Over the past decade or so we have seen street crime escalate, the idea of punishment for crime replaced with a failed rehabilitation, and a prison inspectorate which insists convicts must be treated with `respect' . 
 
Sadly our record on `rehabilitation' is abysmal with more than 80% of criminals reoffending within twelve months, and of the remainder most reoffending within two years.   
 
Prison is an easy option, but not one most of us would enjoy.  However, even our prisons are overcrowded and other methods of punishment or deterrence which have been tried have failed simply because there is no will to make them work.  
 
Electronic tagging, for example, does not restrict the movement of criminals if the tags can be removed, nor does it inhibit action to realise that no one appears to monitor tagged offenders.      
 
Imposing fines for relatively minor crimes does not work if people do not pay the fines and the courts do not enforce payment.  Instant fines, a method introduced more and more by the Blair government, is totally ineffectual if the police are rarely on the streets to impose the fines, and when they are the result of making such fines generates enough paperwork to keep the police in the station for the rest of the day.  
 
The oversensitivity to racist matters following on from the Macpherson report into the death of Stephen Lawrence has resulted in experienced officers being suspended for over a year for swearing at an Afro-Caribbean yob, and just a week or so ago two Asian youths stopped by a police officer attempted to sue him for infringing their human rights.
 
This has to stop.  And so does what appears to be the political wing of the judiciary, the Crown Prosecution Service, which constantly seem to downgrade the crimes committed by illegal immigrants, and ethnic minorities.  An illegal immigrant driving whilst uninsured and without a licence who ran down and killed a nine-year old boy on New Year's Day was charged with motoring offences when that should plainly have been Causing Death by Dangerous Driving or Manslaughter.  This driver was sentenced to eight months, which was later reduced to six. 
 
Today we saw the call for 90 days detention without charge under yet another extension of the Anti-Terrorist laws defeated in the House of Commons, a victory for common sense and for Parliamentary Democracy.  But now the police are going to have the power to lock people away for 28 days, simply on suspicion.  We should remember that the extension to 14 days was granted to the police less than a year ago.
 
There has always been the ability for people to be `remanded'  in custody awaiting trial, but the difference between that and this new power is that there has to be a charge.  Suspicion alone has never been enough  Nor is it at all reasonable in a so-called democratic society for people to be removed from their homes and incarcerated whilst the police look for evidence of wrong doing.  
 
We have seen too many cases in dictatorships in other parts of the world where those who are `disappeared' with the aid of the police rarely return to society.  And even if things have not quite reached that state here,  the dangers remain. 
 
That must not be allowed to happen.
 
Senior police officers have virtually politicised themselves over the 90 day detention law which thankfully they have lost this time,  but no doubt they will be back in six or twelve months.
 
 And will it be used only against suspected terrorists? 
 
We have seen in the past year, Anti-terrorist laws used in 19,000 cases according to the government's own figures, including against a man who called out `Rubbish' during a ridiculous speech by Jack Straw. 
 
So how long will it be before the new 28 days detention without trial will be used to remove some figure unpopular with the government while the police ferret out something to charge him with - perhaps George Galloway would be a likely candidate, or Nick Griffin, or some Tory or LibDem candidate who is likely to take a marginal seat from Labour control.
 
These are the dangers we now have to live with. 
 
Like ASBO's which were devised to control uncontrollable yobs and are now being used by the police to criminalise prostitutes, and even against those who light bonfires without regard for their neighbours washing, and perhaps allow their Leylandii to grow over ten feet tall.
 
If you agree with me that one of the aims of terrorism is to enforce more and more draconian legislation to be enacted to destabilise governments and alienate populations
then you will see that the Blair government has already gone too far along that road.  
 
And if you think the anti-terrorism legislation is antithetical to a democratic society you should be aware of the powers available to government and your friendly neighbourhood Chief Constable under the Civil Contingencies Bill.
 
We are now in a period of social control unseen since the collapse of Soviet Communism and the only ones who are out of control are the criminals. 
 
Blair bridled at the jeer of Police State in PMQ's today - 9.11.05 - but the legislation is already in place and even more has been tabled for later introduction. 
 
I quote Benjamin Franklin - `Those who surrender their freedoms for security will have neither'.
 
Racadmos