Expendable
"Of relatively little significance, and therefore able to be abandoned or destroyed."

In the UK it is obvious to anyone living in the real world that our police service is massively understaffed.
Infact, according to fullfact.org, "The number of police officers in England and Wales is the lowest recorded level since the early 1980s. To make a consistent comparison over time, we have to use figures from March each year."

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To grasp the full magnitude of this problem we must bare in mind the fact that the population of the UK has increased dramatically during the same time period.

Mid-year population estimates for the UK, 1980 to 2013. Since 1980, the UK population has grown by 7.8 million people (13.8%). Around half of this growth has occurred since 2005, due to an increase in the number of births and an increase in net inward migration following the EU expansion in 2004
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Adding to the population/policing issues, we have the introduction of "universal credit", a government backed scheme that, apparently, has been created to "Encourage those on benefits back to work". Translated, this actually means that the government make you so poor that you have no choice but to accept any job you can find or face starving to death. Those who are stuck on Universal credit, like the disabled and/or their carers are now feeling the pinch. It has long been proven that universal credit has increased hardship, along with increasing the rates of homelessness.

According to a recent investigation by The Observer...

Interviews with homelessness charities across England reveal a support system in crisis as the rollout of universal credit and freezes to local housing allowance rates put even basic accommodation beyond the means of many. One shelter said universal credit was a factor in a third of its clients ending up in its care.

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Add to this toxic situation an ever-increasing cost of living and you find yourself living right next door to a black-hole, one that's sucking anyone who comes close enough into its inescapable grasp.

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Poverty and Crime make perfect bedfellows...

With an increase in population, a decrease in job opportunities and university fee's being escalated beyond reasonable reach of the working-class, the chances for making a better life for oneself becomes a minor miracle. Those unfortunate enough to live within the boundaries of the poorest communities have even less of a chance. The influences inside these environments will certainly steer the majority of youngsters into a life of crime, whether temporary or permanent. Looking out into a world that lacks any form of security or morality only goes to make joining a criminally-minded gang a very appealing option. In this instance any youngster involved has avoided poverty to some extent and in the short-term they have gained some form of security. Obviously, this way of life is treacherous, but when put against a life of poverty and probable homelessness you can start to understand why youngsters make this life-choice. Also, with the knowledge of falling police numbers you're likely to get through your apprentice years without much hassle. Regardless, lenient sentencing and jail time involving free TV, free accommodation, free food and all the drugs you can afford, means there isn't much to deter a would-be-gangster anyway.

The UK's poorest areas have become a breading ground for criminals and the only real solution is to recruit more police officers, something that has been echoed year after year by those involved in fighting crime. Even so, this has fallen on deaf ears and a bankers induced recession has given politicians the perfect excuse to ignore these requests to strengthen police lines.

Ironically, the criminal actions that caused this latest recession were met with absolutely no criminal charges being brought against the Banksters who have subsequently caused more poverty and crime for the police to have to deal with. Therefore, I personally have very little sympathy for today's law enforcers. Maybe, if they tackled criminality from the opposite end of the scale they would have a more of a lasting impact, but instead they seem happy to continue the same asinine approach.

My own opinion is that crime pays and I don't mean for the criminals, I mean it pays governments to keep a perpetual underworld...Where else are they going to get their dirty work done? You really believe the upper-class don't use drugs and prostitutes? For governments there only seems to be one concern and that is how to keep costs at a minimum, which brings me around, nicely, to the main point of this article...

How does the UK government increase Police numbers without increasing costs?

Child spies should be recruited more often by MI5 and police, security minister says

Police and intelligence agencies should make greater use of child spies to investigate terrorists, gang violence, drug dealing and sexual exploitation, says the UK’s security minister despite legal concerns over their safety.

