PCC Elections

[e_pepys]

I enjoy elections and think it is important to vote. So much so, I vote in two different countries where I am eligible to vote.

But I don't agree with today's PCC (Police and Crime Commissioner) elections. I think criminal justice is the one of the worst things to make directly elected (just look at elected prosecutors and judges in the US). So, I'

Comments

[pureofthought]

I voted at least in part to keep out the loony right wingers - we have a candidate from something like the English Patriotic Democrats for Real Justice and More Police (I didn't check to make sure my memory is correct, but it's something like that) whose main policy apart from reversing the government cuts (how?) seems to be to fly the cross of St George over every police station. But I wouldn't have known this if I hadn't checked out the website listing candidates, as there has been virtually no coverage in the local paper.

[zengineer]

I think you might have guessed from the party name. It's the right wing loonies with the inoffensive names we need to fear. In my naive youth I used to think pro-life parties were just liberals against capital punishment and bloody foreign wars.

[zengineer]

A lot of people seem to have trouble with the idea of voting for a police commissioner so I am clearly failing to understand something as it seems to me like a good thing. I think we are not voting for the chief of police or even a chief prosecutor we are voting for someone whose job is to make sure the police are more accountable to the people and that they concentrate on enforcing those parts of the law that matter to people rather than to the government. This seems like a wholly good thing and the guy I voted for (I suspect your choice as he was clearly the best qualified) will do that. The role is clearly not yet well defined as it is new but if we elect commissioners with some idea of what they want to do this will come. Unlike me to be the idealistic voice.
On the issue of spoiling ballot papers I am generally opposed. Generally the figures quoted to support legitimacy are for turnout. Since if you spoil your ballot you are counted as part of the turnout but your vote doesn't affect the outcome it seems counterproductive.

[e_pepys]

I am less worried about cost (which sounds scandalous, but I don't know how much the existing system costs) and more about priorities set on short-term or hot-button issues. Central government political control is bad enough, but is more diluted.

[zengineer]

The function of police commissioner is linked to police force and in England this doesn't directly relate to any regional (or international) government so I suppose the role would devolve to the Home Secretary (or possibly the Justice minister). Home secretaries generally seem to be worried about rather different things to the issues that affect me and so I welcome the chance to direct the police more to what concerns me . The role may make the police no more accountable or concerned with the issues that concern me and it may not be worth the costs of the election and the commissioners elected but I would have said it is too soon to say. The issue is not whether others are better informed but whether they have the same concerns.