Guest Blogger: Alun Jones - Policing in the USA

In a(nother) break from ordinary service this Independence Day, Four Thousand Words would like to present guest blogger and fellow local government employee Alun Jones. His previous observations on Tahrir and Tiananmen Squares can be found by clicking here.

If anyone else fancies a stint in charge of the editorial desk here at FTW, please let me know, I'm delighted when other people want to be involved (not least because it means I can take a day off...)

Policing in the USA

The plethora of films and television series that come from Hollywoodland got me thinking the other day. I know they're not meant to do that, but this isn't going to be another discourse on the mind-numbing qualities of main-stream entertainment. It's just this; how many bloody law enforcement agencies does one country need??

In the course of my brief research on this subject, it seems that at any one time in the home of the 'free', 68 different agencies at federal, state and local level could take an interest in your affairs!! I tried to think of a scenario where you would involve all of them, but that was too much! However, if you were a native american former convict and discharged soldier driving a lorry whilst drunk to deliver contraband alcohol, bush-meat, counterfeit currency and books stolen from the Library of Congress to the University in Fairbanks, Alaska having previously made threats against the President you would be in trouble with at least 13 different agencies! All of them of course would resent the others and mouth the immortal line, "And don't give me any of your jurisdiction crap!!"

Similar counts yield the following information. The UK has 14 layers of law enforcement, whilst the North Korea has only 5 or 6!

Does this mean that we are 3 times as paranoid as the North Koreans and that the USA is 5 times more paranoid still? Not really, as the numbers in each arm are widely different, especially when you take into account the size of population they are meant to serve. But there must be a high degree of paranoia, otherwise why would we have so many different agencies? After all, the right-wing governments in control both here and in the USA are dead-set on cuts.

I'm not a big fan of cuts. I work in the public sector and believe that you need it to make the state run efficiently. For example, how would Mr Cameron's army of 'hungry' entrepreneurs be able to generate wealth if they had to stay at home to look after their elderly parents? Or if that simple cold became double pneumonia because there was no healthcare? However, I believe that both here and in the USA, concern about crime levels and the possibility of terrorist attacks means that we have allowed this proliferation and the erosion of many liberties. So come on Theresa May and Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security), make some cuts, save some money and restore some sanity to our law enforcement.

Shame about the films though...

It's not the end of the world

In case you were busy and missed it, this weekend was supposed to be the Rapture. At least, that is according to 89 year-old Christian evangelist, Harold Camping. The US-based radio broadcaster used a Bible-based numerology system to start a campaign that quickly spread worldwide, predicting that the beginning of the end would come for non-believers at 6pm Californian time on the 21st May 2011.

Of course, predictions that the world will end are nothing new. Self-appointed soothsayers preached in the marketplaces of the old world. The industrial era gave us images of sandwich boards bearing messages of doom and now, in the post-modern era, we have the internet when we wish to share our apocalyptic predictions with fellow believers. Hollywood too has jumped on the bandwagon, enlisting Jimi Mistry and John Cusack into an implausible blockbuster based on Mayan predictions that left physicists the world over bleary-eyed.


So it seems we all love a good prediction about the end of the world. Believers have an opportunity to strut around and brag about their forthcoming good fortune while the sceptics gather together in large numbers for anti-Rapture parties, risking a truly epic amount of irony should things really go South. Even the supposedly impartial BBC got in on the act, with a tongue-in-cheek headline of 'Rapture: Believers perplexed' in the wholly predictable aftermath.

Now that the headlines are fading into memory, we should remember some of the genuinely sad stories behind the events of this weekend. There are those who have made preparations for the next world and spent a lifetime's worth of savings on advertising the event. It's easy for nay-saying atheists to shake their heads and wonder at the inherent gullibility of man, but while I am not a believer in God myself, I recognise how it would be important for a believer to prostrate themselves fully before the notion of heaven and ultimate resolution. After all, if you can't subscribe unquestioningly to a higher purpose, can you really call yourself a believer at all?

The Washington Post has since reported that suicide prevention hotlines have been set up in case believers fall into depression after the apocalypse failed to happen. College funds have been spent, homes have been sold and yet, life goes on. The bewilderment will pass. Some believers are already claiming the failure of Judgement Day to materialise is a test of faith from God and they have every intention of persevering.

There have been (admittedly contentious) scientific studies that suggest a link between prayer and improved healing times. Whether you subscribe to this theory or not, the subject-expectancy effect suggests that prayer can aid in recovery, not necessarily due to divine influence but due to psychological and physical benefits. It has also been suggested that if a person knows that he or she is being prayed for it can be uplifting and increase morale, thus aiding recovery.

I believe that we live in an increasingly rational world and that humanism is the way forward. There is no harm in preparing your soul for the next world if you feel it is important to do so, but we should recognise that we have a primary overriding responsibility to the people we live alongside in this one. It should be recognised that whatever else religion could be said to be responsible for, it is probably the oldest organised means of providing charity, support and encouragement to those most in need.