Displaying items by tag: police

18 October was Anti-Slavery Day. 40 million people are trapped in slavery worldwide, and have no one to protect them. In many places laws against slavery are not enforced by police, so slave owners and traffickers can prey on the poor and vulnerable without fear of consequences. According to a report, UK police don’t tackle modern slavery because cases are too difficult and senior officers believe the public lack sympathy for the victims. Sky news reported that 17 police forces held data on convictions for slavery; 1,265 slavery offences were reported but only 25 people were prosecuted. In the UK, slavery is not just a bad working condition. People are living under constant control and fear and facing daily physical, verbal and sexual abuse. They are trapped. The charity Hope for Justice described the current situation in the UK as ‘a human conveyor belt of slavery’. See also

‘For the past ten years I’ve been a police response officer. A colleague, summing up our lives, recently wrote: “Last week I was hit, spat at and punched. There wasn't one day that I ate my lunch. I held a man's hand who had just lost his wife. I took a child from his father who was wielding a knife. I pulled a girl who was mentally ill off a bridge. I locked up a worker who had nicked from the till. I persuaded a battered woman finally to speak - after seeing her every day, week after week. This is our job and we are all proud to do it.” We are proud. And that’s why we work earlies, lates and night shifts. But I want to challenge a policy that puts the public and the police at risk. It’s called “single crewing” and it means that officers like me are sent out on jobs alone and face being attacked. Our team of 24 will have three double-crewed cars during most shifts: the rest of us will be on our own. That’s why I’ve started a petition calling on Amber Rudd to stop this.’

Europol assists the 28 EU member states in their fight against serious international crime and terrorism. It also works with many non-EU partner states and international organisations to reduce terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, organised fraud, euros counterfeiting, and smuggling. But new dangers of online radicalisation and people-trafficking are growing. The networks behind crimes in these areas are quick to seize new opportunities, and are resilient in the face of traditional law enforcement measures. Pray for stronger and wider monitoring of danger through better intelligence-sharing at the highest levels, so that countries can maximise the use of information from all possible sources. Most terrorists have criminal backgrounds, and terrorism is funded by crime. Pray for police across continents to improve the sharing of databases on criminals as they establish an intercontinental cooperation network, so that policing reaches darker places not yet touched by law and order.

The latest Office for National Statistics report shows increases in high-harm / small-volume violent crime. On the day it was released, a Londoner received critical stab wounds to his head while trying to stop a robbery. Londoners fear that they are in the midst of a crime wave. ‘The demographic of hospital patients is changing from a night-time activity involving drugs and a dark alley to attacks in broad daylight. It’s no longer unusual to go to stabbings of schoolchildren outside their schools in daylight hours,’ said an Air Ambulance medical director. Scotland Yard has set up a specialist task force to combat the problem, with community leaders claiming that some children as young as six are carrying knives. So far this year, thirty people have been stabbed to death in London, a rise of almost a third. 300 knives were seized in seven days by officers across the capital. See

Praise God for the release of a new advocacy song by a Kenyan artist calling for an end to police abuse of power. The International Justice Mission (IJM) has been working with partners in the human rights community in Kenya to raise awareness of police abuse and create public demand for change. IJM hosted an event for the launch of the song, which was covered widely by local media and highlighted the need for radical transformation in the police service. Please pray that this support will continue to grow, and that we will see a response from Kenya’s leaders to bring this abuse to an end. Last year a television channel broadcast shocking images of police descending on protesters with water cannons, batons and tear gas, beating and bloodying people. Kenya's police chief called for internal investigations, but not much has changed. See

Wiltshire police have said a large-scale cannabis factory has been found in an underground former nuclear bunker with an estimated street value of £1m. The plants were seized in a midnight raid on Regional Government Headquarters Chilmark. Six men were arrested on suspicion of cannabis production in twenty rooms in the building, with almost every room converted for the wholesale production of cannabis plants.