There is much more to security and safety than crime prevention and sticking plasters...
This is one of a number of early experimental posts first published in 2014
Whilst this site will develop a repository of key UK security and safety facts and links, it will also seek to serve and nurture ‘informed conversation’ about the nation’s security at a policy level. This affects us all: businesses (when for example dealing with fraud and rogue directors) the old (ineffectual policing leaving people vulnerable in their communities) the young (marginalisation issues) and the rest of us (particularly when we see establishment figures with no connection to ourselves shaping the security and safety framework we are then expected to adhere to).
These opening pieces will be somewhat experimental; looking for forms of words that may resonate and be the basis of future debates.
Three recent events triggered this particular post.
Three days ago, the last post written for this blog presented a broadly supportive commentary about the police. This was to balance some earlier posts. By coincidence, there was a news piece a day later, stating that UK police forces were going to require that officers be much more civil in their dealings with the public, so as to try and rebuild their rather tarnished image. During a morning run yesterday I was thinking it might be appropriate to write a follow-up, acknowledging this when I caught sight of a local authority CCTV car, setting off to patrol the borough’s streets. No doubt, within a few weeks, probably dozens more people will receive traffic penalty notices in the post, as a result of its actions. It then struck me that much of today’s ‘policing’ is not actually conducted by police. In quickly exploring this online back home, a whole spate of related issues became apparent; from the poor voter turnout for elected crime commissioners and so on. Broadly, the nation seems to have stopped seeing the police, other security forces and the assorted political and legal apparatus that supports them as part of the community.
There probably has always been one, but the sense of schism between community and establishment has never been so apparent to most people alive today. This is alarming. Future posts will look more closely as this schism and for ways in which it may be bridged.
In parallel to the above there has been much news over the past few days about how, with cross party support, the government is trying to get emergency legislation through, prior to the summer recess, that will allow, what others call, ‘a snoopers’ charter’. This legislation will ‘sidestep’ recent European Court rulings that will otherwise outlaw the ongoing harvesting of the nation’s (people and businesses) electronic communications records for use by security services.
In a later post we will look at the arguments for and against such legislation. In a further piece, presuming The Establishment will get its way, we can also explore what the Harvard Project on Negotiation calls the ‘BATANA’ (The Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement) that the wider community can champion, to best protect its interests.
Also in parallel to the above and another perspective on the widening community-establishment schism, was a report by the think tank, The High Pay Centre, widely but briefly reported upon yesterday. According to its analysis, between 1980 and 2012 the average salary of a FTSE CEO rose from 18 times the average salary for the UK, to 174 times. Whilst you may think this has nothing to do with wider security and safety issues for the nation, it does, and on many levels. Even this year’s World Economic Forum at Davos reported in its annual risks report that rising inequality was a mounting global issue. In future posts we will both explore this in more detail and look for ways in which the UK situation might be improved.
This was originally to have been a standalone piece entitled ‘security, liberty and policing etiquette’ , but a little bit of preparatory research revealed a mass of unresolved issues meriting much more coverage. As someone once said, ‘You can’t eat the elephant in one sitting’, this piece might now be regarded, within the context of the elephant metaphor, as one of the ‘ears’. Why an ear? An ear is a relatively small but very defining aspect of the elephant and, a useful defence against potential detractors is the ability to say, ‘I have only described one side’.
