Of increasing concern to some members of the public in recent years is the noticeable militarisation of the police as evidenced by their riot gear reminiscent of fictional characters in the Star War movies.
Such uniforms have as a primary objective the intimidation of members of the public most of whom are law abiding. Unlike many other countries, we do not have a history of having to deal with thousands of potential and sometimes actual violent demonstrators.
This trend is unwelcome not because the police are not to be properly attired to handle crowd disturbances, but because there is a sense of overkill (no pun intended) as was seen by those officers who locked down the vicinity of the magistrate courts two days ago with some officers even wearing ski masks.
We often hear the term “best practice” these days, so we have followed what obtains in many large US cities today and which had its genesis in the use of surplus military garb and equipment such as armoured personnel vehicles, some of which we have ordered.
If only we can see a positive correlation between the use of such scary-looking attire and the reduction of criminal activity, then we may be comforted, but unfortunately the evidence does not support this.
What we have missed is that the US experience in recent instances following on the killings of black Americans by white police officers which have pitted large numbers of protestors against overly garbed police officers, have drawn widespread negative comments from a wide cross section of their communities.
This may be a case of where “best practice” is questionable, and let us not forget that more and more military-styled vehicles are being ordered either by or for the police.
Annette Singh