9 Replies to “A couple of interesting and ueful exchanges in the House of Lords on Tuesday”
“Our view is that strong penalties are already in place for offences committed against birds of prey and other wildlife, with significant sanctions available to the courts to hand down to those convicted.”
That would be all very well if convicting people for these offences was not such a rare event. The odds are stacked against wildlife crime investigators and the offenders know this, so the theoretical severity of the available penalties does not act as an effective deterrent.
Time for the noble lord and Defra to take a different tack in addressing this type of crime.
Jonathan – I agree
Deterrence, the fear of the punishment only works if there is a strong likelihood of being caught and there isn’t so there is little to no deterrence in wildlife crime offences. That has been blatantly obvious for some considerable time we certainly need changes in approach. One of those changes should be wildlife crimes being made recordable offences, this would enable authorities to see which police forces made an effort to solve such crimes. It would also act as an incentive to all forces to get the crime rate down.
500 wildlife crime officers sounds good. Can they be full time?
6 months in prison (usually suspended) doesn’t sound like a strong penalty to me.
Making offences recordable would be a good idea.
The current penalties are exactly what suit the tories and who they work for.
When one considers what Goldsmith said it amounts to the current status quo is ok but we engaging a few more wildlife police officers. Well, I would say the current status quo is clearly not ok and is not working. After years of this type of waffle from the Government the situation on the killing of our wildlife has not got better at all, in fact it is getting a lot worse. It has been established that game keepers are the prime individuals responsible for these abuses.
However the gamekeepers must be taking their instructions from the land owner. It is therefore logical that penalties for wildlife crime must be directed much more to the land owner. The Scottish Government is moving in this direction and quite rightly too, but without this basic change of approach in England a few more police officers, who no doubt will only be part time, if that, will make minimal difference to halting wildlife crime.
The Scottish Government is on the right track but with some way to go. The Westminster Government is just “fiddling while Rome burns”. With their alliance with the shooting industry this fiddling is no doubt deliberate.
Wasn’t Duncan Thomas (BASC) a WCO for Lancashire Constabulary? Also other current WCO’s are sometimes shooting hobbyists and even trophy hunters.
When they state there are 500 WC Officers I think that might give the wrong impression. Purely anecdotal to an area I know, I believe the Officers are very often “double-hatting” to cover several roles within their cash-strapped Force, and are not dedicated to wildlife crime for very much of their work-time. And the wildlife crime they tend to take an interest in is chasing the coursing & lamping boys – alongside gamekeepers. Happy to be corrected by someone who knows the workings of the Police better than me.
I think you have a point Spaghnum – the police were certainly interested in poaching gangs coming out of urban areas because the firearms they used were interchangeable with guns used for urban crime.
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“Our view is that strong penalties are already in place for offences committed against birds of prey and other wildlife, with significant sanctions available to the courts to hand down to those convicted.”
That would be all very well if convicting people for these offences was not such a rare event. The odds are stacked against wildlife crime investigators and the offenders know this, so the theoretical severity of the available penalties does not act as an effective deterrent.
Time for the noble lord and Defra to take a different tack in addressing this type of crime.
Jonathan – I agree
Deterrence, the fear of the punishment only works if there is a strong likelihood of being caught and there isn’t so there is little to no deterrence in wildlife crime offences. That has been blatantly obvious for some considerable time we certainly need changes in approach. One of those changes should be wildlife crimes being made recordable offences, this would enable authorities to see which police forces made an effort to solve such crimes. It would also act as an incentive to all forces to get the crime rate down.
500 wildlife crime officers sounds good. Can they be full time?
6 months in prison (usually suspended) doesn’t sound like a strong penalty to me.
Making offences recordable would be a good idea.
The current penalties are exactly what suit the tories and who they work for.
When one considers what Goldsmith said it amounts to the current status quo is ok but we engaging a few more wildlife police officers. Well, I would say the current status quo is clearly not ok and is not working. After years of this type of waffle from the Government the situation on the killing of our wildlife has not got better at all, in fact it is getting a lot worse. It has been established that game keepers are the prime individuals responsible for these abuses.
However the gamekeepers must be taking their instructions from the land owner. It is therefore logical that penalties for wildlife crime must be directed much more to the land owner. The Scottish Government is moving in this direction and quite rightly too, but without this basic change of approach in England a few more police officers, who no doubt will only be part time, if that, will make minimal difference to halting wildlife crime.
The Scottish Government is on the right track but with some way to go. The Westminster Government is just “fiddling while Rome burns”. With their alliance with the shooting industry this fiddling is no doubt deliberate.
Wasn’t Duncan Thomas (BASC) a WCO for Lancashire Constabulary? Also other current WCO’s are sometimes shooting hobbyists and even trophy hunters.
When they state there are 500 WC Officers I think that might give the wrong impression. Purely anecdotal to an area I know, I believe the Officers are very often “double-hatting” to cover several roles within their cash-strapped Force, and are not dedicated to wildlife crime for very much of their work-time. And the wildlife crime they tend to take an interest in is chasing the coursing & lamping boys – alongside gamekeepers. Happy to be corrected by someone who knows the workings of the Police better than me.
I think you have a point Spaghnum – the police were certainly interested in poaching gangs coming out of urban areas because the firearms they used were interchangeable with guns used for urban crime.