British Police Were Forced to Stop Tube Patrols

Liberal England has a surprisingly long and ignoble history of empowering criminals, so this February 2005 article discovered by Charles Johnson shouldn’t be all that surprising:

Random immigration checks on Tube passengers have been banned by Underground chiefs after they were exposed by the Evening Standard.

We revealed how dozens of police and immigration officers at a time swooped on stations and asked foreign-sounding commuters to justify their presence in Britain.

And after we uncovered the practice last summer, unhappy Tube chiefs have told the Home Office and police that their officers will no longer be allowed to carry out the raids.

The sides are still in talks but already the number of operations has been cut and the Immigration Service has agreed to curb the way its officers work.

Crucially, under the new rules only people suspected of being faredodgers, drug-dealers or other lawbreakers may be quizzed on their immigration status.

Passengers who follow the rules cannot be questioned.

So much for the London equivalent of the Broken Windows theory of crime prevention.