Thursday, November 26, 2009

Police Pledge adverts

I've only seen one and apparently there are three floating around, however in my opinion the one I've seen captures the essence of modern policing to a tee.

A kid comes along and knocks askew one of the letters hanging on the screen, then another kicks one of the letters to the cries of "Oy!". Then a policeman shows up to talk to the owner and then is shown sauntering off having down absolutely nothing... no wait I tell a lie he readjusts the skewed letter.

See perfect representation - the police show up after the event and do bugger all.

5 comments:

Orphi said...

It always worries me when I watch these police footage programs that are supposed to be somehow “entertaining”

Some nutter steals a car. The police chase him. He executes a series of increasingly more dangerous driving manouvers, smashing into cars, knocking people over, destrying walls and coming close to killing people. As always, the police get their man in the end (usually with the aid of the helicopter).

And then the anouncer smugly tells us “He won't be doing that again. This guy got nicked, and was sentenced to two weeks' community service.”

Oh, well, that'll definitely show 'em. Thousands of pounds worth of criminal damage. Rampant disregard for the safety and indeed lives of the people around them, and all they get is a little slap and a “don't do it again”??

Are you kidding me?!?

FlipC said...

They are entertaining, they're mini moral lessons. Chase ensues, adrenalin starts pumping in sympathy with the action, bad person gets caught (this is TV after all) and punished - excellent. All with the added bonus that this is real rather than scripted so anything can happen (yeah right) and the police get some good publicity and more pull come budget time to keep that helicopter.

Oh and it's cheap television so expect even more of it.

Orphi said...

Sure it's cheap TV. But do we really want to advertise the fact that no matter how serious a crime is, the most they can do to you is ban you from driving for a week or two and put a note on your record?

Seriously, after a destruction spree like that, you'd hope the people reasonsible would be locked up for 10 years or something. But no, barely any punishment at all. Makes you wonder why the police even bother catching them, given that they're apparently almost powerless to impose any real punishment once they're caught.

FlipC said...

Oh I agree it's sending out the wrong message; but all the producers care about is that it's cheap television, and as I mentioned the police get to show why they need that helicopter.

From the point of view of punishment - they've no money to pay for the damages, and if you lock them up that's costing taxpayers to keep them.

But yeah some of the punishments seem odd especially when you compare what was handed out to the Co-op driver for what was basically assault.

Orphi said...

My beef is not so much with the TV producers (they're just trying to make a little money). What worries me is why criminals aren't being harshly punished. I mean, isn't the whole idea to stop them (or anybody else) from doing the same again?

(As for costing the taxpayer money, most of these guys are probably on benefits anyway…)