Monday, September 26, 2005

Violent threats against police increasing

Violent threats against police increasing

More than one in three police officers have been threatened with violence in the last three months, according to research by Statistics Sweden for the Swedish Police Union. But despite the significant increase in threats of violence targeted at specific officers, many police authorities lack any procedures for dealing with the issue, reported Swedish Radio's Ekot programme. In response, the national police service has implemented a nationwide programme to help protect officers. "This is not like it was before, where someone shouts out a threat when they're drunk - that's part and parcel of police work," said the head of analysis at the national police service, Thord Modin. "Today they know where the police officers live, and in house raids we've found photos of officers that they've taken. It's more targeted and is designed to interfere with the justice system," Modin told Ekot.

Threats Against Police

Because several local police departments lack routines to deal with the problem, the national police have drafted a special plan. According to a police spokesman, threats have always been part of an officer’s life, but now criminals find out where officers live, and are more intent on disrupting the criminal justice system. The unions representing police officers in the Nordic countries have invited their national police chiefs and Justice Ministers to a meeting to discuss the problem.

Teen tolerance declines

A new survey suggests that Norwegian teenagers are less tolerant towards immigrants and more concerned about immigration than their parents. The amount of those who are skeptical about immigration has almost doubled in the past six years. Four of 10 teenagers questioned said they think immigrants represent "a serious threat to the national character." Their answers came in a questionnaire handed out in connection with school elections earlier this month. That's nearly double the number of teens who responded the same in a similar survey in 1999. The survey was conducted by Norwegian Social Science Data Services (Norsk samfunnsvitenskapelig datatjeneste, NSD) and is based on answers from 5,000 high school students. Boys were the most skeptical, with around half saying they agree that immigration threatens the national character. Three of 10 girls answered the same. "We have to look at this in connection with the recent years' terrorist events in London, Madrid and the US, where immigration has been tied to terrorism and terror threats," said Knud Knudsen, a sociology professor at the University of Stavanger.

1 Comments:

At September 27, 2005 12:15 AM, Blogger Mike H. said...

teratism, the point is being made about the cultural diversity and/or abuse inculcated by a representative group of immigrants, not their physical characteristics.

 

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