Professional Security magazine editor Mark Rowe writes in the May 2015 print issue:
Just as patrolling soldiers will be suspicious if everything looks too quiet and peaceful – why aren’t any children playing, where are the old folk that usually sit outside? – so it was suspicious last month to hear so little, if anything, said about crime during the 2015 election campaign (page 46). While you can argue that we have more pressing things to talk about – jobs, schools, hospitals – the election campaign has dragged on for so many weeks, there’s been time to air everything.
Why not crime then? Perhaps it’s gone out of fashion. Perhaps crime really has gone down and it’s not such a problem; and the opposition parties don’t want to give credit. At a recent Midlands Fraud Forum meeting I saw an interesting experiment; the speaker asked the audience to raise their hand if they had been a victim of ‘traditional’ crime, or an attempt, in the last year; and then the same for cyber-crime. More had suffered from cyber, or an attempt. Crime is still going on, only invisibly online, and it begs the question whether the politicians are only guilty of ignorance; or they know perfectly well that cyber-crime is under-reported, and cynically trumpet anyway that recorded crime is down.
As ever, life has gone on meanwhile. I visited Leicester in the days before the re-internment of King Richard III (page 23). I couldn’t help thinking that the man – and indeed the Princes in the Tower that he probably had murdered – needed better security, such as more close protection at the Battle of Bosworth. The queue to the visitor centre, to learn about the remarkable archaeology and forensic science work into the skeleton, stretched far along the street outside the cathedral. When I went to a small exhibition there last year, what stuck in my mind was – there’s no nice way to put this – how the dead king’s wounds included a sword put up his backside, presumably to humiliate the corpse. It’s a useful reminder that compared with those past centuries, Britain is a far, far less violent country.
Kings could look after themselves. The most vulnerable cannot. After numerous court cases, and the uncomfortable suspicion that far more sexual exploitation of young people is going on than is known, the authorities are seeking to raise awareness. Security staff, whether in shopping centres or hotels or door staff in pubs, can play their part by reporting anything that doesn’t look right (page 41). Or, if coming across someone – boy or girl – self-harming, Security or any staff ought to respond with compassion (page 42). Last but not least, a first mention in the magazine of Snoop Dog (page 52). How cool is that – assuming cool is a cool word still?!
