faith in the systemThis may ultimately be the most damaging part of the controversy. Police officers can accept difficult decisions. They can accept that not everybody arrested should go to prison. But if officers repeatedly arrest the same offender for serious weapons offences, enforce bail conditions, make another arrest after those conditions are broken — and then watch the suspect walk back out again — frustration is inevitable. Rowley's “flabbergasted” remark is therefore more than political rhetoric. It is a warning about confidence in the justice system itself. And Trump piles onInto the middle of this domestic row comes Donald Trump. The US president has once again criticised London's crime and immigration situation, claiming there are parts of London where police are reluctant to go because there is insufficient law and order. His latest comments also included another broadside against London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Khan's allies responded that Trump remains obsessed with the mayor. That may make for entertaining political theatre. But it risks distracting from the more serious question. Forget Trump. Listen to Britain's own police chiefs. Sir Mark Rowley is not an American commentator looking across the Atlantic. He is the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. And he is warning that the combination of fewer people being imprisoned, repeat weapons offenders being released and thousands of bail conditions being breached is beginning to undermine offender control. Something has gone badly wrongBritain cannot imprison everybody who commits an offence. Nor should it. But there is a vast difference between sensible alternatives to custody and a system in which a repeat knife or gun offender can repeatedly breach conditions and simply return to the streets. If prison numbers are reduced, the alternatives have to work. If bail is granted, the conditions have to mean something. And if somebody repeatedly demonstrates that they cannot be trusted to obey those conditions, the courts need to be able to respond. Otherwise the public gets the worst of both worlds: fewer people behind bars, more people being monitored on the streets — and police officers increasingly wondering what the hell the point of their arrests actually is. That isn't a theoretical risk. Britain's top police officer says it is already happening. SOURCE
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