Bomb#20
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In U.S. law, we have an institution called the "Selective Service". During times when the government feels our military is understaffed, it sends people instructions that they must show up at some appointed place and time where government officials will evaluate their suitability and may induct them into the Army. If people who receive these instructions don't comply they are arrested.How are these two things different?They didn't ask her if she'd accompany the police without arrest -- they asked her if she'd come with them voluntarily.
In English law, arrest has a specific meaning, and that meaning doesn't include voluntarily attending a police station to assist police with their enquiries.
The point is, in English, "voluntary" has a specific meaning. That is why the people who receive these instructions and follow them are called "conscripts" or "draftees". We do not call them "volunteers". The U.S. currently has an "all-volunteer army". What that means is that since the government feels our army is adequately staffed, the Selective Service hasn't actually sent anybody one of these instructions in about fifty years. The Army is staffed by people who are there voluntarily -- i.e., by people who joined even though the government would not have arrested them for not joining.
That is how these two things you asked about are different.
Congratulations on your outstanding imitation of Kanye West!She was given the choice of volunteering to be removed from the PSPO area and taken to the police station; OR of being arrested, with all of the various other procedures - such as being searched, for example - that an arrest implies.
I.e., the English legal system commits language abuse. What a surprise. Abuse of the English language by people governing England is precisely what the term "Orwellian" was coined to refer to.Whether or not you feel that it is Orwellian or Kafkaesque that they arrested her when she refused to accompany them voluntarily, it is nevertheless a real and legally important distinction in English law whether a person is arrested or is voluntary accompanying police to an interview.