>The news media here hypes all bad news of criminals doing bad things.
>This tends to create fear in the general populace, which then tends
>to put up with being bullied around. The logic seems to be "They're
>just doing their job."
>
>(For the past decade or so, the FBI's own crime statistics show
>almost all violent crimes in the US have actually decreased. Yet a
>study has shown that the media's coverage of violent crimes has
>increased by 400 percent over the same period. Go figure.

Easy money for the media.

The law enforcement has ALOT of hoops to jump through everyday. Go to
another country like say Italy and the cops there have very, very few rules
to follow. Basically they are tougher than the criminals and have to be. I
know because I worked plenty of calls with them as a NAVY MP. Very
effective - most people never have ANY contact with the law enforcement b/c
the law deals with crime not speed traps and such.

They had several branches of police - Policia Municipale (city and
traffic), Carabinieri (state troopers and they carried Uzzi machine guns),
Guardia Finaza (customs), and a few other plain clothes departments. The
higher on the food chain they were - the more leeway they had to do their
job. If you were below their level of responsibility, they did not deal
with you. Most regualr folks never dealt with the police.

Lot's of petty crime (stealing radios out of cars) but little violent
crime. I felt safer there than I do here.

Chris Mills in TN