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Police told to empty crisps into plastic bags to avoid advertising rival brands at Olympics

Seems to me that the police force simply act as a sticking plaster for the many social issues that affect people committing crime.

They've never been anything more, though. They never can be anything more, because their organisational "DNA" is rife with the imperative to aggressively control on behalf of the state. People still assume that the police are about "looking after us/keeping us safe", but they're not, they're about exerting enough social control to keep us dormant, and about looking after "them" rather than "us".

They don't seem to do a lot of prevention work to me; there's lots of running after people who've robbed grannies on 'cops with cameras' and all that, I don't see a lot of working with people so that nobody is in a position where they feel the need to rob grannies in the first place.

Remember "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"? Great rhetoric but an empty promise, because even if Blair had wanted to tackle the causes of crime (and he didn't, he was part of the criminal justice machine even before he was a politician), he'd have had to row back massively from neoliberalism in order to effect any social changes large enough to influence "the causes of crime".

That Channel 4 show Coppers summed it up really, when one of them remarked that they had watched several people grow up committing crime and for whom prison was just a normal part of every day life. Great deal of prevention work going on there.

It doesn't help that any pretence at a prevention role has pretty much gone out of the window, and that rehabilitation, to be effective, needs at least the promise of stability for a newly-freed person. That just isn't offered, can't be under neoliberalism.
 
can you point to when they are not state security... (hint: this never happens).
This?

Well, if I call them out tonight cos our shed gets broken into and the bikes nicked, I would not count that as 'state security'. If I go on a demo in London and want to make a political statement and they attack me, then I would count THAT as state security.

I would have thought that was fairly obvious, so if I'm not getting your point then feel free to "state" it more clearly! (see what I did there!) :D
 
This?

Well, if I call them out tonight cos our shed gets broken into and the bikes nicked, I would not count that as 'state security'. If I go on a demo in London and want to make a political statement and they attack me, then I would count THAT as state security.

I would have thought that was fairly obvious, so if I'm not getting your point then feel free to "state" it more clearly! (see what I did there!) :D
what you call them is irrelevant to their role.... call a pig a sheep if you want it doesn't change the pig into a sheep...
 
It was a genuine question, what groups are actively involved in steering people away from a life of crime?

NACRO, Howard League, Hardman Trust, Unlock, Langley Trust. There's hundreds of them, all doing good work. Some "specialise", i.e. they help addicted offenders or people coming off of a long sentence or housebreakers or car thieves etc, and some work with a broad brush.
 
I don't understand the difference between a constabulary and a police force? I thought constable was just the official term for a copper?

Long before it meant that, it meant "parish peacekeeper", pretty much, the bloke or blokes who were local lads hired to "police" the behaviour of local people. I'm sure Pickman's Model can give you chapter and verse on it, but it meant that local crime issues were dealt with locally. Big cases went to the quarterly assizes (3-monthly county or regional court sessions before a judge), but smaller stuff was dealt with by the local Justice of the Peace/magistrate. Even short spells of imprisonment were done locally, in a lock-up, tollbooth or similar small setting.

The days when coppers know most or even many members of the local community are long gone...

Yes. And the days when constables were drawn from the local community are even longer gone. Ever wondered why that is?
It's so there's no sympathetic link between the community and the people who police it; so that the police can act with full force without worrying they might be stoving in dad or uncle Dave's head when they break a picket up.

....if they ever existed.

Of course they existed. There's a wealth of historical acounts on this going back to the 11th century, patchy stuff going back further, if you include the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle etc.

And what is 'community shaming' and surely that's what West Yorkshire police are doing by flyering the local community with working girls faces if they breech an asbo.

Nothing of the sort.
Example: Landlord sells watered beer and gets caught by the men in leather trousers. Result: Beer-waterer gets a day in the town stocks, where all the customers he's bilked have an opportunity to jeer at him, let him have it with a rotten turnip, and generally make him feel bad enough that he'll think twice about watering the beer again.
Example: Bloke slaps his wife about: Result: He gets birched in the town square.
Punishment fits crime, and having it out in the open in your own community means that it's more likely that the community itself will monitor your behaviour in future.

