Shots Fired on London Bridge

[Which Tyler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-50601491

[Sandydragon]

Not hugely surprised that something has happened during the election.

[Zhivago]

Not hugely surprised that something has happened during the election.

Guy was known to Mi5/police, but they didn't manage to stop it. I do question why you'd ever release a terrorist - they're unlikely to change their radical beliefs

[Puja]

Not hugely surprised that something has happened during the election.

Guy was known to Mi5/police, but they didn't manage to stop it. I do question why you'd ever release a terrorist - they're unlikely to change their radical beliefs

Couple of problems with that argument:

1) The security services know about a *lot* of people. It's very well with hindsight saying, "Why weren't they tracking *him* better?" but they don't know he was the 1 in a thousand on their list that was actually going to do something.

2) We do kind of have a rule of law here in this country, which means that you can't just lock someone up forever just to be on the safe side.

Puja

[Zhivago]

Not hugely surprised that something has happened during the election.

Guy was known to Mi5/police, but they didn't manage to stop it. I do question why you'd ever release a terrorist - they're unlikely to change their radical beliefs

Couple of problems with that argument:

1) The security services know about a *lot* of people. It's very well with hindsight saying, "Why weren't they tracking *him* better?" but they don't know he was the 1 in a thousand on their list that was actually going to do something.

2) We do kind of have a rule of law here in this country, which means that you can't just lock someone up forever just to be on the safe side.

Puja

1) he was electronically tagged, but it clearly didn't work like they wanted

2) if you're tagging then you're saying the individual is still a risk to society. In that case the individual is in my view not rehabilitated and should not be released back into society. Reports are that he was released part way through his sentence

[Sandydragon]

How many prisons would you like to see built? Not everyone can be detained indefinitely. Tagging has its uses but won’t stop you from buying a bladed weapon. And how many surveillance people do you think MI5 and the police have?

No doubt there will be the typical argument over austerity and police numbers plus incompetence. Sad truth is that there will never be enough resources and because we don’t live in a police state, people can go free from prison.

[Stom]

How many prisons would you like to see built? Not everyone can be detained indefinitely. Tagging has its uses but won’t stop you from buying a bladed weapon. And how many surveillance people do you think MI5 and the police have?

No doubt there will be the typical argument over austerity and police numbers plus incompetence. Sad truth is that there will never be enough resources and because we don’t live in a police state, people can go free from prison.

Well that’s a question for how prison should work.

Because there are way to many non violent offenders in jail who probably shouldn’t be there. Not as bad as in the USA, but not perfect.

But on a while I agree, not much you can do about things like this. The police and security services did a good job that a violent extremist could only get his hands on a knife and kill 2 people, not 20.

[Zhivago]

How many prisons would you like to see built? Not everyone can be detained indefinitely. Tagging has its uses but won’t stop you from buying a bladed weapon. And how many surveillance people do you think MI5 and the police have?

No doubt there will be the typical argument over austerity and police numbers plus incompetence. Sad truth is that there will never be enough resources and because we don’t live in a police state, people can go free from prison.

I think the problem is that just 'doing time' doesn't fix the problem of reoffending. And stretched resources means that individuals who are a threat to society are released earlier than they should be.

No doubt austerity played a part in terms of prison resources being stretched to breaking point, but it's also a question of justice ministry policy.

There were apparently calls from certain experts for Mi5 to make improvements to its "potential lone actor" triage tool, so although it's always going to be hard to prevent knife attacks, there are clearly problems with assessing who possess the risk.

[Puja]

Guy was known to Mi5/police, but they didn't manage to stop it. I do question why you'd ever release a terrorist - they're unlikely to change their radical beliefs

Couple of problems with that argument:

1) The security services know about a *lot* of people. It's very well with hindsight saying, "Why weren't they tracking *him* better?" but they don't know he was the 1 in a thousand on their list that was actually going to do something.

2) We do kind of have a rule of law here in this country, which means that you can't just lock someone up forever just to be on the safe side.

Puja

1) he was electronically tagged, but it clearly didn't work like they wanted

2) if you're tagging then you're saying the individual is still a risk to society. In that case the individual is in my view not rehabilitated and should not be released back into society. Reports are that he was released part way through his sentence

An electronic tag tells the services where someone is, not whether they are pulling a knife on someone. And it doesn't mean that you think they're a risk to society, it means you're saying they've been released on probation under certain conditions, which I suspect he didn't breach before the stabbing.

There are thousands of people out on electronic tags right now that aren't stabbing people. Are you saying they should all be locked up, even if they've shown every sign of rehabilitation, because 1 in a thousand could stab someone and therefore none of them should be trusted. Cause, quite apart from the authoritarian vibes of locking people up permanently without evidence, that kind of behaviour is how you create more angry people who are easily radicalised. It's literally helping the terrorists win.

