Wanted Posters and the Human Rights Act

Via Not Saussure, the Daily Mail, Radio 5 News this morning and a 8 month old Telegraph article - Human Rights Act Stops Cops Using Wanted Posters Shock.

In particular, the case this morning was about escaped prisoners (the Telegraph article was related to the prisoner release scandal, aka the Safety Elephant Gun (well, it got him fired, ho ho).

However, unfortunately for the ignorant and foolish who look for any opportunity to bash Britain's great contribution to postwar human rights it turns out to be bollocks. The BBC has rather moved on from its panic-stations pseudo tabloidism (mind you, that's the Breakfast Show on Radio 5 for you) in its later article. The actual pictures of the escaped suspects on the page rather suggests that the wanted posters are in the public domain.

A moment's thought will illustrate why wanted posters of escaped convicts can't possibly infringe their human rights.

1) They were in jail
2) Because they were found guilty of a crime
3) This means their identity and mugshot (unless they're under age) is in the public domain at time of sentencing.
4) They should still be in jail

Clearly, if a sentenced prisoner's face and name is in the public domain when he's first sentenced, this doesn't stop as soon as he legs it over the wall. Derbyshire police appear to be playing silly buggers here, and even Lord Falconer's on the sensible side for once:

I suspect the explanation lies somewhere between police embarrassment about the press asking them where the men had gone in the two months since they escaped and, frankly, prison service incompetence at keeping prisoners actually on the inside. The original excuse smacks of desperation, but particularly given the way this false meme (and other similar examples) has spread throughout the right-wing authoritarian community, a bit of distraction from the real story would doubtless be very welcome.

A lot of scare stories in tabloids come from police sources, of course, repeated and amplified by Mad Mel, the Mad Mail, the News of the World etc. Usually a right-wing Tory can be relied upon to chime in, and in the end someone will drag that prize tit David Blunkett to give us the benefit of his dubious mentality. Making loud noises about the HRA is much easier than actually addressing the overstretch and rock-bottom morale in the prison and probation services.

There's a slight giveaway in the BBC's related story column, about a near identical incident with the Derbyshire force late last year, complete with mugshot. Not a lot has changed in two months with regard to the Human Rights Act, so why the kerfuffle today?

P.S. Checking the league table for police performance, Derbyshire came joint 27th out of 42.

P.P.S. Because of Home Office targets, police forces are bolstering their detection figures with spot fines and cannabis cautions (that leaked Number 10 briefing paper the other day). It would be nice if there were targets for, say, recapturing escaped convicted murderers within a couple of months.