Police on strike...

[dubmatters]

Well..there is that element. And that's what I'm talking about. =D
Police are utterly useless in this country. There was a break in a couple weeks ago at a goldsmith's shop. He called the police, and they told him they weren't able to come to do the asessment, he would have to leave the shop, and go to them.

People get raped here, and what do the police do? Nothing. Just another case file.
Just a few days ago the Police were in the news for harassing people at a bar, flashing their badges, expecting royal treatment.

Whenever I've been in trouble, samaritans have done more for me then the police ever will.

Oh piss off. On the whole the police do a great job. Its only the dickheads and various fuckups that get any attention.

Once you grow up a little you will realise that they're only human and have a job to do.

They keep the vast majority of this country a safe place to live, so what else do you want them to do?

[wolf89]

erm they do quite a bit actually. . .

Care to elaborate?.. Anywho I mean in a general sense..especially here..Police are good for nothing. Just trying to meet their quotas.

are you kidding?

so many ridiculous statements about the police... clearly there's an element of the police force that are utter stnuc but if you genuinely think the police do nothing good then maybe you'd like to go and live in a country where people are robbed/raped/killed/etc routinely

*\Devils Advocate Mode*

those crimes you just mentioned are specifically the type of crimes Police generally do not prevent, as opposed to 'solving' - and 2/3 of those crimes you mentioned there happen TOO regularly in this country anyway

*/Devils Advocate Mode*

It is not the police's job to prevent those from happening.

I think it's hard to prevent those things anyway to an extent

Literally nothing could stop me from sneaking a kitchen knife into town and stabbing some random fucker in the neck right this second with it if I wanted to (I luckily don't want to though).

[noam]

erm they do quite a bit actually. . .

Care to elaborate?.. Anywho I mean in a general sense..especially here..Police are good for nothing. Just trying to meet their quotas.

are you kidding?

so many ridiculous statements about the police... clearly there's an element of the police force that are utter stnuc but if you genuinely think the police do nothing good then maybe you'd like to go and live in a country where people are robbed/raped/killed/etc routinely

*\Devils Advocate Mode*

those crimes you just mentioned are specifically the type of crimes Police generally do not prevent, as opposed to 'solving' - and 2/3 of those crimes you mentioned there happen TOO regularly in this country anyway

*/Devils Advocate Mode*

It is not the police's job to prevent those from happening.

SMH

[collige]

Do you call the police before or after you get mugged? They are the ambulance at the bottom of the hill.

[noam]

whats the motto written on Police cars in America dude?

[collige]

I assume the answer you're looking for is "to protect and serve", but that's not written on all of them.

Anyway, my point is most police activity end up being catching before after or during the act of a crime (traffic violation for example). "Prevention" translates into the being assholes a lot of the time (depending on location, etc.). They're called "law enforcement", but you can't enforce any laws until people start breaking them.

[cosmic_surgeon]

Ever seen how the police treat rape in this country? It's the default position to go and defend them as though they stop hell from breaking loose. Truth is, hell is breaking loose and the police aren't very good at handling it.

I never didn't do something because I was worried about the police catching me.

[noam]

i see your point definitely, as i put before i WAS playing devil's advocate, im not really now

the Police's job is prevention of crime and enforcement of the law. end of.

branches of the police are specifically involved in the prevention of crime. the entire 'drug squad' or 'narcotics unit' or whatever they call themselves is involved in this.

just as customs and excise are around to prevent certain crimes so are branches of the Police.

the fact they are seemingly very good at preventing certain types of crime and seemingly diabolically bad at preventing others seems to hint at where their resources and priorities lie.

ofcourse i see your point but defending the police on the grounds that its not their job to stop you getting robbed is a joke. [edited btw]

defending the police on the grounds that they hand out a lot of fines and generate a fair amount of revenue for the government is probably a better, but not, not entirely cynical bet.

[collige]

I am by no means a defender of the police. If anything my entire argument is an indication of how little I expect of them.

I suspect this is also more of a UK vs USA thing too, in my experience Brits have much better relationships with law enforcement than American. Rodney King wasn't all that long ago..

[phrex]

you guys should differ between crime police and riot police

[noam]

I am by no means a defender of the police. If anything my entire argument is an indication of how little I expect of them.

I suspect this is also more of a UK vs USA thing too, in my experience Brits have much better relationships with law enforcement than American. Rodney King wasn't all that long ago..

yea ok i get you dont want to defend them, from my persepective when you say 'police's job is not prevention' i suppose i saw that as a defence, a way of legitimising the ineffectiveness of aspects of the police force, when from your side it was a resignation of how little you expect. so we're on the same page

i do think its a massive generalisation to say Brits have a better relationship with police than US, but not entirely untrue... our police dont have guns for a start so that level of fear isn't there.

if what you're implying is that racism is more prolific in the US, honestly i'd like to believe that, but i couldn't stake a claim in that belief, i believe racism has been institutional in british police just as long as in america's.

@vulva: crime police ARE riot police dude, its the same guys....