Puja

[Zhivago]

Couple of problems with that argument:

1) The security services know about a *lot* of people. It's very well with hindsight saying, "Why weren't they tracking *him* better?" but they don't know he was the 1 in a thousand on their list that was actually going to do something.

2) We do kind of have a rule of law here in this country, which means that you can't just lock someone up forever just to be on the safe side.

Puja

1) he was electronically tagged, but it clearly didn't work like they wanted

2) if you're tagging then you're saying the individual is still a risk to society. In that case the individual is in my view not rehabilitated and should not be released back into society. Reports are that he was released part way through his sentence

An electronic tag tells the services where someone is, not whether they are pulling a knife on someone. And it doesn't mean that you think they're a risk to society, it means you're saying they've been released on probation under certain conditions, which I suspect he didn't breach before the stabbing.

There are thousands of people out on electronic tags right now that aren't stabbing people. Are you saying they should all be locked up, even if they've shown every sign of rehabilitation, because 1 in a thousand could stab someone and therefore none of them should be trusted. Cause, quite apart from the authoritarian vibes of locking people up permanently without evidence, that kind of behaviour is how you create more angry people who are easily radicalised. It's literally helping the terrorists win.

Puja

Our system isn't good enough at rehabilitation to be releasing dangerous criminals on parole so easily. Parole decisions are heavily influenced by a weigh off of prison resources vs risk to society. The way to rebalance that equation would be to make sure that we have a surplus of prison resource so that it isn't even a factor.

[Zhivago]

How many prisons would you like to see built? Not everyone can be detained indefinitely. Tagging has its uses but won’t stop you from buying a bladed weapon. And how many surveillance people do you think MI5 and the police have?

No doubt there will be the typical argument over austerity and police numbers plus incompetence. Sad truth is that there will never be enough resources and because we don’t live in a police state, people can go free from prison.

Well that’s a question for how prison should work.

Because there are way to many non violent offenders in jail who probably shouldn’t be there. Not as bad as in the USA, but not perfect.

But on a while I agree, not much you can do about things like this. The police and security services did a good job that a violent extremist could only get his hands on a knife and kill 2 people, not 20.

Police did a good job?? Civilians detained him, then police executed him (maybe legitimately considering the fake suicide vest) according to reports.

[Stom]

How many prisons would you like to see built? Not everyone can be detained indefinitely. Tagging has its uses but won’t stop you from buying a bladed weapon. And how many surveillance people do you think MI5 and the police have?

No doubt there will be the typical argument over austerity and police numbers plus incompetence. Sad truth is that there will never be enough resources and because we don’t live in a police state, people can go free from prison.

Well that’s a question for how prison should work.

Because there are way to many non violent offenders in jail who probably shouldn’t be there. Not as bad as in the USA, but not perfect.

But on a while I agree, not much you can do about things like this. The police and security services did a good job that a violent extremist could only get his hands on a knife and kill 2 people, not 20.

Police did a good job?? Civilians detained him, then police executed him (maybe legitimately considering the fake suicide vest) according to reports.

He had a knife and nothing more.

He was prevented from getting anything more dangerous than that. I'd say that's a win for the security services.

In fact, how many terrorist attacks have there been in the UK in the past years? What, 12, 13 in the past 10 years?

Compare that to when the IRA were active...jeez.

I'd say our security forces are doing a damn good job.

Either that, or...god forbid...the terrorist threat is actually tiny and is being overplayed by the media. Surely not!

[Zhivago]

Well that’s a question for how prison should work.

Because there are way to many non violent offenders in jail who probably shouldn’t be there. Not as bad as in the USA, but not perfect.

But on a while I agree, not much you can do about things like this. The police and security services did a good job that a violent extremist could only get his hands on a knife and kill 2 people, not 20.

Police did a good job?? Civilians detained him, then police executed him (maybe legitimately considering the fake suicide vest) according to reports.

He had a knife and nothing more.

He was prevented from getting anything more dangerous than that. I'd say that's a win for the security services.

In fact, how many terrorist attacks have there been in the UK in the past years? What, 12, 13 in the past 10 years?

Compare that to when the IRA were active...jeez.

I'd say our security forces are doing a damn good job.

Either that, or...god forbid...the terrorist threat is actually tiny and is being overplayed by the media. Surely not!

There's a global terrorism index ranking and we are the worst ranked eu country. So clearly not doing that well.

http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/terrorism-index/

[Digby]

Also the police response time was under 5 minutes, gaining access through a congested city into a live conflict scenario. How much faster are we expecting the response time to be? Although if we're going to throw in lines like prison should have excess capacity then it gets easier, providing of course it's all cost free

[Stom]

Also the police response time was under 5 minutes, gaining access through a congested city into a live conflict scenario. How much faster are we expecting the response time to be? Although if we're going to throw in lines like prison should have excess capacity then it gets easier, providing of course it's all cost free

Yeah, I don't get how the security services were meant to perform any better in this instance. I think they did a very good job.

