What’s the police:criminal ratio in your town?

Myself, I cannot say. My police department seems to have roughly thirty street-going officers (from what I can tell from their org chart) for roughly 350 serious crimes in 2004. How many of those crimes were committed by repeat offenders, I have no idea.

I have to say, I think my police department’s doing a wonderful job. Outgunned by perhaps ten to one, they’re kicking ass.

But.

When a bus driver was beaten unconscious by two disgruntled passengers a month ago, no-one intervened in time to prevent said bus from plowing into a parked car.

When some asshole stabbed a teenager at a local transit station back in April, no-one intervened in time to keep said teenager’s skin intact and keep him out of the hospital. Never mind that my city has recently commissioned a number of “transit cops” with full municipal authority (and carrying full-sized Glocks, as far as I can tell — I hope they’re actually loaded).

Never mind that Harper’s Conservatives are trying to impose more, um, imposing sentences upon violent criminals.

If you’ll grant me a jaunt across the forty-ninth parallel for a moment, I’ll cite a remarkable no-shitter from California’s State Bar:

Some batterers respect [restraining] orders; some do not. In some instances, seeking a restraining order may put you in greater danger of significant bodily injury or death.

So, people prone to violence don’t necessarily become gentle peace-loving individuals when a court tells them to do so. How dare they?

Further:

High Court to Rule on Power of Protective Orders

In particular:

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate who is viewed as one of the swing votes on the court, appeared to side with Castle Rock on another of the town’s arguments: that affording due process rights to those whose protective orders are violated
would set a precedent that would impose new burdens on state and local government.
[...]
Lenora Lapidus, director of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, argued the point during a press briefing before the trial. “Without systems of accountability in place, women and children are subject to the whims of local police departments and may suffer grievous harm from their abusers,” she said.

Overturning the lower court would deprive victims of a tool that serves several valuable purposes: In addition to deterring crime, restraining orders alert the police to certain individuals deemed by the court to be potentially dangerous; apply a lower threshold for the arrest of individuals who violate protective orders; provide a record that can be used in future court proceedings; and help perpetrators understand that their actions are wrong, according to the National Center for Victims of Crime.

“If the law’s claimed purpose to protect is a fraud, we should know that,” Gonzales said in a statement. “We should know that we are on our own when someone is out to murder our children.”

Yeah, we’re on our own.

I have run across, but cannot find to cite, a number of articles which report that victims of crime have sued their cities and states for failing to protect them, and have lost. Unless and until I find these citations, you should probably regard that as heresay, but I think it corroborates what I’ve cited above. Basically, I don’t believe that your police department has or feels any obligation to protect you personally — if anyone is obliged to do so, it is you yourself.

As John Farnam (and other notables) will tell you, the best ways to stay out of trouble are to:

• Stay away from dangerous people
• Stay away from dangerous places
• Not do dangerous things

I imagine that if most of us realized that we’re the only thing between ourselves and a sucking chest wound (screwdrivers are a bitch, and not even remotely illegal to carry), we’d be a bit more circumspect and fewer of us would die.

Otherwise, it sure makes me feel safer to live in a place where only cops and criminals are allowed to carry weapons.