On 21-Jan-12 09:29, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
In the UK we talk about "Law Enforcement" to mean the way in which
people like the police ensure people obey the law by various means, but
primarily by the pursuit of offenders.

It's rather Big Brother-ish, isn't it. There's no privacy and it's
gotten easier and easier to track the movements of everyone. The loss
of privacy hasn't resulted in the prevention of crime, although it
can aid in finding perpetrators after the fact when it's too late.

That's all LEOs can do in the majority of case: investigate crimes after
they occur and, where possible, pursue the offenders. They very, very
rarely stop crimes in progress, with the notable exception of speeding
tickets.

This assumes people will not commit crimes if they believe they will get
caught. However, that is not necessarily true; most criminals believe
they won't get caught, and some criminals (particularly those with drug
or alcohol problems) simply don't care or even _want_ to be caught.

Here in America, the cops are quite capable of capturing the dumbest
criminals, the ones who record their violent assaults (even murders
at times) then post them to social media.

The solve rate is pretty bad, and the conviction rate is even worse.
And that's for violent crimes that get the most funding and attention;
for non-violent crimes, the cops are rarely even _aware_ of the crime,
and if one is reported, often all they do is file a report and move on.
This just encourages criminality, which eventually escalates into
violent crime, so it's a vicious cycle.

S

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CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
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