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Thursday 9 February 2012

Essex Police to Replace Human Cops with 'RoboCop Athena'

In these times of great austerity Essex Police in the UK are leading the way with the introduction of 'new' technology to downsize the number of police officers and Police Community Support Officers.  The latter, in a way I could do without, if only they were replaced be real Police men  and woman.  Don't get me wrong I know a number of PCSO's and they are all extremely nice people, and all said and done they do do a valuable job, even if it is only to radio, which is much quicker than a phone, for a response team of actual Police officers, if they come across a crime!

But times are hard in the UK as they are across the world.  The Government has told Local Authorities to once again freeze the Council Tax, the source of income for Police, Fire, Health, Education, Cleansing and so on and so on within our Local Authorities, and in the case of Essex County Council to enable them to pay excessive salaries to the brightest and best, yeah right, to that last one......

So, anyway, with the council tax being frozen again, there is not so much in the pot to be shared out to all those services that we pay, including the Police.  So, rather than reducing the number of car movements, for example - and you have to bare with me on this as my fingers fly over the keyboard and I just make this up as I go along and I have no idea what Essex Police spend on petrol and vehicle costs in terms of maintenance, insurance, etc., but, if they put all those officers rolling about in cars out patrolling the streets, think how much money that would save each year, must be the cost of a couple of Officers, at least.

But no, instead of looking at more practical ways to make savings, Essex Police along with a bunch of other forces are spending around £32 million quid on a computer system that, as far as I can tell isn't self propelled, doesn't have a built in arsenal to injure, maim or kill the lawbreakers on our streets, but like the 'real' Robocop, probably has no sense of humour either!

Apparently, according to Essex Chief Constable, Jim Barker-McCardle (never trust a man with a double barrelled name he is either a pretentious prat or is a hangover from a silver spoon family of old), 
".....this will significantly improve the lives of people in the communities we serve."  We will be better able to investigate crime , support victims and reduce threat and harm to vulnerable people."
Oh, will it now!  How will it do that Jim, it's a box that sits in a room that needs information fed into it by people sitting on their backsides.  It doesn't have a blue flashing light, enabling it to speed to the scene of an incident or a pair of legs that helps it to run towards an incident or the assistance of some poor bugger being mugged in the street, for gods sake it probably can't even jump on a push bike, like a PCSO,  and set off in hot pursuit of the graffiti lout they just spotted as they were wandering about giving us, however slender it was, some sense of safety, as we see them meandering through our streets, can it do any of that Jim?  No it bloody can't.

Don't get me wrong I love technology, I hardly understand any of it, but hey look, it allows me to vent like this and bore a lot of other people rather than just the few in my small social circle, so it does have it's benefits in that respect.  I am sure that the benefits of 'Robocop Athena' in sharing information between Police forces, will prove to be immense, until it is hacked and then we are crying for the head of the people in charge of it........
  
BUT, Policemen and Policewoman, and even PCSO's,  who put on their uniforms everyday and who then go out on our streets every day to be abused and assaulted by the low life in society are the ones that we put our trust in Jim, not some bloody computer, so You, Local Authorities and Central Government, really do need to pull your heads out of your asses and stop frigging about with our lives by reducing the number of Police Officers that we need to protect us from all the crap that is out there.....

Just saying

Link to Essex Police page on Project Athena here.

19 comments:

  1. If you were able to dig deep enough, you'd find a not-so-public connection between the contractors who are putting the computer system together and the people who are providing the funding.

    This sort of thing happens here in the US all the time, although - tragically - often on a much grander scale in the military and federal government. The tragedy is that more times than not, we (the taxpayers) get bilked for huge piles of money and in the end wind up with...nothing. Literally, nothing.

    Then the powers that be sort of shrug and just walk away. No accountability at all for projects that run into the hundreds of millions (and, in one case I know of, nearly a billion) dollars.

    It's true that advanced computing systems can help law enforcement connect the dots from a pile of data. But, just as in the military, a computer isn't a substitute for boots on the ground...

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  2. Michael, always nice to see Ya. Just makes my blood boil.. I agree with you vis-a-vis technology as an aidbut to couch it thus "....this will significantly improve the lives of people in the communities we serve." We will be better able to investigate crime , support victims and reduce threat and harm to vulnerable people."

    What a load of twaddle. POLICE OFFICERS and PCSO's can reduce the threat and harm to the vulnerable, but by continually reducing the numbers is just crazy.

    Social unrest as a direct consequence of Social Injustice is going to spill out more and more onto our streets and while he have to convince the politicians and big business that they cannot keep travelling down the road they are on, increasing the divide, we need police officers, men and women, who will keep law and order, and a computer aint going to do that.....

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  3. Oh god, this reminds me of that stupid but cute Sylvester Stallone movie...with what's her name - crap... Demolition Man! Rent it.

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