A better analysis here, including the comments.

So the local policeman decides whether a case is worth prosecuting on the basis of having been there and compiled the evidence, rather than a bureaucrat whose concern is meeting targets (obviously this need not be a bad thing, but tends to be) making the decision on the basis of a report (which the policeman had to write…), cost and liklihood of conviction. So rather than someone in an office trying to balance figures and liklihoods, we have someone on the ground, investigating a serious case, as minor cases are already decided by the police, making a decision. If you believe central control can be effective, this measure is not for you; but it fits with the localism and freedom agenda: if the policeman is directly answerable to say an elected police chief, is this not better? It allows the focus on particular problems which concern local people, it allows for local judgement and it starts to avoid the dead hand of bureaucracy.

Certainly it does not create new powers, in the way that allowing surviellance or making entry to people’s property easier does, but merely shifts existing powers from one part of the justice system to another.

@2

But another way of looking at it is that if the policeman on the ground is corrupt in any way, they can make the life of anyone they don’t like a misery without dispassionate review by a CPS officer.

bluepillnation,

Indeed. Of course, lawyers in the CPS are never corrupt. And a corrupt policeman could never doctor a report to the CPS. Also, the police can already do this with minor crimes and civil offences – it is only serious crimes that they would gain in this way, and I doubt making someone’s life a misery by charging them with serious crimes is going to get a policeman very far.

I also worry about the idea that corruption (which is abuse of a system) is a reason not to use a system, rather than to deal with corruption. It’s not as if there are many corrupt policemen around, and there are mechanisms for dealing with them. If the principle of devolving decisions to local operatives (policemen – probably custody seargants rather than the arresting officer) is sound, it is sound. If you disagree with the principle, attack that. I don’t think ‘whataboutisms’ such as corruption really help with the debate.

There’s plenty of reason to be suspicious of giving police discretion and Theresa May is, of course, a pretty repellant character but Clegg’s hyperbole is worth mocking here: ‘the biggest shake-up of Britain’s democracy for nearly 200 years’ my arse! What about universal suffrage?

And news just in that Clegg spoke too soon about his party’s alleged achievement on “ending child detention”. No quite what’s going on.

More here and here.

But another way of looking at it is that if the policeman on the ground is corrupt in any way, they can make the life of anyone they don’t like a misery without dispassionate review by a CPS officer.

As if they can’t do that anyway.

Wot Watchman said @4.

Theresa May has put Gary McKinnon’s extradition to the USA on hold, which means an illiberal, homophobic bigot still manages to trump the previous Home Secretary on civil liberties.