London Police Charge You To Investigate Crime
This feels like the 1700′s again. Before London had a police force you had private individuals who would investigate crimes for you for a fee. Now if if your car is stolen and recovered you have to pay the cops to do any forensic work or bring the car to you, but as a generous public service they will tell you where the car is for free. This frees up valuable police time so they can investigate more serious issues. Or even more serious crimes that pay better.
April 24th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Chris asks “Does that mean criminals can pay a higher fee so that the police WON’T do any forensics?”
April 24th, 2007 at 1:54 am
That is essentially how the old thief catcher system worked. Thieves paid the thief catcher off, but returned the stolen goods for a fee. See Jonathan Wild as an example. The establishment of a regular police force was an attempt to reform that and eventually was supposed to provide equal police protection to anyone, regardless of whether they paid a fee or not.
April 24th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I wonder how long before they start arresting police officers who tow cars in order to try and weasel the fee out of inidividuals.