Report a crime and get a record

[fretslider]

Personal information given to the police by millions of innocent people who report crime every year is being secretly stored on databases beside information on criminals and suspects. The data is held by police forces across England and Wales which have amassed information about people who dial 999 or non-emergency numbers to report their concerns or pass on information.

West Midlands Police, the second largest force, holds 1.1 million records of people who have reported offences during the past 12 years. Others, including Lancashire, Cleveland, Avon and Somerset, Gloucestershire, West Mercia and North Wales, hold more than 150,000 each. Senior officers admitted the information could be used against people as part of any future police investigation. They insisted gathering the data was necessary to fight crime, protect the vulnerable and ensure concerns were dealt with properly.

So if you report a crime as a dutiful citizen you could be tomorrow's suspect.

In some cases, police staff not only record names, addresses and contact details, but ask about the callers' date of birth and ethnicity.

Gus Hosein of Privacy International said: "There's a point where the police stop seeing members of the public as the people to be protected and rather see them all as potential criminals. Until now, this only happened in non-democratic states, but I fear that this line has been crossed in ours."

Indeed it has.

Daniel Hamilton of Big Brother Watch said: "For the police to log this kind of information isn't just wrong, it's dangerous.

"The public must be confident that, when they report a crime, they do so in the comfort of anonymity and without risk of their details being stored on a central police database which can be accessed by thousands of people. This information must be deleted before public confidence in the police takes yet another hit."

Too late, my friend. I wouldn't trust any of them.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-keep-records-on-the-innocent-2174658.html

[maggie]

I reported a crime once. A few years ago I was sitting in my car outside the station waiting to pick someone up. It was late at night. Two drunks started a very fierce fight, right by the station entrance and by my car! I phoned the police on my mobile phone.

I would think twice in future if I thought my details would be kept on a police data base just for reporting a crime.

[fretslider]

Jan 3, 2011 11:33:25 GMT -5 maggie said:

I reported a crime once. A few years ago I was sitting in my car outside the station waiting to pick someone up. It was late at night. Two drunks started a very fierce fight, right by the station entrance and by my car! I phoned the police on my mobile phone.

I would think twice in future if I thought my details would be kept on a police data base just for reporting a crime.

What did they ask you when you reported it, maggie?

[maggie]

As it was a few years ago, I can't quite remember but they did ask the usual questions: name, address.

I was really worried about the person who I was meeting, coming out of the station and facing the drunks fighting.

[Erasmus]

I fully understand that not all reporters of crime or any other emergency are innocent bystanders or even acting in good faith, but something is amiss if the police take longer to check more than the necessary out. I long ago decided that if ever faced with a lone victim situation (particularly a possibly sexual one), I would call an ambulance, number withheld and let them call the police but do nothing to risk attack from a traumatised victim or getting DNA on myself by poking about.

Years ago I reported screams when I lived opposite an English graveyard. They found nothing of course, but by the time they turned up, any assailant could have committed a couple of murders, shoved the bodies in the boot and been halfway to Bristol. Last time I called the (Irish) police, I was the victim and had they turned up could have found my assailants arguing or fighting with my rescuers. When they did arrive some three hours later, they cruised the estate on the wrong side of the road in a van detectable at 100 yards before vanishing whence they had come. All the weirder because it was just off a major road that usually had a strong patrol presence because of the number of pubs and discoes.

Some years before that, I had to call emergency beause my ex-girlfriend had overdosed herself (Her brother called me from Holland because she'd called him). When they got there, they called me back to say that the door was locked and what were they supposed to do now poor things? Explain to the neighbour and go through to the back (which was never locked) - or just plain break in maybe? The hospital released her three days later entirely unaware that she had ever been in and muttering about dark forces creating false hospital records for her and somebody hand-delivering a letter (which much have been given to her on discharge). They seemed unaware of a 20-year psychiatric history of paranoid schizophrenia including regular suicide attempts and involuntary seclusion suggesting further observation.

Over-efficiency or no efficiency? Which is worse

[fretslider]

Reporting a crime is not a crime, no matter what we might think of the reporter

I cant speak for Eire, but here you most certainly cannot trust the Police. Oh sure, there are honest ones in there, but how do you know which is which and who is who. You'd be a fool to blindly trust.

Response times (here) are governed by the way the crime is categorised. A kind of legal triage.