Couple of stories that connect to the riots in England, flash mobs in Philadelphia, and the general topic of law and order in the 21st Century.
The New York Times reported on the transformation of Los Angeles’ police department. Former LA police chief Bill Bratton is now doing some consulting work for the British government, and the story goes into some detail about how he was able to change the reputation of LA’s police by improving operations through technology and building closer ties to the community in order to build trust and rapport.
CNN reports on how flash mobs – the “get together and break stuff and beat people up” kind rather than the “let’s perform an opera in the middle of the train station” kind – are not just a problem in big cities like Philadelphia, which seems to have become the national capital of criminal flash mobs. Social networks and mobile devices make it easy for crowds to develop even in smaller towns like Germantown, Maryland. So police forces are starting to realize that they need to reach out to virtual communities as well. It’ll be interesting to see how the police develop techniques to monitor and communicate with social networks – and how people develop techniques to elude them.