Fricking UEFA finals!

PlaneMan wrote:

Tonight is the women’s UEFA final down the road from me. Fair enough, apart from the huge amount of hassle it’s causing. I went across the City Stadium car park this morning, I do it a couple of times a week, and was stopped 4 times by armed police. I understand the need for vigilance but 4 times! Don’t the radios work? I’ve also had a helicopter or 2 buzzing the estate for the last 90 minutes and had coppers in the back garden, they regretted that! This isn’t even the big game, that bundle of laughs for Cardiffians starts on Saturday. The maddest bit is they accepted my British Cycling members card as ID, that’s all I usually carry in my cycling rucksack.

Security, or Going Through The Motions…

At least we’re not like the Yanks with their Homeland Security BS. Every little Redneck in a uniform gets to search the women. Well, the good-looking ones anyway. Can’t be too careful.

It’s all theatre. It adds no extra security.

The same applies with The argument of having more bobies on the beat. It doesn’t actually have any effect on crime rates, BUT it does make people feel safer to know a local policeman is patrolling. Theatre that all it is.

The Duke wrote:

It’s all theatre. It adds no extra security. The same applies with The argument of having more bobies on the beat. It doesn’t actually have any effect on crime rates, BUT it does make people feel safer to know a local policeman is patrolling. Theatre that all it is.

From my experience security is 99.9% deterrence. Push someone to look for softer targets. It is why I put up security cameras – not to actually ‘catch’ someone but to persuade thieves to look elsewhere. I’m unconvinced that you can lower /eliminate police presence with impunity. For example under the May regime’s cuts violent crime is up 24%. link

IF you have to cut police then rationalising makes sense. However it makes a hell of a lot more sense to rationalise top-down.the Chief Constables of the four or so counties in the south lobbied hard to amalgamate but Reichsleiter May (sorry Home Secretary May) wanted political animals running the police  because they were giving her too much grief so she put in her disastrous  Police & Criminal Kommisars instead.

The criminals now commute across county boundaries with impunity to do their evils as they know there is very little chance of their being recognised by the non-existent police patrols.  They know exactly which roads to use to avoid ANPRs then catch a commuter train. If instead the county rationalisation been done there would have been far more scope for investment in joined-up systems and perhaps a start made at tackling white collar computer crime.