Re: Government Noses

[Roland Perry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
> > Don't laugh, but the DWP Bill Team working on the SSF Bill assured
> > industry that they had a 99% conviction rate when prosecuting
> > benefits
> > fraud, and therefore really did only want data on actual criminals.
>
> But that is not what I was saying...
>
> I was pointing out that if, as Simon would have it, they are not collecting
> information on the public at large,  their rate of accurately identifying
> people as criminal or not must be nearly 100% before they even start
> collecting the intelligence, let alone contemplating the prosecution.

On one hand, most people have probably inadvertently infringed one or 
other of their rules.

On the other hand, doing an investigation and prosecution are 
sufficiently onerous that they are perhaps only going after the worst 
offenders, rather than indulging in fishing expeditions. Not everyone 
would agree that this is the case, though.

But the most important thing to remember is that they don't need to be 
collecting information on everyone "just in case" (they'd be swamped), 
because it's easy enough for them to get the information on the 
relatively few they investigate, on an ad-hoc basis. Their proposition 
being that they have sufficient instinct to investigate mainly people 
who turn out to be guilty. (Although the 99% figure pertained to those 
they then choose to prosecute).
--
Roland Perry