The Angry Exile: Known to the police

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

Known to the police

With all the other stuff going on, carbon taxes here and tabloid phone not-really-hacking there, it's easy to forget that other things are going on. Good job Nanny Knows Best blogged this because even though I ranted about it last month it had slipped my mind.

Nanny, possibly relieved at the avalanche of data being spewed forth about the Murdoch empire's "moral lapses", recently and rather quietly launched "The Police National Database".

Another day, another database!

This particular database will hold the records up to 6 million apparently innocent people, including every victim of sexual assault and domestic violence.

[...]

Jennie Cronin, a director at the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA), the body in charge of the database, estimated that the records of between 10 and 15 million people would be held (that's between 16% to 24% of the entire population).

Given that approximately 9.2 million people in the UK have criminal records, that leaves up to almost 6 million on the database who are we assume innocent.

NKB save the best 'til last.

Approximately 12,000 approved police officers and staff will be able to access the database.

Would these be of the same quality and high ethical standards as those who allegedly sold information and contact details of all and sundry (including the Queen) to News International?

Bullseye! And since some of those six million will have very pressing reasons for wanting their information to never, ever get out - more pressing than most of the rest of us, I mean - it should be a pretty big concern that all this data is sitting there in one place, just waiting for the wrong person to offer the right cop the right incentive. I'd hope that the vast majority would be above that but even if the number of incorruptible officers with access was 99.9% of the total that still leaves a dozen who'll take the money.

Now, hands up who believes that 12,000 with access won't become 20,000 within a couple of years and fifty thousand within a decade. Anyone? No?

Funny that.

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Paul · 715 weeks ago

Isn't this dangerous for another reason? i.e. Predatory officers could scan the database for vulnerable local women or people to hurt? I'm sure there will be lots of safeguards against this (there always is) but if there are more than a few cases of people using CCTV cameras to spy on women in bathrooms and such then imagine how much more invasive this data could be.

Yes, this kind of thing is dangerous - and for sexual assault/DV victims many will want to keep the information secret for the reason that people who are mistreated in this way often have it happen throughout their lives due to abusive people finding out about it.

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Angry_Exile 90p · 715 weeks ago

That's true as well. Again, unlikely, but still a good reason for the control of data to be in the hands of the person who its about rather than millions upon millions just being chucked in the database.

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Paul · 715 weeks ago

More likely is that CSOs (because they probably will get access to it) will use it to spread local gossip, I'd imagine. Some people think they have the right to know about the medical illnesses of all and sundry but such folk rarely wish to broadcast their own failures to the world.

But, yes, I get your general point. I suppose it depends on how much you'd trust people in your local pub with random private affairs about your life.

I readily await seeing this database at a Tube station... :|

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