Wednesday 7 August 2013

Detroit Math

In public information....the city of Detroit will admit that they have around 2,030 cops hired for the city.  But the city also admits.....that roughly only one-third of this group....actually patrols the city....day and night.

So you sit and do the math here.

Roughly 630 guys are around, doing day, night, and weekend duty.  At any one time....there might be one hundred cops moving around the city.  I doubt if there's more than eighty to a hundred guys actually on patrol at night.

The remaining 1,400 guys?  Well, that's not clear.

Some are likely detectives.  Some are management.  Some are HR.  Some are payroll clerks.  Some are jail management folks.  Some are doing duty at the city hall.  Some are pulling hours over at various schools.

The problem with this math equation for Detroit....is that half of these 1,400 'other' folks....probably aren't doing anything worth discussion.  They attend meetings, check up on new cops, and spend time talking to the city council.

For years and years....New Orleans had fake cops on the force, and checks going out monthly.  For some reason, I have the feeling that Detroit has the same issue.

The Norwegian Story

Back in July 2011.....Norwegians went through a mass killing with Anders Breivik....seventy-seven folks dead....the vast majority being teenagers at a island retreat for a particular political party.  The intent of the murders?  Breivik claims he took out an entire generation of this dominant political party, and that the country will drift to the right in the coming years.

The competency of Breivik?  That was challenged, and he passed every single evaluation with flying colors.

The cops quickly took possession of the guy, and the country went through a one-year process of a court case.  The most they could give him?  Twenty-one years.  Justice was served as best as the law is written.  The judge did one slap on the hands of the guy in the end.....no use of the internet for the twenty-one years.

This week, Breivik has sent an application form to the University of Oslo.  There's a bit of anxiety over this.  Some Norwegians don't want him to have access to public resources.  Some don't want him to have any public view.

For the university, it's an odd problem.  They have encountered jail requests in the past, and worked around the issues by using internet access and having an occasional visit by an instructor.  In this case, someone would have to approach the court and have the lack of internet access revoked.  I'm taking a humble guess here that no one with the university cares to challenge or force a change to the judge's order.

What would he study?  Breivik hasn't indicated that part of the deal.

Normally, the public doesn't ever challenge who should or shouldn't go onto university in Norway.  Some comments in the press indicate that people have a particular opinion in this case that such resources used for Breivik....would be a total waste.  In the end, I suspect they have to allow him access to the internet, and maybe that was the original intent of pushing for a university application.