The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025) • Hacker News Board

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#71

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:26 PM UTC

azangru wrote: post #48

> The focus of policing is also shifting. As street crime continues to fall, more attention is directed toward protest, dissent, and the perceived risk of unrest. Does street crime in fact continue to fall? I keep hearing about bicycles getting stolen, or how in London, mobile phones get snatched. It was also common to hear how police fails to prosecute various kinds of crime (usually mentioned in contrast to how the…

Anecdote is not data. It is both true that the police absolutely suck at handling petty crime, and the Met have a fairly terrible reputation; and that more serious violent crime is much, much less of a problem in London than it used to be (and less than US cities, of course).

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#72

Post by simmerup » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

throwaway85825 wrote: post #66

simmerup wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people being arrested in the Uk are for supporting a proscribed group. A group that broke a police officers back with sledge hammers, committed multiple acts of vandalism against our military, and have tons of links to Hamas They can oppose Israel action in Palestine, they just can’t support terrorists

De facto, arresting 80 year old women for holding signs is always going to look authoritarian. They're not exactly the type to strap on a vest but we have to pretend we dont know what a terrorist looks like.

They are the type to sledgehammer police officers though apparently

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#73

Post by throwaway85825 » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #44

spacebanana7 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wins or draws on every measure of unpopularity, other than YouGov net satisfaction where Liz Truss still beats him.

It's a problem with pretty much anyone. Things are bad from a fundamental structural failings for decades, elect new person, don't see immediate turn-around, they're massively unpopular. The only way out of this is if you successfully blame $marginalised_group for the peoples problems. Or spend decades undoing the damage, but nobody ever gets decades in power.

It's because he was elected with a historically low % of the vote. Few wanted him at the election, few want him now.

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#74

Post by throwaway85825 » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #71

azangru wrote: post #48

> The focus of policing is also shifting. As street crime continues to fall, more attention is directed toward protest, dissent, and the perceived risk of unrest. Does street crime in fact continue to fall? I keep hearing about bicycles getting stolen, or how in London, mobile phones get snatched. It was also common to hear how police fails to prosecute various kinds of crime (usually mentioned in contrast to how the…

Anecdote is not data. It is both true that the police absolutely suck at handling petty crime, and the Met have a fairly terrible reputation; and that more serious violent crime is much, much less of a problem in London than it used to be (and less than US cities, of course).

[flagged]

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#75

Post by jbjbjbjb » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

That’s just the way “freedom news” is framing it.

Social movements don’t just happen from grassroots these days. They’re seeded by foreign states. A simpler solution would be require ids for social media posting. If you don’t provide an id you get a limited number of views.

And I don’t see anything wrong with a preventative system in principle, we should be able to join up social services information with policing, because we have had cases where a mass murderer has been known to multiple services.

Edit: probably not ids but a token that verifies my nationality would be enough.

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#76

Post by throwaway85825 » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

simmerup wrote: post #72

throwaway85825 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

De facto, arresting 80 year old women for holding signs is always going to look authoritarian. They're not exactly the type to strap on a vest but we have to pretend we dont know what a terrorist looks like.

They are the type to sledgehammer police officers though apparently

I find that physically unlikely.

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#77

Post by bediger4000 » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

throw310822 wrote: post #59

geremiiah wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a prevalent notion within UK establishment circles, "we are being attacked from both sides, therefore we must be right/balanced/fair", which is totally not how it works. You see used for example to defend the supposed impartiality of the BBC.

> attacked from both sides, therefore we must be right/balanced/fair", which is totally not how it works Exactly. Also because this is easily gamed by attacking the media that is already biased in your favour to get an even more favourable treatment.

I believe US conservatives have done this since 1980s. I'm not sure it was deliberate at first: there's feedback. Loudly invoking "liberal bias" in 1975 most certainly got the press to reevaluate and attempt to mitigate any bias they might have shown. That was a reward for conservatives, which probably motivated more accusations of liberal bias, another round of press accomodations. It reinforced itself.

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#78

Post by teh64 » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

azangru wrote: post #48

> The focus of policing is also shifting. As street crime continues to fall, more attention is directed toward protest, dissent, and the perceived risk of unrest. Does street crime in fact continue to fall? I keep hearing about bicycles getting stolen, or how in London, mobile phones get snatched. It was also common to hear how police fails to prosecute various kinds of crime (usually mentioned in contrast to how the…

The man who says Rishi Sunak is not English [0] might be lying? Thats crazy.

[0] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/society/2025/02/of-cou...

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#79

Post by azangru » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #71

azangru wrote: post #48

> The focus of policing is also shifting. As street crime continues to fall, more attention is directed toward protest, dissent, and the perceived risk of unrest. Does street crime in fact continue to fall? I keep hearing about bicycles getting stolen, or how in London, mobile phones get snatched. It was also common to hear how police fails to prosecute various kinds of crime (usually mentioned in contrast to how the…

Anecdote is not data. It is both true that the police absolutely suck at handling petty crime, and the Met have a fairly terrible reputation; and that more serious violent crime is much, much less of a problem in London than it used to be (and less than US cities, of course).

Sure; but the article's premise is that street crime is falling (and as a result, the police, which, presumably, has more free time on their hands, can focus on other things). Assuming petty crime is street crime, and seeing that you agree that the police suck at it, is the article's premise correct?

Re: The UK is shaping a future of precrime and dissent management (2025)

#80

Post by Aurornis » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #71

azangru wrote: post #48

> The focus of policing is also shifting. As street crime continues to fall, more attention is directed toward protest, dissent, and the perceived risk of unrest. Does street crime in fact continue to fall? I keep hearing about bicycles getting stolen, or how in London, mobile phones get snatched. It was also common to hear how police fails to prosecute various kinds of crime (usually mentioned in contrast to how the…

Anecdote is not data. It is both true that the police absolutely suck at handling petty crime, and the Met have a fairly terrible reputation; and that more serious violent crime is much, much less of a problem in London than it used to be (and less than US cities, of course).

> Anecdote is not data.

This is a situation where the data may not be capturing the reality, though.

An increasingly common tactic for decreasing crime statistics is to reduce reporting of crimes. The more difficult you make it to report a crime, the better the crime numbers look.

In one city I’m familiar with, it became so well known that reporting small crimes was a futile endeavor that people just gave up. It was common knowledge that you don’t bother calling the police unless it was a major crime. Not surprisingly, the crime statistics started to look better.