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...

Currently...

Current read: 'Nothing to Envy' by Barbara Demick. The book is an account of the true stories of six North Korean defectors and the circumstances that led to their respective defections. As well as containing a potted history of Korea since its division, the interweaving histories give a number of eye-opening cultural insights and explore the difficulties that defectors have with fitting into society in the outside world. There are amusing observations about the manner in which many North Koreans attempted to outdo one another's mourning efforts following the death of Kim il-Sung, and then the heartbreaking reality of economic meltdown and the subsequent starvation of thousands in the early 1990s. It's an enlightening and powerfully poignant read.

Current music: Anything mainstream, but it's only because I got stuck listening to Egyptian MTV when I was in Sharm el-Sheikh. So I have Ke$ha, Katy Perry and Rihanna. Normal service will doubtless re-assert itself at some point.

Current TV Shows: CSI Miami, starting once again at Series 1 just because I identify with Tim Speedle. Shame he gets shot. It's doubly sad because it seems like hardly anyone goes to his funeral.

Current food: Anything from the reduced sections in Tesco and Morrisons.

Current drink: Coke Zero. As always. It's another thing I have in common with Scott Pilgrim.

Current favourite blogs: Six Impossible Things by my feminist buddy, Layla Ashton. Layla is never short of ways to make you think. Also enjoying the Swiss Ramble, an extremely detailed and superbly researched blog about finance in football. You can see the writer's accountancy background all over his entries, but he has a gift for expressing difficult concepts in layman's terms and he never lets the narrative distract from his obvious passion for the sport.

Current lust: Dr Alice Roberts. Sigh.


Current bane of my existence: On Monday, it was every single person I spoke to! Things have since improved though.

Current excitement: The fact that every time I look at my fish tank, there's another new clutch of babies. Firstly, it's brilliant that the breeding program I have in place is so successful, secondly the fish shop down the road will buy them for 50p a time. I may never be a millionaire, but every new pet in the world is another life improved!

Guest Blogger: Alun Jones - Tahrir vs Tiananmen

In a break from ordinary service, Four Thousand Words is proud to present it's first guest blogger. Council employee and father-of-two Alun Jones shares my interest in politics but has the benefit of a few more years of experience, not least during the Thatcher years, which for the benefit of our foreign readers was a time of great hardship for low-income families.


Tahrir vs Tiananmen

We've all witnessed great events in Egypt over the last few weeks. This has culminated in Hosni Mubarak stepping down from power. A huge well-done to the people of Egypt. I hope things genuinely begin to improve for you all.

Whilst feeling some measure of the elation we all felt when the Berlin Wall came down, it occurred to me that there were some interesting parallels with the events in China also in 1989.

Obviously, both were protests against oppression centred on squares in the capital whose names begin with T!

One protest succeeded, another failed. Why? I don't think it was modern communications as the Egyptian government unlinked from the internet so the protesters used old-tech like CB radio.

In the end, I believe it came down to the differing responses of the relevant armies. In Egypt, the army (468,500) chose not to get too involved. This left Mubarak relying on a small group of thugs to attempt to coerce the protesters. Clearly, this failed.

In 1989, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) numbering 2,250,000, moved into Tiananmen and cleared the square with live fire. Estimates of the death-toll go up to 3000 (which is more than died in the 28 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland).


What I can't explain is why the PLA so brutally suppressed it's own people whilst the Egyptian Army stood aside. I'd like to think that the generals of the Egyptian army decided to allow the country to decide, whereas in China the PLA is intimately tied into the Communist Party structures and is sworn to consolidate it's status as ruling party.

Sorry, I now seem to be rambling without approaching a conclusion! There's probably some moral about picking your fights or about what the role of an army should be but I think I'd like to end as follows:

Congratulations to the people of Egypt. Enjoy your freedom and I hope that your new democracy will hold your representatives to account better than ours! As for the rest of the world, I hope that the leaders of Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Zimbabwe, China & elsewhere will be just that bit more nervous.