I'm not generally into that, I think it's out of order and an abuse of their power to be honest.

The whole idea of modern restorative justice is about getting an offender to feel shame within their own community about offending to stop them offending, but it doesn't really work on crimes that are driven by what you might call "need". It does however work better on crimes of opportunity, theft and minor violence, especially for offenders who are in the early stages of repeat offending. As far as I'm concerned, suffering severe embarrassment as a price for pulling yourself together and getting off the offending roundabout is a good trade.
 
I may be
A bi-polar cunt,
But I'm not
The one
Being obtuse
Over misuse.

Louis MacNeice

p.s. try a little Matthew 7.3
lulz you're a funny one....

:D

but I'm happier with Matt 7.2 planks and sawdust never cut much with me (gettit - cut... oh suit yerself...), I'm happy to be judged as I judge... harsh but fair...

causal disablist words are as offensive as causal racism or casual sexism or casual homophobia... your personal situation isn't relevant to this as well you know which is why you've not argued that point...

either the poster meant they were on the verge of manic episode over this or they were ambivalent about it which isn't the same and belittles those with genuine mental health issues by comparing to some undecided whimsy...
 
lulz you're a funny one....

:D

but I'm happier with Matt 7.2 planks and sawdust never cut much with me (gettit - cut... oh suit yerself...), I'm happy to be judged as I judge... harsh but fair...

causal disablist words are as offensive as causal racism or casual sexism or casual homophobia... your personal situation isn't relevant to this as well you know which is why you've not argued that point...

either the poster meant they were on the verge of manic episode over this or they were ambivalent about it which isn't the same and belittles those with genuine mental health issues by comparing to some undecided whimsy...

Written without any irony or much thought; you're still missing the point by some margin...keep up the good work.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
Written without any irony or much thought; you're still missing the point by some margin...keep up the good work.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
you're not making a point... do try again caller...

I like you've even got a German underdog to fight your corner for you... courage of convictions dear hard courage of convictions...
 
what i remember from that tv show Coppers is a couple of the officers calling poor people parasites. With this attitude i hope these particular officers never get called on to help a poorer person whos been attacked. With prejudice like this they would probably ask them what they did to provoke their attacker.
 
Getting back to the crisps I'm wondering who will be taking the crisps off a cop found on the olympic site eating his packet of wrong brand crisps.

A G4S guard?
 
Army lad surely- pissed off at leave cancelled so he can do this bullshit he takes great delight on taking Dixon of Docks packet of sea salt and black pepper kettle chips...
 
the scum have their uses, sometimes. And an RTA is one of those times. But on the whole, they're nothing more than tax collectors with massive chips on their shoulders, not held to account, protected from the crimes they commit by a corrupt system. They're people of no morals, willing to carry out any order, no matter how against the oath of protecting the community that may be. And they'll justify any violence they use, any death they cause, cos it says they can do it in a little book. If that little book told them to go and shoot every new born baby, they'd do it without thinking, because they were told to. That's why the police only employ people with a very low IQ, the official reason is people who are too clever, would get bored. But it's quite evident that it is so that they have alot of mindless drones, willing to do the bidding of the goverment, and not cut crime and help people.

Only stupid people think all coppers are thick as shit.
 
Murder police must be surely allowed some leeway. Noot your workaday 'write up the tragedy an go home' sorts but those detectives who solve stone cold cases, crack proper whodunnits. They must exist unless television has lied to me again.
 
you're not making a point... do try again caller...

I like you've even got a German underdog to fight your corner for you... courage of convictions dear hard courage of convictions...

You not seeing the point is not the same as me not making one; although given your evident lack of self awareness the error it's not suprising.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

p.s. it's dear heart.
 
Murder police must be surely allowed some leeway. Noot your workaday 'write up the tragedy an go home' sorts but those detectives who solve stone cold cases, crack proper whodunnits. They must exist unless television has lied to me again.

they don't even need coppers for that

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