[phrex]

riot police:


b2b

the fat guy behind the desk solving evil crimes

[collige]

I am by no means a defender of the police. If anything my entire argument is an indication of how little I expect of them.

I suspect this is also more of a UK vs USA thing too, in my experience Brits have much better relationships with law enforcement than American. Rodney King wasn't all that long ago..

yea ok i get you dont want to defend them, from my persepective when you say 'police's job is not prevention' i suppose i saw that as a defence, a way of legitimising the ineffectiveness of aspects of the police force, when from your side it was a resignation of how little you expect. so we're on the same page

i do think its a massive generalisation to say Brits have a better relationship with police than US, but not entirely untrue... our police dont have guns for a start so that level of fear isn't there.

if what you're implying is that racism is more prolific in the US, honestly i'd like to believe that, but i couldn't stake a claim in that belief, i believe racism has been institutional in british police just as long as in america's.

@vulva: crime police ARE riot police dude, its the same guys....

Fair enough on all counts.

[Pedro Sánchez]

Meh, it happened in the 80's and the solution was simple...

[LACE]

I am by no means a defender of the police. If anything my entire argument is an indication of how little I expect of them.

I suspect this is also more of a UK vs USA thing too, in my experience Brits have much better relationships with law enforcement than American. Rodney King wasn't all that long ago..

This. The Brits seem to be much more supportive..

@dubmatters Oh hush, if you read my previous arguments you would've seen that I'm not referring to police in only Britain. lol, telling me to grow up simply because my opinion differs from yours, I'm quite grown already thank you. I say these things because I've seen and experienced them. Police don't care about you quit pretending.

[lloydnoise]

Aren't we talking about the possibilty of the UK police force striking? Hackman mentioned martial law pretty casually and a few people seemed pretty hype on the idea of riot or revolution.. Why?
I would rather live here than most other countries on Earth and whilst the police does have it's fair share of power hungry derkheads (like any authoritarian profession) on the whole they are a useful and reliable force for good. Ill informed middle class stupidity is the worst.
'let's organise a revolution so I can sit on a statue of Churchill and smoke a spliff.. yeh...'

[cosmic_surgeon]

they are a useful and reliable force for good. Ill informed middle class stupidity is the worst.

What's the middle-class go to do with anything? It's tempting to schematise people because then you can make deliberations about society much more easily (as the whole middle class, working class, and upper class only appear to have a single character each, as opposed to seeing society as being a dynamic and varied collective of people) but if you're at all interested in reality then thinking like that isn't advisable.

I don't know if you're aware of how badly the police actually handle rape in the UK. I didn't know either. I just assumed, as anyone would, that the police are actually effective at dealing with such a serious crime. Unfortunately the reality is much different to what everyone assumes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 93213.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... n-failings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-11597027

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/1 ... ew-shelved

In many cases the police just aren't doing the job once someone reports a rape to them. They're not interviewing witnesses, they're not taking forensic samples, they're not visiting the crime scenes. They're dismissing a lot of reports because of who the woman is and the circumstances in which the rape took place - if she's been drinking, or she's young, or has a history of mental health problems, or is an immigrant.

[lloydnoise]

they are a useful and reliable force for good. Ill informed middle class stupidity is the worst.

What's the middle-class go to do with anything?

Fair play, I was purely talking about people getting hyped about some sort of riot or revolution in the UK, not the discussion on police resources etc. There seems to be a romanticised notion of revolution amongst the younger middle classes in our country, you are right, I'm generalising, but if we're talking about an entire country I think there is some license to do so.
anyway, no-one's answered my question. Why would anyone in the UK want to revolt against the police? A few people on the first page of this thread (Hibbie, LACE) insinuated that comfortable developed countries in the western world might benefit from some sort of revolution, was just asking why they thought that.

[HRKRT]

they are a useful and reliable force for good. Ill informed middle class stupidity is the worst.

What's the middle-class go to do with anything?

Fair play, I was purely talking about people getting hyped about some sort of riot or revolution in the UK, not the discussion on police resources etc. There seems to be a romanticised notion of revolution amongst the younger middle classes in our country, you are right, I'm generalising, but if we're talking about an entire country I think there is some license to do so.
anyway, no-one's answered my question. Why would anyone in the UK want to revolt against the police? A few people on the first page of this thread (Hibbie, LACE) insinuated that comfortable developed countries in the western world might benefit from some sort of revolution, was just asking why they thought that.

I will agree that there is a romanticising of the revolution, but is it wrong to want things to be better? particularly when the policies used by British governments over the last few centuries have all been at the cost of other countries in the third world, and the abuse of the global financial system has been so prolific. It ultimately comes at the cost of the poorer people across the whole world. There needs to be a change here as well as in other countries like libya and egypt before the world as a whole can move forward. And when even the police wants to strike, it shows that this desire for change is becoming very strong... it will happen, but it needs to happen from outside the existing political institutions for it to be any REAL change.

[test_recordings]

The police can suck their own cocks and do there job properly instead of intimidating innocent people and acting like a law unto themselves