From: mossop@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Antony Mossop)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Crime rates in Britain compared
Date: 23 Nov 1992 23:23:45 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1en3j9INN8ie@morrow.stanford.edu> silva@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Holly Silva) writes:
>mossop@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Antony Mossop) writes:
>>cthorne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Thorne) writes:
>>>
>>>Another factor, which I didn't dwell on, is that the U.S. has an official
>>>aversion to outlawing weapons or giving police forces unlimited authority
>>>to counter crime.  We have a basic concept (although not always realized
>>>in a form everyone to agree to) that we believe in a fairly laissez-faire
>>>community (both politically and socially) and the police forces can counter
>>>this only with substantial proof that they're correct when they interfere.
>
>>Huhh? Where does this idea about the severely shackled US police forces
>>come from. No European countries have anywhere near the number of 
>>shootings of suspects by the police as in the US.
>
>	This is because neither the police _nor_ the populace of most
>western European countries is as heavily armed as their counterparts
>here in the US. With too many guns about in the hands of _everyone_ 
>even trivial altercations can escalate into deadly violence. But this
>violence level alone is not indicative of the power of the police in
>the States. 

From what I've seen many European police forces are indeed as heavily
armed as in the US and many of these countries have quite minimal gun
control, though how heavily armed the average citizen in these countries
is, is hard to say but I would imagine it's far less than average US. My
own feelings are that level of violence used by the police is at least
a handy rule of thumb when it comes to police powers as they exist in
practice. The fact that the police may shoot/assault quite a high number of 
people without generating a particularly high level of dissent from the
public suggests that the US police has quite loose bounds (though I agree
that the level of violence within society has a major role as well).


>             The police in the US may not be particularly 'shackled' in
>comparison to the police in Britain (outside of Northern Ireland, where
>they're _very_ free to do whatsoever the hell they please), but in
>comparison to the power the police have in most of Europe, American
>cops are comparatively restricted with what they can _succeed_
>in doing in the course of their work. 

The police throughout the UK, can and do, do whatsoever the hell they
please. This is of course an exageration in reality there is an acceptable
level of public outcry they work to, the media of course plays quite
an important part in this mechanism as to how much the public hears (and which
groups within the public hear it). The end result is that the UK has
quite a disgraceful record on suspects falling downstairs, minors
questioned without parents permission, withholding of suspects rights,
search without warrant, losing/finding 'evidence' etc.. As complaints
are dealt with internally very little is done about such breaches of
the law. The reality is that the UK police have quite extraordinary powers
and keep them through judicious rationing of their use (demonstrations
are rarely violently put down while tv cameras are about, they rarely
threaten to kick the shit out of lawyers sons and so on). I have found
the US to be a similar state of affairs and whilst there may be many
regulations on police behaviour it is just as easily flouted as in the
UK. My own belief is that the police forces of the UK and US have just
as much actual power as those of other European countries, though
they may be a bit more discerning in there use

>                                      They do not have the ability to
>abuse illegal immigrants to the extent that police on the European
>continent do. If a police force in a major city in the US were to
>engage in targeting of non-whites for ID carding the way they do in
>Paris there would be an uproar, and they would eventually be forced
>to back down. The cops in Paris are notorious for this kind of abuse
>of power, but you hear virtually no complaint from the French people
>over this behavior. Likewise the cops in Milan are very free with 
>their batons when 'dealing with' Arab and Balkans immigrants, but you
>don't find out much about it in the Italian press.
>

There is a great deal of evidence about the racist behaviour of US
(and UK) police. A quick perusal of the US prison population and the
methods of policing used in predominantly black neighbourhoods indicates
a strong racial bias in US policing. The public outcry from suburbia is
deafening in its silence and the abuse goes on very much against the
loudly vocal wishes of the members of the public so abused..

