Crime is rampant, but roger scruton helps us to rediscover the meaning of law and order | thearticle

It is reported today that only one crime in 14 is prosecuted. As recently as 2015, the rate was one in seven. Some very serious crimes are still more rarely prosecuted: only 1.4 per cent of

rapes reported to the police ever result in a charge. England, the country that gave the world the common law, is fast becoming a lawless land.  When criminals can commit offences without

fear of punishment, ordinary citizens retreat from the public square. In rural areas, the police are seldom if ever seen and communities are left to police themselves. In our cities, fear of

violence on the streets poisons urban life. While the police focus on one or two statistics, such as the epidemic of knife crime, they turn a blind eye to lesser crimes such as theft.  Yet

the distinction between crimes against people and those against property is an artificial one: to be mugged or to have one’s home violated, to have one’s car vandalised or to endure illegal

hare coursing on one’s land, feels very personal to the victims. To know that such crimes are almost invariably committed with impunity adds insult to injury. As a society, we seem to have

lost sight of the very concept of the rule of law, which has stood since Magna Carta and is one of the British people’s greatest legacies to the world. Today, in Malmesbury Abbey, the

funeral takes place of a philosopher who took the idea of the law very seriously indeed. The late Sir Roger Scruton was, among all his other accomplishments, a qualified barrister and though

he never practiced law he wrote copiously about it. Here is just one of his observations, in his memoir _Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life._ “The common law of England is proof that

there is a real distinction between legitimate and illegitimate use of power, that power can exist without oppression, and that authority is a living force in human conduct.” In a single

lucid sentence, Scruton has identified what is wrong with the Left’s critique of power, law and authority. Yet his ideas have not been heeded. Discussion of law and order usually boils down

to arguments about police numbers. That is clearly insufficient to deal with the crisis of authority in law enforcement. In this column last week we identified a ten point plan that would

help to restore respect for the criminal justice system. But policy and police are two very different, though complementary, things. Policing without a policy is mere damage limitation.

Policies without the means to enforce them are meaningless. So is law without order — but order requires authority, limited but real.  This Government was elected on a platform of law and

order. For the more socially conservative parts of the country, this was as important as anything else. Crime always disproportionately affects the less affluent. Boris Johnson has entrusted

the delivery of his promises to Priti Patel, the Home Secretary. She has recovered from her humiliation by Theresa May and seems eager to take the fight to the gangs and organised crime.

Her energy is commendable, but she will not restore the majesty of the law by mere rhetoric. What is required, rather, is a deep understanding of the intellectual basis of the law. This is

where Scruton is so helpful. He was much criticised in his lifetime for his emphasis on authority, which was seen as illiberal. In fact, nothing could be more illiberal than a society in

which justice is trampled underfoot, the rich retreat into gated communities and the poor are tyrannised by drug lords with impunity. Some will say that Scruton’s ideas about the English

common law are too remote from reality. But that is the task of jurisprudence: to keep an exalted idea before us of what the rule of law can and should be, so that we do not abandon it

imperceptibly and absent-mindedly. The moment when Britain reasserts its independence ought to be the moment of rediscovery of our own traditions. Among these, none is more important and

majestic than the English common law.