Comparing to other countries is often a bit spurious; nobody in this country is starving to the extent of those places in the world with famine, but you try telling a kid who only has one meal a day, or sometimes one meal every other day over here they should be grateful. It's unlikely to really go down so well. It's easier to feel grateful about something if you are on the higher end of the spectrum, as opposed to somewhere in the middle.
Anyway, I think if the police were really concerned about their local communities, they would argue and carry out more crime prevention schemes; for example a few police have set up football teams with the local lads and play against them regularly, in an attempt to get opposing gangs to come together and keep kids off the streets. Also, the wife set up a local CIC earlier this year and they wrote to a couple of local coppers they know for a bit of funding. They wrote back with 500quid and have already provided lots of sports equipment to make sure the kids who attend the CIC have good resources so they keep coming back and get off the streets. That's community policing, that's using your influence for a positive end.
Projects like the gun amnesty was a great idea too; no fear of being caught, just a chance to get weapons off the streets and maybe for the individual a chance to make a fresh start.
If the police did more things like that, I think the community at large would view them more positively, but they don't, so they evidently aren't that arsed about local communities. Prevention is just as important, perhaps even more so, than the cure, and bringing the police on board in prevention schemes in more direct roles would be no bad thing.