>>Though similarly on
>>both sides of the Atlantic, very little is done when the most glaring
>>evidence shows outright assault by law officers. In the US the police
>>in practice are no more limited than in the UK and they're given guns
>>as well (one of the things that is commonly misunderstood is that there
>>are strong elements in the UK forces that want to have guns, it's the
>>public that don't trust them to carry them). In fact recent reports on
>>the abuse of forfeiture procedures (in fact the forfeiture procedures 
>>themselves) in the US would suggest that the US police aren't even
>>limited by their supposedly all encompassing constitution.
>>
>>
>	The police in this country regularly overstep the bounds of 
>legal and morally acceptable behavior, but the operative words in your
>statement above are 'recent reports'. The cops here constantly complain
>about how they can't do their jobs, because of watchdog groups and 
>legal restrictions on their actions in the line of duty. I don't mean
>to include Britons in what I'm about to say because your society is 
>a good bit more respecting of 'fair play' than most. But by and large,
>most of the Europeans I've met are quite unaware of, and blase about 
>the fairly aggressive behavior of their police vis a vis the
>unenfrachised, the illegal immigrants and the lowest classes of 
>their societies. The level of public attention toward this sort of
>misbehavior on the part of security forces really does seem to be 
>higher in the US, as does the general willingness of our population
>to give some credence to the complaints of the oppressed. In contrast,
>the middle class in Europe seems to be very well informed about 
>patterns of power abuse in the US, and simultaneously very unaware
>of the same goings on in their own back streets.
>

I am fairly certain that the police everywhere complain about the 
restrictions that prevent them handing out summary justice as they
see fit. I know the UK police do all the time and a fair number
of them would like to have guns as well. By and large the UK police are not
some totalitarian organisation run amok and can be quite civil, the
fact is though that, regardless of what the rule books say, they have
immense power if they choose to use it. The reality is that if the
police so take it into their heads to beat the crap out of you with
sticks there's very little will happen to the officers concerned and there's
a fair number of people who can tell you that this sort of thing is not
unknown. As for Europeans not being aware of the abuses carried out by
their police forces, I'm surprised at this statement. In the UK the
French are renowned for despising the police (somewhat justifiably) and
many other nations can be similarly stereotyped. Even some Dutch
people hate their police (which I find rather unfair as I've always found
the dutch police fine, bar one snotty officious git). However, middle
class, mildly right wing people tend to feel much greater empathy with the
police the world over and these tend to be the Europeans who come to
the states (come on, no self respecting liberal/lefty is going to want
to come to the states, no health care, crass consumerism blah blah..)
so I suppose you may have found people who think their force is great.
I assure you though that most Europeans have a healthy sceptecism re. their
police's integrity.

>                       The view many Europeans have of comparative
>levels of power abuse among the police and security forces of Europe
>and the US really troubles me. It highlights a pattern of 
>blindness toward European social pathologies, and an accompanying
>over-awareness of the moral shortcomings of American society
>that is too common among the educated classes in Europe. 
>

Most europeans complain bitterly about whatever country they happen to
be in at the time. Many europeans are very aware of their own countries
problems, the problem many of them have with the US (and many people
here have had with Victorian UK) is one of hypocrisy. The US is a suprisingly
nationalist country with a lot of citizens who honestly believe that other
countries should emulate their policies, this even permeates to the
political level (eg rape seed oil subsidies) this is very annoying when
you live in a different country. Hence as the US is held up as a paragon
of virtue by some of its more imbecilic, though often powerful, citizens
and pressure brought to bear to make other countries emulate the US many 
citizens of these other countries delight in finding the flaws.

The intention was to steer the topic round to that of the UK police,
more fitting to soc.culture.british, which I have failed to do and I've
written far too much. Are the UK police any closer to being armed
yet? and has anyone in a position of power found a way to stop them hiding 
evidence that suggests a suspects innocent (it's not wrong, you can tell 
he's guilty, just look at his eyes, you don't want the likes of him
getting off now do you...)?



Tony Mossop, geophysics, Stanford


>--
>======================================================================
>|| Holly Silva			I have nothing terribly clever to say||
>|| Applied Earth Sciences	today.  You're in luck.		     ||
>|| Stanford University						     ||


Newsgroups: soc.culture.british