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More thoughts on the FSS closure
The more I think about the FSS closures, the more I worry; so I guess the very least I can do is to keep blogging, boost the signal, and hope that somebody takes notice. Once I've got my thoughts in order, I'll write to my MP, too.
Just got off the phone with my mum. Here's a key piece of information that I hadn't appreciated, but makes sense now I think of it: none of the FSS's competitors are making money either. It's quite possible that in eighteen months they'll all have folded.
Why? And what next?
Simply put, this isn't a business.
Crime-solving is not a product. People's lives and freedom hang on its being done to standard and done well, not on its being done cheaply. Commercialising the FSS in 2005 meant that the police had to pay for its services, and they're not willing to pay for the high-end things like shoeprint and fibre analysis. These have been pushed to rock-bottom prices as-is, and the police still won't pay. The trouble? Almost no murders (and presumably almost no other crimes) are solved on DNA alone. They all require these high-end services, and because they're too expensive, they're dying out in the forensics 'marketplace' even as we speak.
You know what else requires high-end, dedicated work? Major incidents. Serial killers, terrorist attacks, etc. For 7/7 they had twenty people working around the clock for several weeks. This was not profitable. How could they even ask to make it so? People had died. No commercial, fully-private business would ever commit to such a thing, especially if it meant giving up other contracts.
What happens next time there's a major terrorist incident? We won't be equipped to deal with it, and we'll have lost the high-end skillsets to cope properly - because they were too expensive for the police to bother keeping around. Will that be when somebody finally realises that there's been a terrible mistake?
We will be the only country in the world without a government-owned forensics service. Even the USA, which privatises everything it can get away with, hasn't tried to get away with this.
We're world leaders in forensic research. Who's going to pay for it now?
The police forces do not have the expertise to do in-house forensics to the expected modern standard. Nor do they have the resources or the time.
On an unrelated note, I find the timing of the announcement very suspicious, and suspect it's been done deliberately to bury the news in the run-up to Christmas. (In particular, I note that Private Eye is skipping next issue for Christmas.)
Just got off the phone with my mum. Here's a key piece of information that I hadn't appreciated, but makes sense now I think of it: none of the FSS's competitors are making money either. It's quite possible that in eighteen months they'll all have folded.
Why? And what next?
Simply put, this isn't a business.
Crime-solving is not a product. People's lives and freedom hang on its being done to standard and done well, not on its being done cheaply. Commercialising the FSS in 2005 meant that the police had to pay for its services, and they're not willing to pay for the high-end things like shoeprint and fibre analysis. These have been pushed to rock-bottom prices as-is, and the police still won't pay. The trouble? Almost no murders (and presumably almost no other crimes) are solved on DNA alone. They all require these high-end services, and because they're too expensive, they're dying out in the forensics 'marketplace' even as we speak.
You know what else requires high-end, dedicated work? Major incidents. Serial killers, terrorist attacks, etc. For 7/7 they had twenty people working around the clock for several weeks. This was not profitable. How could they even ask to make it so? People had died. No commercial, fully-private business would ever commit to such a thing, especially if it meant giving up other contracts.
What happens next time there's a major terrorist incident? We won't be equipped to deal with it, and we'll have lost the high-end skillsets to cope properly - because they were too expensive for the police to bother keeping around. Will that be when somebody finally realises that there's been a terrible mistake?
We will be the only country in the world without a government-owned forensics service. Even the USA, which privatises everything it can get away with, hasn't tried to get away with this.
We're world leaders in forensic research. Who's going to pay for it now?
The police forces do not have the expertise to do in-house forensics to the expected modern standard. Nor do they have the resources or the time.
On an unrelated note, I find the timing of the announcement very suspicious, and suspect it's been done deliberately to bury the news in the run-up to Christmas. (In particular, I note that Private Eye is skipping next issue for Christmas.)