4 ms·
I used to regard UK policing, founded on the unarmed bobbie (sp?), with awe. The Rotherham scandal changed my thinking on that entirely. It's the worst failur
by downerending 6y ago
I used to regard UK policing, founded on the unarmed bobbie (sp?), with awe. The Rotherham scandal changed my thinking on that entirely. It's the worst failure of policing I've ever heard of, and seems to have caused by this sort of "light touch above all" trend.
Yes, "saving innocents" is the whole point of policing.
- mjburgess 6y agoWe may need to wait for the report to be clear on where the failures were, but there's lots going on there. Part of the context of that has to be a pretty systemic UK-wide issue affecting public institutions where child-abuse was ignored. It's not clear that heavy-handed policing, in that context, would lead to a different result. It certainly wouldn't in many high profile cases, where police had been strongly encouraged to ignore the issue.
- downerending 6y agoA lot going on, yes, but impossible to believe the police were not aware. In the US, if higher-ups tried to suppress this, it'd be leaked to the press, and all hell would break loose.
- mjburgess 6y agoThat's true and goes to my point. There's a classism at work here that isn't about the style of policing. For the UK, class is the defining structural issue, not race. Journalists and the police have typically protected and respected the upper-middle. That's interacting here with a police oversight in an usual way