No matter your political persuasion, you should give credit where credit is due.

And surely, part of the reason we have more terrorist attacks is because...

a) we're targeted more because of our prior actions
b) we're dicks to people. Or, more realistically, our government is dicks to people.

[Zhivago]

Also the police response time was under 5 minutes, gaining access through a congested city into a live conflict scenario. How much faster are we expecting the response time to be? Although if we're going to throw in lines like prison should have excess capacity then it gets easier, providing of course it's all cost free

Yeah, I don't get how the security services were meant to perform any better in this instance. I think they did a very good job.

No matter your political persuasion, you should give credit where credit is due.

And surely, part of the reason we have more terrorist attacks is because...

a) we're targeted more because of our prior actions
b) we're dicks to people. Or, more realistically, our government is dicks to people.

In a democracy the government is chosen by the people so the distinction in b is not so clear.

[Sandydragon]

How many prisons would you like to see built? Not everyone can be detained indefinitely. Tagging has its uses but won’t stop you from buying a bladed weapon. And how many surveillance people do you think MI5 and the police have?

No doubt there will be the typical argument over austerity and police numbers plus incompetence. Sad truth is that there will never be enough resources and because we don’t live in a police state, people can go free from prison.

Well that’s a question for how prison should work.

Because there are way to many non violent offenders in jail who probably shouldn’t be there. Not as bad as in the USA, but not perfect.

But on a while I agree, not much you can do about things like this. The police and security services did a good job that a violent extremist could only get his hands on a knife and kill 2 people, not 20.

Don’t disagree about prison and certain offender types, but the police and security services work with what they’ve got.

And I also agree, the carnage if he had been armed with a Kalashnikov and an actual bomb would have been far worse.

[Sandydragon]

How many prisons would you like to see built? Not everyone can be detained indefinitely. Tagging has its uses but won’t stop you from buying a bladed weapon. And how many surveillance people do you think MI5 and the police have?

No doubt there will be the typical argument over austerity and police numbers plus incompetence. Sad truth is that there will never be enough resources and because we don’t live in a police state, people can go free from prison.

I think the problem is that just 'doing time' doesn't fix the problem of reoffending. And stretched resources means that individuals who are a threat to society are released earlier than they should be.

No doubt austerity played a part in terms of prison resources being stretched to breaking point, but it's also a question of justice ministry policy.

There were apparently calls from certain experts for Mi5 to make improvements to its "potential lone actor" triage tool, so although it's always going to be hard to prevent knife attacks, there are clearly problems with assessing who possess the risk.

Risk assessments aren’t 100% right. The sad truth is that offenders can violently reoffend when paroled even if social workers and prison officers aren’t overstretched. The only truly safe method is to lock them up indefinitely, which is a policy that belongs on the front page of the Daily Mail not in a sensible debate.

[Sandydragon]

Also the police response time was under 5 minutes, gaining access through a congested city into a live conflict scenario. How much faster are we expecting the response time to be? Although if we're going to throw in lines like prison should have excess capacity then it gets easier, providing of course it's all cost free

The police response was very impressive. I don’t think it would have been quite so quick in a suburb but very good nonetheless.

[Banquo]

This is lovely, trying to point score when two blameless people have lost their lives at the hands of a piece of crap.

Over and out.

[Stom]

This is lovely, trying to point score when two blameless people have lost their lives at the hands of a piece of crap.

Over and out.

Well, indeed.

But we should praise people for doing good things.

Including Narwhal man!

[Banquo]

This is lovely, trying to point score when two blameless people have lost their lives at the hands of a piece of crap.

Over and out.

Well, indeed.

But we should praise people for doing good things.

Including Narwhal man!

Yes, but no one had thought to mention the victims. Why am I surprised -it’s the internet in 2019

[Mellsblue]

There are reports that one of those who tackled the perpetrator was on day release from a murder sentence. If true, it kind of sums up how difficult this parole/tagging/day release business is. Not really a case of right or wrong, just people making educated guesses.

[Mikey Brown]

There are reports that one of those who tackled the perpetrator was on day release from a murder sentence. If true, it kind of sums up how difficult this parole/tagging/day release business is. Not really a case of right or wrong, just people making educated guesses.

I saw the clip of a guy who managed to get the knife off him and then legged it, which seemed odd.

His face was visible on the bbc article initially and is now blurred, which is perhaps also but maybe there’s good reason for it.

[Sandydragon]

There are reports that one of those who tackled the perpetrator was on day release from a murder sentence. If true, it kind of sums up how difficult this parole/tagging/day release business is. Not really a case of right or wrong, just people making educated guesses.

I saw the clip of a guy who managed to get the knife off him and then legged it, which seemed odd.

His face was visible on the bbc article initially and is now blurred, which is perhaps also but maybe there’s good reason for it.

He might have seen the dummy suicide vest!