Just a couple of points ...
poster342002 said:
If the cops "know" about this problems on that shithole of a corner, why is nothing done?
Sorry to hear about your mate ed. Just a couple of points which may help in making something happen ...
1. Designing out crime can improve the situation. The banks have talked about it around cashpoints (lighting, positioning, painted "exclusion zones" ...) but have done very little. Put pressure on them (lots of letters / e-mails / visits to the actual Barclays branch may help) (By the way, the suggestion of ATMs in foyers is a double-edged sword - people tend to move in to them, the swipes are prone to having illegal card readers attached and robberies inside them still happen (and out of sight of passers-by).
2. Public awareness is a police tactic to help reduce criminal opportunities. The big white landrover is part of that. It does help. We may already know, but we forget and reminders increase our awareness for a shoort time at least.
3. A uniformed police presence 24/7 is not practicable and, in any event would only displace the crimes to somewhere else.
4. There may well be undercover operations, either in operation or being planned (but to tell everyone would be self-defeating!!). The police work on "hotspots" (which is why EVERY crime / attempt needs to be reported otherwise the basic data is inaccurate), prioritising types of crimes and numbers. Such operations are very expensive in terms of time and staff hours so there is a limit on how many can be mounted at any one time. Raise the particular issue at the CPCG to ensure it really is on the list of things to do.
5. Police patrols and numbers are based on demand monitoring. The peaks of public calls are during the day and evening. Unfortunately this leads to "skewing" as less things happen later but they tend to be more serious. Raise the question at the CPCG - find out exactly how the Borough Commander is planning resource deployment and suggest any improvements / issues.
6. As has been mentioned, CCTV needs to be monitored. In Lambeth it is the responsibility of the borough. Find out from them the numbers of staff in their control room, their training and their emergency response protocols (I recently came across one control room (outside London) which had to call the police via 999 in an emergency!!). Lambeth used to have a "hotline" - does it still? How much intelligence do the police provide to the control room to ensure they know which hotspots to monitor, descriptions to look for, etc?
7. As Burke said (I think!) "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". The failure of passers-by to do anything is sadly too common. It is read by the crims as a green light to do what they like. They can avoid police activity, they can't avoid passers-by but they know they will do fuck all so they don't give a toss. One passer-by intervening is at risk. Twenty aren't. Don't put yourselves at risk but we can all do other things. Shout, scream, abuse, throw things ... Do anything to raise a scene. They will eventually learn!
<Edit to add last point which I forgot!>
