Hopefully not our future

[powdermonkey]

Last night I watched a programme regarding perceived police brutality in New York involving the targeting of ethnic minorities.

In one area, the Bronx, the police use mobile watch towers which are exactly what they sound like. Imagine a cherry picker contraption with a generator for power instead of a lorry. Instead of a platform at the top this has a contraption with lights & CCTV cameras. I hope we never have a society where these are deemed a good idea.

As for the programme as a whole, it came across as one sided. There was plenty of footage from people filming the police making arrests and comments from two police officers who agree with the view that the police are a problem, but nothing from the police command and I didn't see anything to say they had been approached but declined to contribute.

From this and other reports, programmes etc I've seen about policing in the USA it seems there is very much an attitude of "us v them". Maybe they could learn from British policing and NPT's?

[falkor]

this one PM? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0 ... n-new-york nice tattoos mate!

[Marlon]

From this and other reports, programmes etc I've seen about policing in the USA it seems there is very much an attitude of "us v them". Maybe they could learn from British policing and NPT's?

From what little I've seen of US policing, it seems a tangled skein of troubled race-relations, firearms and no real national standard of training (when looking across the country as a whole, with a range of local, state and Federal forces.)

Without touching on race and training, and making an obvious generalisation, the ready availability of firearms would mean they would never adopt a British model without massive risk to their police officers.

[falkor]

that is true, their firearms availability is patently crazy

in Giuliani's first term as mayor, the New York City Police Department at the instigation of Commissioner Bill Bratton adopted an aggressive enforcement/deterrent strategy based on James Q. Wilson's "Broken Windows" approach. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as graffiti, turnstile jumping, cannabis possession, and aggressive panhandling by "squeegee men", on the theory that this would send a message that order would be maintained. The legal underpinning for removing the "squeegee men" from the streets was developed under Giuliani's predecessor, Mayor David Dinkins. Bratton, with Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple, also created and instituted CompStat, a computer-driven comparative statistical approach to mapping crime geographically and in terms of emerging criminal patterns, as well as charting officer performance by quantifying criminal apprehensions

this goes back a long time - 20 years ago, but Giuliani and Bill Clinton together increased the amount of New York Police dramatically. I think the "Broken Windows" approach can work, but it depends on MORE COPS and more Police Resources

(what do we see in the UK? Less Cops, Less Police Resources. where I am ...... Surrey Police are now facing ANOTHER £20M of cuts over the next four years and by the way, if you check out the MET POLICE that little lot pales into insignificance)