(plagarised and modified for the new zealand market..originally from canada.)
In new zealand we have one police officer for every 570 people. about 60% of those cops are on front line duties (on patrol) which is where most of the harrasssing is done. the rest are on non-harrassing depts that do not allow them contact with day-to-day innocents.
at any given moment, 20% of the front liners are on duty and available for official harrassing duties. roughly, that means that one cop is responsible for harrassing 4760 people in a shift.
toss in commercial, business and tourism that attracts people from other areas, one cop could have upwards of 10000 people to harrass in a 10 hour shift.
a 10 hour shift has 36000 seconds in it. on a busy day, this allows 1 second to find someone to harrass, 1 second to harrass them, then 1 second to finish the donut he was eating. this is not an easy task, , and day in day out, cops find it just too tiring. what cops do is utilise tools to help narrow down those who need harrassing the most:
1. THE PHONE. people call up and point out things that cause cops to focus their harassment. 'my neighbour is beating his wife' is a code phrase used often. this means they'll come out and put on a special harrassment display. another popular one is 'there's a guy breaking into a house' or 'so and so is growing cannabis' the harrassment teams then get into action.
2. CARS. there are special cops assigned to harrass people who like to drive. theY especially like to harrass people who drive fast, have no licence and the like. it's lots of fun picking them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. sometimes the harrassment is even more fun if there are drugs in the car, the driver is drunk, or there is an outstanding warrant to arrest.
3. RUNNERS. some people take off running at the sight of a police officer. nothing is more satisfying as running after them like a beagle after a rabbit. when they are caught they can then be harrassed for hours.
4. STATUTES. when cops don't have the PHONE or CARS or RUNNERS and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give them ideas for reasons to harrass the public. they are called 'statutes' and have 'laws' in them. they spell out all sorts of things that people can be really messed with. after reading the statute, the cop can then just drive around looking for someone violating the list of offences, and harrass them. Simple!
cops seem to have a never ending supply of people who just beg to be harrassed. and why? because the people who pay their wages say they can. next time you see a cop, give them a 1 finger wave just to say hello - i'm sure they can find a reason to harrass you.
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Originally Posted by marty
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