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Winter:
Big Brother is watching, ever so discreetly
While recently walking back from teaching a class at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, I was asked by a colleague on the faculty to take part in an interview concerning the use of closed circuit television (CCTV) in England. (He had some students working on a media project who were looking to practice their skills on an unwitting passerby.) My colleague knew I was from England, here on a five-month assignment from Kent County Constabulary, arranged by the British Police Staff College at Bramshill with John Jay College. He thought I might be able to give an account of the use of CCTV back home, given the enthusiasm, post 9/11, for the installation of such devices throughout New York City.
I hold the rank of superintendent (which equates to captain in the U.S.) and have responsibility for tactical operations training at police headquarters at Maidstone, Kent, yet the interviewer’s questions caused me to think back to the mid-1990’s, when I was a chief inspector at West Kent Basic Command Unit, in charge of uniform operations. Across the whole of England and Wales, the British Government under Prime Minister John Major was seeking to encourage local authorities to take advantage of some 10 million pounds sterling ( $14 million) they were offering to install and set up CCTV in town centers across the land. My own force was fortunate to have David Phillips (now Sir David) as its chief constable, who took immediate advantage of this offer and set a two-man team onto the task of, first, assessing the needs of all 26 of our towns, and second, determining what technology would be best suited in each case. The team consisted of a police inspector, Trevor Hall, and our own CCTV expert, Mick White. They put together a comprehensive package as our bid to central government and we were granted all the money we sought...
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Sharpe:
Practicing realism, not racism
I think the term “racial profiling” was coined sometime in the mid-90’s. Various groups were attempting to explain why the nation’s prison systems were disproportionately high in minority populations. Now the catch phrase has become a hackneyed, misused scapegoat.
Prior to this, “profiling” was a term used by law enforcement to describe a tool by which likely suspects could be identified. This has been true since the very beginning of police work. Certain criminal offenses are by statistical fact more likely to be committed by some groups than by others. This spans the spectrum of races, as well as ages, gender and sexual orientation. Of course, there are always variations and no one group is exempt from any one crime...
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