Hacker News Reader

Comment by jack_riminton | Hacker News Reader

For those unaware the "City of London" is in fact a small part of London, what you might call downtown, and they have their own police force. fwiw they're regarded as a very competent police force

View on HN

> fwiw they're regarded as a very competent police force

That's not at all the reputation they have. They've been acting as an extension of the copyright lobby for years:

• https://torrentfreak.com/new-uk-police-unit-announces-two-ar...

• https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvn4nw/cops-arrest-3-people-...

• https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news/city-of-london/news/...

There are probably hundreds of instances of them doing stuff like the above, that was just the results from a quick search.

The City is also unique in that businesses represent the majority of the voters in its council elections.

Moreover, the council is also the police authority, which could explain a more active copyright infringement force.

To be fair, a police force doing stuff you don't like doesn't necessarily mean that they're incompetent at doing those things

Sure. But their reputation is pretty much "police force for hire" rather than anything to do with competence.

But isn't that what police are? I don't see a ton of volunteer police...

That's a funny way of looking at it.

Generally a "police force for hire" is more associated with corruption, or were you not picking up on that?

It’s not a conspiracy; the City of London police, alongside normal local duties, have a national responsibility for many kinds of economic and cyber crime.

This almost certainly comes from long experience investigating fraud and other financial crimes amongst the businesses and people based there, to a degree and level of complexity not found in other regions of the UK.

For instance they host Action Fraud for the entire country.

If you want to talk about enforcement priorities, contact your PCC, or better yet, right now, your local candidates.

Personal opinion may vary

It's more like an autonomous enclave free of any control by Parliament. The Guardian plumbs the depths once in a while, such as in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corpor...

It's not the Wild West, the laws of the UK Parliament apply to people and companies in the City.

In that piece Monbiot tries to blame the Corporation for the 2008 crash, which is laughable.

This article and others say the Corporation pretty much does as it pleases. There's a "conspiracy theory" that says that the City instigated Brexit to avoid EU jurisdiction.

You are confusing the City and the Corporation. It's a common mistake.

The City is not an autonomous enclave free from Parliamentary control.

Right, my bad, we're talking past each other.

The Corporation is some kind of acquisitive out-of-democratic-control alien dropped into the middle of London finance. OTOH the City is just another rich men's club I guess. Nice that its democracy for company-entities.

GCP Grey on the city of London: https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc

Map Men on London's 32 boroughs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daeB46Z4fjs

As a londoner, even I learned several things from that video. And it's done by an American!

He's american, but moved to the UK to study and then become a Physics teacher in London. I think he's been London based for all of his YouTube career.

apart from the financial crimes unit...

fwiw they're regarded as a very competent police force

What makes them different?

The City of London is very small, safe (quick look online returns that the crime rate is "73% lower than London and 67% lower than national average"), and very rich, and obviously right in the middle of a top world city. So I am guessing that their police force is well resourced, able to attract "top talent", and not bogged down by anti-social and petty crime.

It's also mostly an office district. Not many people live there. It's mostly a ghost town at night and weekends.

I'm always suspicious of low crime rates - often it means people don't bother reporting crimes as they know nothing will happen.

IE, if I get robbed in the City of London is it even worth calling the police?

Yes it is, a friend had their laptop stolen, the police tracked down the offenders within 2 hours and returned the items. What they also don’t tell you is that it’s a dystopian panopticon and runs on a slightly different legal system than the rest of the U.K.

Impressive! TBH I'd rather that dystopia than the one where people are constantly having their things stolen with zero recourse.

Why would there be a difference in reporting in the City vs the rest of London?

The City Police have a very, small patch and little violent crime, but are geared up to deal with IRA/ISIS-type threats. Part of this means they have surveillance coverage of virtually the entire areas. It also mean that they can get anywhere very, very quickly.

Well it’s a reputation, so it’s hard to quantify. But anecdotally I’ve heard from numerous people who had dealings with that they were very competent (compared to most British forces presumably).

I’ve also heard that their average level of policeman is more educated , ie many holding degrees, masters etc. I presume this must be due to the nature of the work they’re most known for ie combatting complex fraud, organised crime etc

They have about 1 officer per 10 people living there which helps quite a bit

For reference, the Met has 33k officers for 10m people

There is one very important caveat about the population of the City though.

Whilst there are only 8,600 residents, there are apparently over 600,000 commuters working there every day.

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/about-the-city-of-l...

Because policing is all about who's resident in the territory covered?

Good point, bad tone :)

Is that what I said? Nope

Erm, yep? You compared #officers/#residents for City & Met police; I'm saying that's irrelevant. City has much lower #residents/#crime, or / money changing hands, or / footfall on an average business day, etc.

Their focus is more on complex financial crimes, so they're a bit better educated than your typical cop.

They have different branding from the rest of the police forces!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com