So to put the salient point, as I see it, bluntly: if an individual or group of individuals have the financial wherewithal, he/she/they can hire cops to do the work they’re paid with public money to do in the first place? That’s tiered policing, isn’t it? Policing FOR the wealthy, and BEING POLICED for the rest of us.
Broadmead is a microcosm of what is happening in society at large: the attempt to contain, regulate and manage people through ubiquitous surveillance (Broadmead is saturated with CCTV), allied to a plain clothed militia working for the police and council and retailers, linked via their headsets and a messaging app to the people studying the CCTV, who are able to switch between external street views and internal store views. And there’s always enough money to pay for all this.
But never enough money to house people or pay them adequate benefits. And as for homelessness and begging, I think it’s critically important that people’s dire circumstances are not swept under the proverbial carpet.
So to put the salient point, as I see it, bluntly: if an individual or group of individuals have the financial wherewithal, he/she/they can hire cops to do the work they’re paid with public money to do in the first place? That’s tiered policing, isn’t it? Policing FOR the wealthy, and BEING POLICED for the rest of us.
Broadmead is a microcosm of what is happening in society at large: the attempt to contain, regulate and manage people through ubiquitous surveillance (Broadmead is saturated with CCTV), allied to a plain clothed militia working for the police and council and retailers, linked via their headsets and a messaging app to the people studying the CCTV, who are able to switch between external street views and internal store views. And there’s always enough money to pay for all this.
But never enough money to house people or pay them adequate benefits. And as for homelessness and begging, I think it’s critically important that people’s dire circumstances are not swept under the proverbial carpet.