I hope you don't misinterpret this as an attack against you or your countrymen. I, like most Americans, am rather fond of Britain as a whole, but I need to address a couple of your comments.
Also note I have never set foot in the UK other than a crown colony and a few commonwealth members... so perhaps my perspective is not in line.
PapersAndPaychecks wrote:Balanced against that is the fact that crime in the UK has fallen by 44% since 1995.
Given that CCTV and other newer methods of crime prevention may displace crime instead of curtailing it, I'd love to know how the British law enforcement came up with a starting figure since a lot of crime doesn't happen in the open in the first place. Murderers, rapists, arsonists, wife-beaters, child-beaters, gamblers, drug-dealers, prostitution acts (he act itself, not the solicitation), burglars, and espionage tend not to happen out on the street or other public places in front of the cameras. If CCTV has played in the reduction of child-kidnapping, then that's certainly something to be said in its favor... if a significant portion of this 44% reduction turns out to be traffic violations then I'm not impressed.
Anti-social behaviour orders -- a new legal process which deals with all forms of anti-social behaviour. ASBOs are a civil procedure, which means they don't require criminal standards of evidence and can be used against juveniles. (An ASBO tells you not to do something -- for example, "You may not buy, drink or be in possession of alcohol in Watford town" -- and breaching it is a criminal matter.)
This is a
new legal process??? We've had blue laws here in the States for a couple of centuries now. Given, most are now defunct, but you can't purchase alcohol on a Sunday in Arkansas, for example... presumably because someone might get drunk and flip off the minister or something like that. Back on track: either your statement has deeper explanation, or something's wrong, because such laws have always existed.
Police Community Support Officers -- civilians in police uniform with partial police training. They're paid less than full police officers (they get a maximum of £25,000, which is ~$47,000 US) and don't have powers of arrest, stop and search, or any of the other normal police powers -- but they're a public, visible deterrent and they're out on the beat finding drug paraphernalia etc. There were 14 of them in my part of Britain in 2003. Today there are about 160, and there should be about 370 by 2007-8.
We have something similar. They're called "informants" or... in less polite company, "snitches" or "narcs." They tend to have amazingly short lifespans. Incidentally, if they're in plain dress, how are they a public deterrent... or do they wear some identification? If so, that's commonly called auxillary police.
Prosecution from CCTV cameras.
Assuming, of course, the miscreant is identified brought to trial. I'd be interested to know how many crimes seen on CCTV result in a dead end because the criminal had the forsight to obscure his identity or is simply unidentified.
Now, it so happens that near Watford, there's a place where there are three American hotels. Being American, it's their policy not to have CCTV cameras on their buildings or overlooking their car parks, because the companies that own them are very worried about personal privacy.
The area between these three hotels is called the "Bushey Triangle" by local police. (It's a bit of an unfortunate name, I know. Bushey is a village on the edge of Watford.)
Anyone want to guess what the car crime rate in the Bushey Triangle is, relative to the rest of the area?
Those hotels, as TRP pointed out, have their own surveillance systems inside and out. If crimes are committed on their grounds, then the police should have no problem getting a subpeona for the tapes. Something's amiss here, and it's probably your police not doing their jobs.
