More Nightjack Blah

I expect most people in the real world are getting a bit bored with the Nightjack teacup/storm interface by now, so here's our last word on it (barring any developments).
The question, it seems to me, is simple: Do we want people who work in the police force (or the NHS, the education system and other trades and industries) to be able to give us, as adults with an interest in the truth generally and in crime specifically, the inside track on their daily working lives?
I think the answer is yes, though I accept that we have a vested interest, and that while the question might be simple the answer is not.
If the material recounted is based on truth, with personal details altered beyond all recognition*, and it makes broad points about the criminal justice system which are at odds with the official line, who wouldn't want to hear it?
Before PC David Copperfield started The Policeman's Blog, and then we published Wasting Police Time, no-one really knew that there were hardly any cops on duty on a Friday night in most towns, or that it took 20 hours for three kids to be dealt with for stealing a bike, or that trivial non-crimes like playground hair-pulling were being administratively 'solved' by a prolonged process of box-ticking in order that the crime figures looked better.
This may sound unimportant, but there still are very few cops on frontline duty (whatever the government says), and they aren't coming to your burglary if they're spending forever on paperwork, and one of the playground hair-pullers might be your son, and he may now have a criminal record.
Why Chief Constables themselves weren't making these points, I don't know.
Why newspapers like The Times weren't investigating the CJS, likewise, I don't know.
But they weren't. Indeed, when we sent The Times a review copy of Wasting Police Time, they binned it.
Anyway.
Mr Justice Eady's ruling, and the actions of The Times, haven't actually changed things much - we've always operated on the basis that our blogging authors might be exposed, and have taken steps to prevent that exposure. Are those steps foolproof? Bearing in mind that people can hack into the Pentagon, probably not.
Those actions will have made potential whistleblowers less likely to step forward, and that's a shame, but they won't stop it. In fact, I don't think it can be stopped. As Inspector Gadget points out, people are writing from Iran in the middle of what may turn out to be a revolution.
The truth is, by trying to repress people like Nightjack and Copperfield and Gadget and Bloggs, police forces do more harm to themselves than good. If I were a Chief Constable, I'd think I'd announce that officers in my force were allowed to blog if they liked - on the basis that all names are thoroughly changed to protect the innocent. Only one officer in a thousand would be bothered, and official sanction would remove half the fun.
After all, as they often say vis a vis criminals, if you've got nothing to hide, what are you worried about?

Here - for those who haven't read them, are extracts from our three police books:

Wasting Police Time

Diary of an On Call Girl

Perverting The Course Of Justice

* The Times claims, I feel spuriously, that it outed Nightjack because he revealed details of specific cases; I was briefly interviewed by the Daily Telegraph yesterday and made the obvious (and not particularly original) point that this danger was increased tenfold by the newspaper's own actions. Nothing in our books could ever be traced back to anyone or any case.
It's also important to point out that there is no existential truth to be found in any one book or blog. These are the views and thoughts and experiences of individuals; after Wasting Police Time came out, we were bombarded with emails, letters and phone calls of support from low-ranking cops who were delighted that something representing their working lives had been published. But we also had one or two critical calls - there was a sergeant in Sussex who said it was a disgrace and should never have seen the light of day.

Posted by Dan