Arresting people is NOT the way to tackle gang crime and looting, warns U.S. 'supercop' hired by Cameron
- 'Thugs should fear police and punishment for looting,' says ex-New York and LA chief Bill Bratton
- Osborne warns of 'deep-seated social problems'
Last updated at 10:09 AM on 13th August 2011
Super-cop: Bill Bratton, who cleaned up New York and LA
Communities cannot 'arrest their way out' of gang violence, warns the Prime Minister's new crime adviser, U.S. 'supercop' Bill Bratton.
The former New York and Los Angeles police chief believes young thugs should be made to 'fear' the police and the prospect of serious punishment for acts such as looting,
Mr Bratton is to meet David Cameron next month to discuss how to tackle violence on England's city streets.
About 1,600 people have been arrested this week after days of riots, arson and looting.
Mr Bratton said arrest was appropriate for the most violent, but the issue was one for society as a whole.
'You can't arrest your way out of the problem,' he told U.S. broadcaster, ABC.
'Arrest is certainly appropriate for the most violent, the incorrigible, but so much of it can be addressed in other ways and it's not just a police issue, it is in fact a societal issue.
'It's not easy, it's hard work, but it can be done and in many respects you have to argue that it must be done because you just can't continue the way you've been going.'
He added: 'I think part of what the government is going to do is to take a look at what worked and what didn't work during the course of the last week.'
New York: Bratton made his name by tackling gang crime in the city
In another interview, Mr Bratton, 63, accused UK police commanders of using the wrong tactics in the first riots - treating the situation too much as a public order issue, rather than 'essentially one of crime'.
HOW BRATTON TAMED THE U.S. CRIME GANGS
Bill Bratton is not a complete outsider to British policing. He's been a consultant advising different forces.
In 1991, he famously delivered a list of about 400 gang and drug kingpins he wanted to arrest to the mayor of Boston when he became commissioner.
His initial success in New York relied on big increases in resources - recruiting 5,000 new better trained officer. Reports of serious crime dropped 27 per cent.
In Los Angeles he worked on smaller budgets, specifically tackling gangs, using Big Society ideas of local areas taking responsibility for fighting crime in their neighbourhoods.
Mr Bratton left Los Angeles police in 2009 - after significantly lowering the crime rate and is now chairman of Kroll, a Manhattan-based private security firm.
He said police forces should be more assertive in their dealings with offenders, leaving no doubt that crime would always meet a firm response.
He told the Daily Telegraph: 'You want the criminal element to fear them, fear their ability to interrupt their own ability to carry out criminal behaviour, and arrest and prosecute and incarcerate them.
"In my experience, the younger criminal element don't fear the police and have been emboldened to challenge the police and effectively take them on.'
More must be done to ensure that young offenders faced substantial penalties for their crimes, he said. They should be made to realise that crime will result in punishment.
Some of the sentences given to youngsters guilty of looting and other crimes this week have been criticised as too lenient by Conservative MPs and police chiefs.
He added: 'I'm very keen on the idea that if there is an action there is a reaction. You very early on have people understand there are penalties for their activities.'
Mr Bratton said he won't be lecturing British police on how to combat street crime and gang violence. He will share his experience of dealing with U.S. gangs.
He said the success against them was based on a number of community outreach programmes combined with tough police methods.
Mr Bratton did not give Mr Cameron his full support on the idea of controlling phone messaging services and social networks in order to thwart rioters.
'The bad news is that it does facilitate their movements,' he said. 'The good news is that police can monitor their communications and stay ahead of their activities.
Backing: George Osborne supports Bratton's analysis of the issues facing UK policing
Mr Bratton said British police needed to focus on calming racial tensions by working more with community leaders and civil rights groups.
He also said employing more minority police officers could be a potential long-term solution to stopping any future disorder.
'Part of the issue going forward is how to make policing more attractive to a changing population,' he said.
Downing Street said Mr Bratton would not be a long-term, paid consultant and would not be formally appointed to any UK police force.
Chancellor George Osborne backed Mr Bratton's analysis and said deep-seated social issues, not the impact of planned police budget cuts, should be the focus for debate.
'We are committed to the plan we have set out for police reform. And it is about reform, about improving the presence of the police in our communities, making the police more visible,.
He told Radio 4 Today programme. 'There are very deep-seated social problems which we need to tackle. There are communities that have just been left behind by the rest of the country, there are communities cut off from the economic lifeblood of the rest of the country.
'I don't think the debate should be reduced to whether there should be x-thousand numbers of police officers or x-thousand-plus-one numbers of police officers in our society.
'We want an effective police service. They have done an amazing job this week. We want to use the advice of people like Bill Bratton to really tackle some of the deep-seated social issues like gang culture.
'But this is not just about police budgets; this is about a far bigger challenge for our society, which is dealing with people who we have ignored for too long and helping them feel they have a stake in society.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025577/Police-crackdown-arrests-arent-way-tackle-gang-crime-says-U-S-supercop-hired-Cameron.html#ixzz1Uto9LLn9
-- Mario Huet Libertarian Alliance Forum List Administrator ********************************************** Words cannot picture her; but all men know That solemn sketch the pure sad artist wrought ********************************************** James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night
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