Posts by Chris Waugh
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Well well well...:
Across the country there were significant reductions in burglaries, theft, robbery and illicit drug offences, but increases in sexual assaults and domestic violence offences.
But apparently that increase isn't bad because:
In Counties Manukau, the crime rate also dropped, though recorded sexual offences climbed by 16 per cent.
Police said in a statement that this figure reflected the fact the more people were reporting sexual crimes.
"This can be considered a positive result, attributed to a higher level of trust and confidence in Counties Manukau Police officers and as a result more offences reported, rather than more offences occurring.
"In many cultures, sexual offences are considered shameful and victims may be pressured by family to not report the crimes."
Well, I hope they're right about that.
It's a pity they still have a link to that obnoxious screed in the sidebar.
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Hard News: Another Saturday Night, in reply to andin,
What’s special about saturday night that it occasions domestic violence?
Higher than normal alcohol consumption plus having been with the family all day, thanks to the traditional structure of the week? Just hazarding a guess.
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Hard News: Another Saturday Night, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
bizarre mutinae of the local cops’ daily occurrences.
They're a fractious bunch, those Timaru cops.
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Hard News: Another Saturday Night, in reply to Russell Brown,
There’s not actually anything wrong with the grammar there.
True, it's just loose phrasing leaving the tweets a bit too open to creative misinterpretation. Putting "in a distressed state" before "in Waiuku" would've fixed it just fine. But we pay our cops to police, not to write, and occasional infelicitous phrasing aside, it's a pretty informative story.
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Hard News: Another Saturday Night, in reply to Sacha,
NZ Police have been doing this on Twitter for some time on their @BetterWorkStory account. Interesting insight.
Oh, cool, guess I should find a way over the Great Firewall then.
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This little splash of pink really stood out on such a gloomy day as today.
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Hard News: Another Saturday Night, in reply to Ross Mason,
I thought Waiuku was in New Zealand?
Yup, whoever did the broadcasting doesn't seem to have the firmest grasp of the English language. There were several sentences that could've used an editor to clean them up. But whatever, it's Twitter, not my writing class.
As for broadcasting, I didn't see anything in there that would compromise their operational security, more a PR exercise to let people see what the Police's Saturday nights are like. I'm pretty sure that before they started this, they would've drawn up a protocol stating, among other things, that things like "AOS about to raid suspected p lab at 44 Yourarseisraided Street" are Not Appropriate for Twitter.
A lot of Chinese agencies, including police, judiciary, procurate and others involved in law enforcement and justice, are doing similar things on Weibo, and, surprising as it may sound given the Chinese government's well-earned reputation, many of them are actually putting really useful information out there. I'm particularly happy with how the Beijing police, traffic management and weather bureaux and the central seismology bureau are using Weibo. It'd be good to see the NZ Police expanding on this experiment - although obviously staying on Twitter rather than switching to Weibo (although a Weibo account would be good outreach, too... Hey, NZ Police, wanna pay me? I write Chinese reasonably well) - cos you never know, a little more openness and engagement with the community might just help win back a few hearts and minds. But I've spent most of the last 14 years 11,000km away, so take what I just typed with the obvious grain of salt big enough to satisfy the most hardboiled Old Beijinger.... But I remember my parents telling me if I was ever in any trouble I could ask any cop and it'd all be sweet, but now I see them in stab-proof vests, carrying pepper spray and tasers and who knows what else, and it's all a bit jarring.
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Notes & Queries: Nightingales/Bombs/Beethoven, in reply to Islander,
And I have a book that dates back to the 16th century that has survived a flood and semi-charring-
Jealous. Best I've got is a Classical Chinese grammar with a foreword by Mao Zedong.
me, I believe in the portability et al of the new tech – and keep copies in the older techs-
Agreed absolutely.
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Notes & Queries: Nightingales/Bombs/Beethoven, in reply to Hebe,
my net connection was down for weeks or days.
Yeah, that's something that worries me, the whole impermanence and fragility of all this new-fangled technological stuff. It's great when it's up and running, but one little break and.... For years I've had trouble writing Chinese by hand because of pinyin (i.e. spelling)-based IMEs on computers and cellphones, which is no big deal except, of course, what if the power goes out and I have to leave a handwritten note? And so I use handwriting input on my cellphone as much as possible, but I don't often send messages more involved than "So what time are we meeting?". And yet all the old tech is soooooo slow.
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Notes & Queries: Nightingales/Bombs/Beethoven, in reply to Hebe,
I still cannot get my head around it.
Ow, I know. And I finally can't resist the 9/11 comparison. That infamous night (as it was here) I was watching a Wim Wenders film (__The End of Violence__, IIRC) with a new colleague when, 5 minutes short of the end, another colleague banged on my door and informed us that Phoenix TV was reporting live from NY news of an airliner hitting one of the towers. We decided to finish the film then discovered what had just happened. About an hour later the colleague I'd been watching with went to her apartment downstairs and suddenly thought, "Better check on Bill" and knocked on his door. He was sitting there all confused as to why suddenly all his friends were sending out emails to say they were safe and checking on the others. He'd been working in the WTC just two months earlier, but the colleague who'd told us about the situation hadn't thought to wander three floors lower and inform Bill. And another colleague was from NYC and her dad was an elevator mechanic. We had two very shell-shocked-looking people wandering around campus for a while. But yeah, the ability to get updates on loved ones health and safety so quick or let your loved ones know your situation certainly seems to help.
