Thursday, August 11, 2011

"Compassionate panopticism"

"It started in Tottenham, on Saturday, when a man got shot by the police. People protested, and then some people went and burned down a police car. And the police did nothing. They burned down more police cars, they burned down a bus, they burned down a building — and the police did nothing. They needed to respond. Instead the police retreated in Tottenham. So this, whatever you call it, it started as something against the police. The police did not show the strength to push back, and it spread. And that is why I'm out here now like a security guard."

Those are the words of an owner of a 24-hour grocery in London, as he talked with an editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal Europe about the London riots. His rioters were white, by the way. The WSJ writer, Anne Jolis, coined the term that I have used for the heading on this post. It refers to the fact that the British are big on surveillance cameras, but the cameras failed to prevent the lawlessness. The crux of the problem appears to be that government policies have crippled the police from stopping the violence.

1 comment:

Terri Wagner said...

Happened in LA with so called cop beating. Cops just drifted back to a perimeter and what went on inside was fair game. Should have scared the "normal" people in that area to leaving.