It was going to be the high level conviction that would make the news and be a shot across the bows of anyone else who protested and it failed, miserably. The CPS and everyone else involved are going to have to consider each new case now because the chances of conviction don’t look good.
they still got to inconvenience protesters
Most protestors these days are prepared for inconvenience (some go out of their way to courter arrest in order to make a bigger splash), it’s a whole different ballgame if you could be looking at a criminal conviction for not doing much at all.
It’s the CPS that may think twice about the prospect of prosecution, and the police are going to be pretty loathe to arrest if prosecutions are unsuccessful,
What? Police have no issue arresting people regardless of the conviction possibilities. They literally could not care less. Arresting people is just part of their day at the office.
That’s really not how it works. If there’s little prospect of prosecution they simply aren’t going to bother with the time expense and resources to arrest.
Perhaps under normal circumstances, but arrest alone is enough of a deterrent for a lot of people. Plus some cops will arrest people just because the people pissed them off. They know no criminal charges will come of it, but they also know it’ll inconvenience the person for at least 4 hours and ruin their day.
What time and expense? The cops and the jail staff are there regardless of arresting people or not. It costs them nothing additional to arrest you. The expense is part of their regular operational budget.
What I’m saying is that it doesn’t cost them any more money to go out and arrest a bunch of people, than it does to sit at a donut shop stuffing their faces. They get paid either way, as do the people running the jails. Their budget isn’t affected by what they do during the course of a shift.
They have a certain amount of money that they have to spent on operational work. The police and crime commissioners/mayor depending on region absolutely look at arrests v conviction rates and will give the Chief Constable a hard time if they are arresting people without hope of conviction, telling them instead to focus on priorities. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we don’t see the criteria for arrest to be tweaked a bit.
How would this make them think twice? There weren’t any consequences for them for unlawful arrest and they still got to inconvenience protesters.
It was going to be the high level conviction that would make the news and be a shot across the bows of anyone else who protested and it failed, miserably. The CPS and everyone else involved are going to have to consider each new case now because the chances of conviction don’t look good.
Most protestors these days are prepared for inconvenience (some go out of their way to courter arrest in order to make a bigger splash), it’s a whole different ballgame if you could be looking at a criminal conviction for not doing much at all.
It’s the CPS that may think twice about the prospect of prosecution, and the police are going to be pretty loathe to arrest if prosecutions are unsuccessful,
What? Police have no issue arresting people regardless of the conviction possibilities. They literally could not care less. Arresting people is just part of their day at the office.
That’s really not how it works. If there’s little prospect of prosecution they simply aren’t going to bother with the time expense and resources to arrest.
Perhaps under normal circumstances, but arrest alone is enough of a deterrent for a lot of people. Plus some cops will arrest people just because the people pissed them off. They know no criminal charges will come of it, but they also know it’ll inconvenience the person for at least 4 hours and ruin their day.
What time and expense? The cops and the jail staff are there regardless of arresting people or not. It costs them nothing additional to arrest you. The expense is part of their regular operational budget.
Which is limited
What I’m saying is that it doesn’t cost them any more money to go out and arrest a bunch of people, than it does to sit at a donut shop stuffing their faces. They get paid either way, as do the people running the jails. Their budget isn’t affected by what they do during the course of a shift.
They have a certain amount of money that they have to spent on operational work. The police and crime commissioners/mayor depending on region absolutely look at arrests v conviction rates and will give the Chief Constable a hard time if they are arresting people without hope of conviction, telling them instead to focus on priorities. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we don’t see the criteria for arrest to be tweaked a bit.
Just think about all that paperwork. My pen’s running out…
Because the government has to pay her legal fees perhaps.