Officers should go it alone
15 Jan 2008
A letter from Tom Miers published in The Scotsman on 15th January ‘08
Congratulations to the police in Glasgow and Edinburgh for returning to beat policing by dedicated officers who get to know the local area and peple well (Scotsman report 14th Jan). Recent experience in the United States shows beat policing helps solve crime as well as preventing it, because crime is usually solved by someone telling the police who committed it. With that in mind, another tip our police could learn from the US is to patrol alone. A pair of policemen is prone to gossip rather than engage with the public. Splitting them up would make them more approachable and double their coverage at a stroke.