The Association of Chief Police Officers - Parliament

Association of Chief Police Officers –Written evidence4.2.13 Lastly, but by no means least there is the benefit to public safety in the UK. Wherethere are foreign criminals in the UK who are wanted abroad, we want to extraditethem as soon as possible; a burglar in France is a burglar in England: the EAW allowsus to do this. Without it, we would not only have them on our soil for longer but theUK would be likely to be seen as a safe haven for EU criminals, much as Spain usedto be for British fugitives.4.2.14 The view therefore of ACPO is simple. The EAW works very effectively andincreases the safety of the UK public. It is for this reason that ACPO stronglysupports the EAW.4.3 Schengen Information System (SIS)4.3.1 Following on naturally from the EAW is SIS, which relies heavily on the EAW.4.3.2 In total there are 23 TPMs that relate to the Schengen Information System – knownas SIS 1 and SIS II for the newest version. That said, only two of these are actuallyvital with the rest (save for 2000/586/JHA which is in the ‘should’ group) beingstatements of intent, old measures or matters that do not relate to UK policing.4.3.3 SIS II is an EU-wide, IT enabled, business change programme that will enable allparticipating States to share real-time information on persons and objects of interestto law enforcement via a series of alerts. These alerts will be made available via thenational police system, in the UK’s case this will be the Police National Computer(PNC). The SIS II alert types (identified by their article number in the SIS II legalbasis) are as follows :-• Article 26: Alerts for persons wanted for arrest for extradition purposes, forwhom a warrant has been issued• Article 32: Alerts for missing persons who need to be placed under policeprotection or in a place of safety, including minors and adults at risk• Article 34: Alerts for witnesses, absconders, or subjects of criminaljudgements to appear before the judicial authorities• Article 36: Alerts relating to people or vehicles requiring specific checks ordiscreet surveillance• Article 38: Alerts relating to objects that are misappropriated, lost, stolen andwhich may be sought for the purposes of seizure or for use as evidence (e.g.firearms, passports etc.)4.3.4 Easy access to this information will enable the UK to exchange information acrossEurope in real time in order to fight cross border crime and rapidly repatriate UKcriminals that have fled to other EU countries. In the course of their day-to-dayduties, SIS II will aid law enforcement officers by providing them with :-• Routine and real-time information from participating countries about wantedpersons, missing persons, lost and stolen ID cards, travel documents and lostand stolen vehicles. This information is shared in the form of alerts.• Information about people and objects whose movement is of interest toforeign law enforcement officers.10