The police have failed us - so we've hired a 6ft 6in security guard
When Harriet Sergeant and her neighbours discovered a shared sense of powerlessness at the level of crime in their street, they set about organising the policing of it themselves. But why should they have to? And why, when some US police forces have regained the trust of communities, can their example not be followed in Britain?
(London Telegraph)
In the still hours of the early morning, my neighbour could sometimes hear a man rattling the door handles of the shops opposite, checking if they were locked. The phantom rattler was the local bobby, who passed her house four times every 24 hours on his beat.
On the beat: Yauheni, a private secuirty guard hired by Westminster residents
That was 40 years ago. Today, no one in the five streets of my Westminster neighbourhood can remember the last time they saw a policeman on the beat.
The Home Office says that crime is "low" and that the "real" problem is not crime itself but the public's irrational fear of crime. But when I asked 20 households in my immediate neighbourhood what crime they had experienced in the last three years, the tally suggested otherwise: 17 muggings and assaults, three houses burgled, two cars stolen and numerous incidents of petty theft and criminal damage.
Just a couple of weeks ago, a two-minute walk away from where I live, two men armed with handguns and knives broke into a house where the family were sitting down to supper.
My neighbours and I have concluded that the "real" problem is not fear, but crime itself - and the absence of police to deal with it. People are angry, and they are now taking matters into their own hands.
Story continued here.
Phaedrus
When Harriet Sergeant and her neighbours discovered a shared sense of powerlessness at the level of crime in their street, they set about organising the policing of it themselves. But why should they have to? And why, when some US police forces have regained the trust of communities, can their example not be followed in Britain?
(London Telegraph)
In the still hours of the early morning, my neighbour could sometimes hear a man rattling the door handles of the shops opposite, checking if they were locked. The phantom rattler was the local bobby, who passed her house four times every 24 hours on his beat.
On the beat: Yauheni, a private secuirty guard hired by Westminster residents
That was 40 years ago. Today, no one in the five streets of my Westminster neighbourhood can remember the last time they saw a policeman on the beat.
The Home Office says that crime is "low" and that the "real" problem is not crime itself but the public's irrational fear of crime. But when I asked 20 households in my immediate neighbourhood what crime they had experienced in the last three years, the tally suggested otherwise: 17 muggings and assaults, three houses burgled, two cars stolen and numerous incidents of petty theft and criminal damage.
Just a couple of weeks ago, a two-minute walk away from where I live, two men armed with handguns and knives broke into a house where the family were sitting down to supper.
My neighbours and I have concluded that the "real" problem is not fear, but crime itself - and the absence of police to deal with it. People are angry, and they are now taking matters into their own hands.
Story continued here.
Phaedrus
