"The monster that ate criminal justice"
Posted by Charlie Edwards
at 10:26am on Friday, 20th April 2007
An interesting article in today’s FT. In an interview with security correspondents Sir Ian Blair (Met Police) points to the risks of a US-style focus on homeland security. Apparently violent crime [robberies, aggravated assaults and murder] in the US has soared, a trend that is worrying police chiefs, many of whom are distracted by the pressure to focus on homeland security and terrorism. The main thrust of the report was that there needs to be a more co-ordinated approach between homeland security and neighbourhood safety.
The report noted that terrorist attacks in London in July 2005 and the March 2004 attacks in Spain had "taught many in the law enforcement community worldwide to pay more attention to the important role that a local police officer plays by engagement with the community and ethnic groups". An issue we highlighted in the Demos pamphlet Bringing it home.
Perhaps the most interesting observation is by the Police Chief of Providence, Rhode Island, who describes the government’s response to terrorism as that of a “Cyclops,” which can only focus its attention on one thing at a time.
He said, “I think the United States is this great giant, and that when it focuses on a problem it can tackle it. But that sometimes, I fear this giant is a Cyclops and has but one eye, and when it pivots to address a new problem it loses attention on what it was looking at.”
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