Policing the Police, Vol. 2

By Duncan Campbell

Year: 1980 | Pub: John Calder

Computer technology and surveillance, the highly controversial Special Patrol Group and the increasing tendency of the police to take decisions with wide-ranging political consequences independently of the elected government of the day. These are the three vital areas of modern policing discussed in this second volume. Drawing on publicly available information, Duncan Campbell puts up an alarming picture of the extent to which police records have been computerized, the nature of the sometimes highly speculative information recorded, the way in which postal or driving licence codes, for example, can be used to key into data-information banks of a more dubious nature and the extent to which this transformation has been effected with a minimum of explanation or public discussion.