The Justice System on Trial

Have you never considered how much less crime there would be if there was no such thing as our Police Force?

And here I’m not talking about our semantics, but actually about how much criminal  behaviour has at root been caused by an unchecked Police Force that in many countries operate above the Law. 

The Stamford Experiment showed us just how much of our behaviour is determined by neither nature, nor nurture, but by the social organisations that we impose on ourselves, or in this case that we allow to be imposed on us. That expectation is very much a driving force in a lot of things. 

But even aside from expectation, our Police Force is responsible for much of psychoses that eventually destroy both family and community, which in the end feeds into nothing except more crime. 

Alhamdolillah we as a Nation have a perfect example of how a criminal justice system should behave in the life of the greatest of men, Muhammed (saw), the Messenger of God. 

And so of course I’m not here advocating the abolishment of the Police Force, nor even it’s defunding. I’m here advocating for it to be held responsible for its actions and for it to be held in check. 

Alhamdolillah I have seen first hand the abuse of power that the Police wield. 

That the Police here are the instrument of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs. 

How the Police are neither for justice, nor for the protection of all people, but for the protection of a few people. 

How rather than investigate, they take the easy way out and play people. 

And when they have cracked a person, then they have justified themselves in their own eyes. 

The recent use of Napier Barracks, which were abandoned for military personnel use over a decade ago, to house asylum seekers shows just how depraved the Police are. As an instrument of the Home Office they are responsible first hand for the corralling of those asylum seekers into a place not fit for human habitation. 

But the rub of it here is that when those people dissent, and are forced through circumstance to set fire to the barracks as a means of drawing attention to their plight, they get sent down. 

The Police have done their job, and done it well. 

They know that justice’s wheels are slow, and they make them move even slower- using every instrument in the arsenal to break a man. No matter that man is husband of a wife, is father to his children, is active within his community. 

When they break that man, they break a family, they break our society and in the end it’s generative for them- for they cause more crime for them to police. 

But they don’t stop there at playing the man by playing on his psychology, by making him paranoid. 

They even descend further than that. 

They lie to magistrates, and judges. 

And then they have the gall to say that it was done in error, and apologise. 

For them the ends justifies the means. 

Never mind that the means has ramifications far beyond those ends. 

They do not uphold truth, nor honour, nor human dignity. They are not bastions of truth, but use skulduggery, lies and obfuscation well. 

And society allows that evil because it wrongly believes that they are doing a necessary job. 

But what they create in the wake of their evil, society is oblivious too. 

Unless we look to a better example of how man is to police man. 

A person came to the Messenger (saw) and confessed adultery ( zinna) and the Messenger turned away. Twice more he turned. 

Confession has no basis in Islamic legal proceedings. And from this we can deduce that an interview constructed to gain one should have no legal standing. That no one accused should be played, lied to, threatened or in any way made to suffer psychological harm. 

That by all means an interview should take place, but it’s place should not be to form an argument or the basis of a conviction. How many have been sent down simply based on that? But that evidence is key. The bar for testimonial evidence is set rightly high in Islamic legal theory. But here it is perilously low.  

Within the religion no theory of knowledge is without its boundaries. And if that is so with regards to the highest of man’s endeavour, then no area can be without its checks and balances. 

How can we expect the Police to police themselves? For its clear that they do not. 

Judges and Magistrates should have the right to dismiss Police, from their jobs, if they find that they are lying, abusing their powers, and not upholding what it is everyones right to expect- basic human dignity. 

The religion makes clear that privacy of an individual is inviolable, but it is what they do in the public sphere that can only be policed. 

These are the lessons that the religion of Islam holds out for the whole brotherhood of humanity. I hope that both we and us all heed those. 

The next time you watch “Suits”, or another crime drama, it’s fun when the criminal is on par with the detective and there is a battle of wills and wits. 

But spare a thought for the innocent man, who has fallen prey to the snares of a profession bent on conviction. How they could easily, and do effortlessly break him, causing untold paranoia and psychoses. 

Spare a thought for the families broken by the Police, who destroy them as a gardener would mow the lawn. 

Spare a thought for the children seeded into crime because of no father figure being present, or because of police harassment quickly leads for them fulfilling that unheard expectation. 

Things must change. 

The Police must be made to uphold both virtue and human dignity. 

The Police must be held to account, by those who first hand can see their nefarious behaviour - judges, lawyers and magistrates. 

Shafees. 

London Feb 2021