London riots

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally Posted by John D Harris Cerek it ain't worth it... just laugh and enjoy the good health brought to you.

IKR? Yet he keeps comin' back for more yet flees at the first sign of trouble, heh.

[Memnoch]

Anyway let's bring it back to the Poms. Here's the new logo for the Olympics:

[SpiritWarrior]

Lol, that picture is terrible. It's sad, because London is such an awesome place.

[Memnoch]

Something interesting I read about policing in the UK:

We all saw the police hanging back from making arrests during this week’s troubles. The reason is that, under current rules, arrests are a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. They require at least two officers and inordinate processing time. If there is “insufficient evidence”, the police can be sued for false imprisonment. The scenes all over England this week were uniquely appalling in their scale, but in the character of the police response they were very like what happens in hundreds of towns every Saturday night. Young people tip out of the pubs behaving badly, and the police, worried by what they might be accused of, just watch them. It is visible proof of the old saying that for evil to triumph it is necessary only for good men to do nothing. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ilisation.html

Wow.

[SpiritWarrior]

Originally Posted by Memnoch Something interesting I read about policing in the UK: Wow.

Eh, I am not sure. Cops afraid to arrest people for fear of being sued - why have cops then? And in the pictures i've seen there are at least 5 or more cops at every scene - more than enough to witness. On a saturday night in London, officers are almost always patrolling with a partner, it is very rare to see one alone. This is mainly for backup purposes in case an officer is ambushed, overwhelmed etc. And i've seen plenty of young people being booked for violence while drunk. The drunk and loud they usually leave alone, unless they being a genuine nuisance. But I mean what kinda club has its patrons leaving sober and quietly at 3am?

[John D Harris]

Hanging back isn't always a bad thing, during the Rodney King riots in South Central LA the police backed off and co-ordened off the area letting no one in or out for a 12 -24 hrs (IIRC) before moving in. But the excess paper work and fear of being sued sure as Hale will make a police officer think twice or thrice before doing anything.

[Felix The Assassin]

If one were to observe what has been posted here, listened to the news reports, and read a few web reports, it is easy to see why the PM has cautioned USA and looks to the USA for assistance. For if we continue along the route we are currently blazing, it will be the DC riots in the near future.

As far as the 'tea party' has no clout, recall what just recently happened with house speaker Boehner and demanding them (tea party repubs) to toe the line. Also the middle ground agreement he had to come to grips with (tea party) prior to facing the dem controlled senate and capitol. They do matter, as matter itself, they occupy space, and are a mass. What they turn it into might be the problem. We are a tolerable people, but in these times, many are without!

[Memnoch]

There appears to be a slight difference in opinion between US and UK police authorities on how to deal with these types of riots. David Cameron has apparently hired some bigknob US police chief, Bill Bratton, to advise him on an unpaid basis on the "zero tolerance" approach. Excerpts from the Telegraph below.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Bill Bratton, the former New York police chief, said many young people, especially gang members, had been “emboldened” by over-cautious policing tactics and lenient sentencing policies. To be effective, a police force should have “a lot of arrows in the quiver,” said Mr Bratton, advocating a doctrine of “escalating force” where weapons including rubber bullets, Tasers, pepper spray and water cannon were all available to commanders. Speaking in New York, Mr Bratton, 63, said police forces should be more assertive in their dealings with offenders, leaving no doubt that crime would always meet a firm response. “You want the criminal element to fear them, fear their ability to interrupt their own ability to carry out criminal behaviour, and arrest and prosecute and incarcerate them,” he said. “In my experience, the younger criminal element don’t fear the police and have been emboldened to challenge the police and effectively take them on.” “What needs to be understood is that police are empowered to do certain things — to stop, to talk, to frisk on certain occasions, to arrest if necessary, to use force,” he said. In particular, he said, gangs must “understand that provocation will be met with appropriate response”. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...e-adviser.html

This has been in turn met with criticism by the Met police. From Boston.com.

"I am not sure I want to learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them," Orde said of Los Angeles, which the 63-year-old Bratton oversaw until 2009. "It seems to me, if you've got 400 gangs, then you're not being very effective. If you look at the style of policing in the states, and their levels of violence, they are fundamentally different from here," said Orde, a former commander of Northern Ireland's police and deputy commander of London's Metropolitan Police. Orde made his comments to the Independent on Sunday newspaper. "America polices by force. We don't want to do that in this country," said Paul Deller of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents more than 30,000 officers in the British capital. Ian Hanson, chairman of the federation's Manchester branch, said local officers knew better how to police their own communities than "someone who lives 5,000 miles away." http://www.boston.com/news/world/eur..._riots/?page=2

Comments? Police by force or softly-softly approach?

[Lord of Alcohol]

I would shoot them. F*** with my home or business and I would.

[Cerek]

Originally Posted by Memnoch There appears to be a slight difference in opinion between US and UK police authorities on how to deal with these types of riots. David Cameron has apparently hired some bigknob US police chief, Bill Bratton, to advise him on an unpaid basis on the "zero tolerance" approach. Excerpts from the Telegraph below. This has been in turn met with criticism by the Met police. From Boston.com. Comments? Police by force or softly-softly approach?

The more hard-line approach of police in America is not the reason we have so many gangs. Feeling like outcasts in society, coming from broken homes, feeling trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty and many other social issues are the normal root causes for gangs to form. And most of the violence by gangs are directed at rival gangs. Innocent bystanders sometimes get caught in the crossfire, but it is relatively rare for the innocent bystanders to be the intended target of the gangs to begin with.

While we do have many more gangs than Britain, they aren't rioting in the street or vandalizing and looting businesses. Gang members here may act defiant towards the police, but they know if they push the line too far, they can and will be shot, so there is still some fear-generated respect of the police by the gang members.

Sounds like the teens over in London have no fear of retaliation from the police and, indeed, DO feel empowered to do whatever they want and basically dare the police to intervene.

While the softy-softy approach does have it's place and uses, there also comes a time when criminals have to know there WILL be consequences for their actions and those consequences will NOT be pleasant. It may mean jail time or it may mean forcible restraint by the police, but until there is a real threat of consequences, the teens will have no real reason to stop their lawless acts.

I don't think the answer has to be an "either/or" approach. It would be far better to find a middle ground between the two while addressing the root causes (such as those mentioned in the article you posted) that began the riots in the first place.