Fire-brigade policing

I really like Rob Reiner's ideas on how we should conceptualise policing. Seems to me this is both an accurate reflection of what the police actually do (i.e. almost anything, when called on) and a useful way of calibrating our expectations about what is possible in terms of real achievements.

That is, while police can and do solve local problems, and may, in certain situations and in certain ways, influence crime rates and even 'put a lid' on crime, there must almost by definition be little they can do about the underlying causes of crime. These are likely to be so deeply embedded in diverse social, economic and cultural structures that it seems almost naive to expect that one single state agency could, on its own, have much effect on them in the long run.

Most people would, presumably, agree that police should work toward this larger goal in conjunction with other state agencies, non-state actors, and the public at large. So why, then, should the success of the police be measured only by it's success in  'fighting crime' (which is what the current government seems to be suggesting). Indeed, if what Reiner says is true, and given the well-known difficulties involved in tracking and explaining changes in the rate of crime, what what be a suitable metric for assessing police performance purely against a crime-change criteria?

Response to Home Office 'curfew' consultation

Some colleagues and I have written a response to the Home Office's consultation on police powers. This covered Section 5 of the existing Public Order Act (on 'insulting language'); and two new proposals to introduce (a) a new police power to enforce removal of face-coverings - e.g. masks, scarfs - and (b) a new police power to instigate curfews.

The last issue took up most of our attention, and suffice to say that we thought it was a very bad idea. You can find the response document here.

Brilliant climate change graphic

I stumbled on this superb graphic (via the comments here) and, although its way off topic for this blog, couldn't resist linking to it.

The first thing you see is the overall trend in global temperature change over the last 40(ish) years. The second is how climate change 'sceptics' might prefer to present the picture: by breaking the period into smaller chunks you can show that over any given 5-10 year period temperatures were either flat or actually fell.

The real action comes at the end of the chart, since it is a standard climate-change denier line that temperatures haven't risen since 1998, the warmest year on record. The overall trend is clearly upwards - selecting 1998 as a start year in order to demonstrate a decline is a classic an example of 'cherry-picking' data to suit one's argument (see here for a discussion).