Source: Knoxville News Sentinel
Published: Dec 6, 2000 Author: John Kampfner
From deep inside Sherwood forest in Nottinghamshire, a revolution in British policing has begun. But its leaders deny it is any such thing. "There is nothing exceptional in what we're doing," says Assistant Chief Constable Sean Price. "This is not a Genghis Khan approach. We're only doing what the police have always done - deploying the level of force appropriate to the threat."
Price is masterminding "Operation Real Estate," at the heart of which is a strategy that, so far, every other police force in Britain has balked at - putting armed officers on the beat.
The decision was taken in February, when rival gangs in a turf war had a shootout that left several people injured. Local residents knew what was going on but were frightened to get involved.
"I knew at the time this was the thin end of the wedge," says Price. "If we hadn't got a grip quickly, it would have got out of control." Six officers, operating in pairs and armed with Walther P990 pistols, were deployed in two local housing projects and have been there since.
Supported by two "armed response vehicles" (ARVs) in which submachine guns are kept, they help unarmed officers to work the beat from dusk until the middle of the night. Armed policing is not new in Britain. It's a part of daily life in Northern Ireland, and people are used to seeing armed officers at airports, City of London checkpoints and siege incidents.
But since Nottinghamshire police put armed officers on the beat, forces around the country have been watching closely. And officers and community leaders in Nottingham admit there's no going back. And the precedent it sets for the rest of the country is not lost on the local population. "This is a watershed," says Delroy Brown, a community leader at the Afro-Caribbean national artistic center in St Ann's.
The district is racially mixed, but most of the recent violence has involved black youths. Brown doesn't dispute the need to do something but wonders whether the police have thought through the race-relations implications of their actions. "This marks the paramilitarization of the police," he said. "If they are armed, within five years you will see a disproportionate number of black youths being killed by mainly white officers."
Sensitive to such fears, the police insist the decision was taken only after considerable consultation with local officials and residents. Price is adamant that the community is united across all ethnic groups - white, black and Asian - in supporting the move.
According to Inspector David Powell, chief inspector of operations, the use of guns is only part of a broader strategy of combating criminality and drug-dealing. The police and local officials are targeting resources at the youngest gang members in an effort to stop a downward spiral into crime.
"We're trying to give communities the confidence to stand up against violent behavior," Powell says during a guided tour of the locations in the St. Ann's and Meadows projects, where the shootings occurred.
Nottingham is not exceptional. Its gangland problems do not rival those of other major cities. The problem for police now is that they could be locked into a strategy from which there is little escape. Each Friday, Price and his team make a progress report, partly on the basis of intelligence gleaned from the community. For the past few weeks he has concluded that the threat of violence has receded, and he has ordered his men to leave their weapons in the ARVs. But this, he makes clear, can change week by week.
So far, so good. Crime rates are down, and criticism is muted. Since the operation began there have been only a handful of shooting incidents. More than 150 arrests have been made, and a number of trials are about to begin. About 15 guns have been recovered.
Criminologist Karim Murji believes British policing is at a crossroads. "This debate about guns is part of the mythology of British policing," he says. "We are in fact much further down the line than most people realize. The experience of the last two decades shows that it's impossible to roll back on arming levels once they have been established."
Intriguingly, there are now fewer police in Britain being given firearms training than there were in the 1980s. The number of officers authorized to carry guns has declined from 13,000 in 1983 to 6,300 in 1998. However, the number of armed operations has grown steadily, mirroring the growth in the criminal use of guns.
Two centuries of tradition have left Britain almost unique in the way it polices communities. Police organizations, from the Association of Chief Police Officers to the Police Federation, are officially skeptical about a move towards the regular use of weapons.
The last survey conducted by the federation showed a wide of range of views among officers about who should be trained to use arms and who, if anyone, should carry them. Most remained doubtful about the effectiveness of regular armed policing and wary of its social consequences.
But this latest incremental step is one of the most significant yet.
"Whether they admit it or not, they are making a statement here in St. Ann's," says Brown. "We are being used as a laboratory for a bigger experiment."
It's easy to see what would constitute failure here: a breakdown in community relations, perhaps following a fatal shooting by police. But what if the Nottingham experiment is deemed a success? What if crime rates stay low and most members of the community say that - for all their initial fears - they now feel safer with armed police and want them to stay?
Then, for all the attempts by Nottinghamshire police to play down what they have done, they will have set an example that other forces will inevitably follow.
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A couple of things stand out in this article. One is that Britain is heading for an inevitable police state. Many will argue that I am just paranoid, but the trend to militarize police forces is clear.
Second, since the average citizen has been disarmed by the British government, the situation in many areas could degenerate into a state of open warfare between rival gangs and police.
No, the only way to ensure a relatively peaceful society in Britain (or anywhere else for that matter) is to have a well-armed populace to act as a deterrent. When that threat to criminal activity is removed, then the only other possibility is The Police State.
