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Policing In The UK and The USA Needs a Complete Overhaul: Nothing Less Would Suffice
A riposte to a nonsensical article by the Argumentative Penguin
David Simon is one of the greatest writers alive.
Anyone who has seen Homicide: life on the streets, The Wire or We Own This City would readily attest to the man’s extraordinary genius.
These shows depict police officers not as the mainstream media would like you to believe but as multi-dimensional, profoundly flawed and complex individuals.
It is through the depiction of these folks charged with serving and protecting the public that we start to have an idea of what we are truly up against as members of polite (and civilized) society.
In Homicide, we meet the Tim Bayliss —Frank Pembleton’s partner, who had murdered a criminal in cold blood —something to which he later confessed.
And Bayliss’s actions were by no means isolated; Those who have seen Homicide will clearly recognize this.
By the time The Wire came on to our screens from 2002–2008, we were treated to a powerful treatise detailing the role of successive elected representatives politicizing the business of policing, thereby undermining the work of those dedicated to keeping the streets safe.