Samizdata

“The background to this method of policing is that NuLab became increasingly irritated with the police detecting crime. This tended to militate against the working classes (few question the link between poverty and crime). Being so unutterably incompetent, NuLab were were unable to tackle poverty (unless by increasing it, they can claim to be tackling poverty). One solution to this was to make crime detection a more egalitarian process. By criminalising “anti-social” behavior that was more likely to committed by the middle classes (speeding, hunting etc), then issuing directives for police to ramp up their response to such infractions, the thinking was that this would highlight how criminality was not the preserve of the put upon working classes.

On top of this, there existed a situation whereby the number crunchers claimed that the fear of being a victim of crime far outweighed the reality of being a victim of crime. Hence the emphasis shifted away from tackling crime i.e oppressing the working classes, to tackling the fear of crime. This had a cheap solution: high visibility policing. It is this thinking that lead to the introduction of those decaffeinated police officers known as “PCSOs”, along with the requirement for high visibility vests worn with officers. This type of thinking also results in situations such as the Forest Gate incident, whereby the number of officers present seems to far outweigh the threat and the inclusion of the press in high profile operations. All of these things are designed to tackle the FEAR of crime, not crime itself.”

From one of our readers, “Fed_Up”, commenting on my recent encounter with the police. Thanks for the comments. The one here raises the issue of class. It is sometimes said that these days, the cops, or at least some of them, are the “paramilitary wing of the Guardian newspaper”. This represents a significant shift in the cultural/political standing of the police over my lifetime.

Consider this: there is no doubt that during the 1980s, when the Conservatives were in power, some of the police powers used at the time got on to the statute books with relatively little complaint from what I might loosely call “the right”. Not everyone was complacent, of course. Libertarian Alliance Director Sean Gabb and the LA’s founder, the late Chris R. Tame, were early in pointing out at the time that no consistent defence of liberty makes sense if it is confined purely to economics, a point that some Tories to this day don’t seem to grasp. While coppers were pinching Rastafarians in Brixton and hitting coalminers on the head in Yorkshire, a lot of the middle classes were happy to look the other way. As an unashamed middle class Brit with mortgage, happy marriage and decent job, I am the sort of person, I suppose, that has in a certain way been radicalised by the CCTV state, or “parking warden culture”, as one might call it. It is important to understand, however, that the sort of petty exercise of power has been going on, sometimes unremarked, for years. So I certainly don’t feel sorry for myself. I am, more than anything else, depressed at the fatuity of “security theatre” policing. It must, at one level surely, gnaw away at the morale and self respect of decent coppers. But there is no doubt that the role and status of the police has changed and so has the type of person that might be attracted to making a career in it.

I must say I am still stunned by the open admission of one commenter on my earlier posting that random searches are good for “fishing expeditions”. We were not very kind to him on the previous thread. Justifiably.

For a good take on what has been going on with policing in the US, Gene Healy of the CATO Institute think tank has a sharp analysis. Several US readers expressed their horror at what is happening here in Britain; I am afraid that things are not so great in parts of the US, either. And as for France, etc…..

Heathrow Airport is a horrible place: overcrowded, dirty and unable to cope with the volume of traffic. A few days ago, Terminal 5 was opened. As a result of the demented decision by the British Airports Authority, the Spanish-owned company which has a monopoly franchise on UK airports, to blend international and domestic passengers going through the terminal, BAA has decided to fingerprint everyone who goes through terminal five. Soon all passengers going out of Heathrow, and other BAA airports, such as Gatwick, will be affected. The queues will get worse, and ironically, so will the vulnerability of passengers to terrorist attack during peak times. One hates to think what it will be like during the summer holidays and over the Christmas break.

Richard Morrison has a good old rant in the Times of London today about this issue. He points out that BAA has introduced the system at its own behest, not because of the government. For once, a libertarian cannot just bash the state for this, at least not as the direct culprit. I have no problem per se in a private airport operator setting certain rules which customers are free to ignore by going elsewhere, but as BAA has a monopoly, it hardly is a model of free market capitalism. BAA was privatised initially with its monopoly largely intact, which was a mistake. Of course, if passengers feel safer going to airports which demand iris scans, fingerprints, ID cards, body searches, intense questioning, and all other manner of intrusions into privacy, by all means go to these places. For the rest of us, even those who fear terrorism, we might prefer to take our chances and travel like free law-abiding adults, rather than convicted criminals.

For a good, sober look at the trade-offs with security measures and the unintended bad effects of things like this, this book is a good place to start. The author is not some hard-line civil libertarian and quite friendly to a lot of security ideas, but he understands that there is no security system in the world that is fail-safe and argues that it is about time people were allowed to weigh the risks more intelligently.