Published: Dec 6, 2000 Author: John Kampfner
From deep inside Sherwood forest in Nottinghamshire, a revolution in British policing has begun. But its leaders deny it is any such thing. "There is nothing exceptional in what we're doing," says Assistant Chief Constable Sean Price. "This is not a Genghis Khan approach. We're only doing what the police have always done - deploying the level of force appropriate to the threat."
Price is masterminding "Operation Real Estate," at the heart of which is a strategy that, so far, every other police force in Britain has balked at - putting armed officers on the beat.
The decision was taken in February, when rival gangs in a turf war had a shootout that left several people injured. Local residents knew what was going on but were frightened to get involved.
"I knew at the time this was the thin end of the wedge," says Price. "If we hadn't got a grip quickly, it would have got out of control." Six officers, operating in pairs and armed with Walther P990 pistols, were deployed in two local housing projects and have been there since.
Supported by two "armed response vehicles" (ARVs) in which submachine guns are kept, they help unarmed officers to work the beat from dusk until the middle of the night. Armed policing is not new in Britain. It's a part of daily life in Northern Ireland, and people are used to seeing armed officers at airports, City of London checkpoints and siege incidents.
But since Nottinghamshire police put armed officers on the beat, forces around the country have been watching closely. And officers and community leaders in Nottingham admit there's no going back. And the precedent it sets for the rest of the country is not lost on the local population. "This is a watershed," says Delroy Brown, a community leader at the Afro-Caribbean national artistic center in St Ann's.
The district is racially mixed, but most of the recent violence has involved black youths. Brown doesn't dispute the need to do something but wonders whether the police have thought through the race-relations implications of their actions. "This marks the paramilitarization of the police," he said. "If they are armed, within five years you will see a disproportionate number of black youths being killed by mainly white officers."
Sensitive to such fears, the police insist the decision was taken only after considerable consultation with local officials and residents. Price is adamant that the community is united across all ethnic groups - white, black and Asian - in supporting the move.
According to Inspector David Powell, chief inspector of operations, the use of guns is only part of a broader strategy of combating criminality and drug-dealing. The police and local officials are targeting resources at the youngest gang members in an effort to stop a downward spiral into crime.
"We're trying to give communities the confidence to stand up against violent behavior," Powell says during a guided tour of the locations in the St. Ann's and Meadows projects, where the shootings occurred.
Nottingham is not exceptional. Its gangland problems do not rival those of other major cities. The problem for police now is that they could be locked into a strategy from which there is little escape. Each Friday, Price and his team make a progress report, partly on the basis of intelligence gleaned from the community. For the past few weeks he has concluded that the threat of violence has receded, and he has ordered his men to leave their weapons in the ARVs. But this, he makes clear, can change week by week.
So far, so good. Crime rates are down, and criticism is muted. Since the operation began there have been only a handful of shooting incidents. More than 150 arrests have been made, and a number of trials are about to begin. About 15 guns have been recovered.
Criminologist Karim Murji believes British policing is at a crossroads. "This debate about guns is part of the mythology of British policing," he says. "We are in fact much further down the line than most people realize. The experience of the last two decades shows that it's impossible to roll back on arming levels once they have been established."
Intriguingly, there are now fewer police in Britain being given firearms training than there were in the 1980s. The number of officers authorized to carry guns has declined from 13,000 in 1983 to 6,300 in 1998. However, the number of armed operations has grown steadily, mirroring the growth in the criminal use of guns.
Two centuries of tradition have left Britain almost unique in the way it polices communities. Police organizations, from the Association of Chief Police Officers to the Police Federation, are officially skeptical about a move towards the regular use of weapons.
The last survey conducted by the federation showed a wide of range of views among officers about who should be trained to use arms and who, if anyone, should carry them. Most remained doubtful about the effectiveness of regular armed policing and wary of its social consequences.
But this latest incremental step is one of the most significant yet.
"Whether they admit it or not, they are making a statement here in St. Ann's," says Brown. "We are being used as a laboratory for a bigger experiment."
It's easy to see what would constitute failure here: a breakdown in community relations, perhaps following a fatal shooting by police. But what if the Nottingham experiment is deemed a success? What if crime rates stay low and most members of the community say that - for all their initial fears - they now feel safer with armed police and want them to stay?
Then, for all the attempts by Nottinghamshire police to play down what they have done, they will have set an example that other forces will inevitably follow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A couple of things stand out in this article. One is that Britain is heading for an inevitable police state. Many will argue that I am just paranoid, but the trend to militarize police forces is clear.
Second, since the average citizen has been disarmed by the British government, the situation in many areas could degenerate into a state of open warfare between rival gangs and police.
No, the only way to ensure a relatively peaceful society in Britain (or anywhere else for that matter) is to have a well-armed populace to act as a deterrent. When that threat to criminal activity is removed, then the only other possibility is The Police State.
