Brits Best Americans Again

Once again, the British prove they are philosophically and politically superior to us Americans and modern American culture:

Critics have been outspoken in criticizing Britain's police tactics when it comes to what they are calling "target" laws. This practice, a long-standing staple of the American legal system, rewards police for making more arrests. In a trickle-down effect, police then make more and more arrests for minor offenses. As one UK citizen put it, "Quite simply the government are using the police to nick the public for any offense that raises money for them."

As readers of any of The Weirding blogs know, I live in a community with similarly dishonorable "standards," and found myself on the receiving-end of this corruption a few months back. I am still worried sick that these terrible, corrupt officials will find some other excuse to turn the knife - so much so that I have quit driving and am saving money to move out of the area!

As I said in regards to another matter yesterday, the police are doing this at a time when prison overcrowding has become an issue basically worldwide, and this is the very reason that it is an issue! They keep the jails and prisons overcrowded so they can receive more funding, while simultaneously upping the fines passed onto the imprisoned. This has further socio-economic repercussions, as it can affect peoples' jobs and employment opportunities, as well as their social standing within the community; if things continue along in this fashion, there will come a time when the individual who has not gone to jail at least once will be the anomaly and fall under more suspicion than those of us who have! And, of course, this recrementitious brand of (in-)justice undermines police authority, as it leads to distrust of the cops - as well it should! - but it leads to a general unease and distrust throughout the whole community.

Apparently, police corruption and abuse of authority is not just an American issue, and I think it needs to be addressed on a larger scale. And while they may not have any solutions to the problem as yet, they are superior to us in the sense that they are making headline news in addressing the issue instead of collectively shrugging it off as one more issue over which they have no control.


© C Harris Lynn, 2008