To those who make these kinds of decisions, this is a plan with very few drawbacks. To them, these children are part of the problem and if they get found out it seems that its one less criminal to deal with in the future. Needless to say they would never put their own children into such a predicament as failing in this line of work is often fatal.
These are the same ministers who use the same rational to happily recruits thousands of the working-class into the military, sending our children to far-off lands to die for their country(Not that that is the real reason at all). In this case though, they are recruiting young children to spy on violent criminals without any kind of safety net whatsoever.

So, lets get some perspective on the task these children are being asked to perform, all for Queen and country...

As described, in an interview for the Independent, by a former UC(undercover cop), this kind of police tactic (only if carried out correctly) has the greatest impact when securing a conviction in court...

"Covert policing is the last bastion of pure policing: when it works, it should become, in court, an unassailable combination of eyewitness and covertly recorded evidence that greatly increases the chances of convictions."

That being said, this kind of operation takes years of training, endless therapy to combat the stress involved and, of course, masses of funding...(But only when it's done correctly).

Let's hear a little more from this interview, to help us all realise what these Ministers are asking children to put themselves through in order to keep costs down...

"The gangster pulled his car over on a dark country lane. He stuck the barrel of his gun into my mouth: 'You're a cozzer, aren't you?' Any hint of doubt in his mind and I would have been killed; my body dumped. Training had prepared me for this moment. I didn't flinch. He believed my denials and we went for a drink"...."A good UC [undercover cop] needs to develop several 'legends', which he can put on like a well-worn leather jacket and walk into the underworld with confidence."

It is my opinion that the children who are being used as informants get little or no training at all. Besides this, there is mental stress that this work incurs and I'm guessing that these kiddy-cops receive none of the support that is required to keep hold of their sanity...

"UCs are supposed to be regularly debriefed by their cover man: we called them 'uncles' in the Met. They get the intelligence, and because they are also UC officers they have the skills to act as an emotional support and spot any signs of breakdown or chinks in the 'legend'. We are also regularly sent to the department psychologist"...

"On one job, management was concerned for our well-being so they flew over Donnie Brasco to talk to us about how he felt after years undercover in the New York mob. He said: 'You won't be the same after this.' And I think that applies to Kennedy."

As you can tell, being a double agent is a risky business to say the least and those who survive still carry scars. So how is it that the UK's security minister, Ben Wallace, feel it the right thing to do and encourage MI5 and the Police force to promote such an approach. Mr Wallace's statement was in an article dated 11th June 2019, yet in this article, also dated 11th June 2019, it states that concerns over employing children as informants were raised inside the House of Lords over a year ago.

The Home Office is facing a High Court challenge from Just for Kids Law over the use of children as covert human intelligence sources (CHIS). The charity said it puts them at risk of ‘severe physical and emotional harm’, and that a lack of safeguards breaches human rights laws.

Concerns over the use of child spies were raised in the House of Lords last year and peers heard that one 17-year-old girl was recruited to spy on a man who had been exploiting her sexually. At the time, Sally Hamwee revealed the girl, who was ‘on the edge of care’ had been selling sex for the suspect, who she thought of as her ‘boyfriend’. It eventually led to the girl becoming an accessory to murder, Lady Hamwee said, and argued the she had been ‘arguably, exploited by police’.

Unfortunately, The Rt Honourable Ben Wallace sees things very differently...

“Given that young people are increasingly involved both as perpetrators and victims in serious crimes including terrorism, gang violence and county lines drugs offences and child sexual exploitation, there is increasing scope for juvenile CHIS to assist in both preventing and prosecuting such offences,” said Mr Wallace.

It seems obvious that Mr Wallace looks upon these child spies as expendable assets with which the government can do with as they please. At the moment figures show that this tactic is used sparingly, but that's if you believe the figures are true, who to know for sure?

What we do know for sure, is that in one corner we have the UK's security minister campaigning for the use of child informants to be increased... And in the other corner we have a crowd funded charity campaigning for this practice to be stopped completely... As much as I hate to admit it, I think I know which way this one is going to go...

Thanks for reading and I hope this has been interesting and informative for you all.