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Cardboard police |
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Score
70%
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88 votes,
Feasibility
0%
Originality
0%
Humour
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In Japan, as a warning to motorists, there are concrete policemen at some accident black spots. Likewise, the introduction of cardboard cut-out policemen has reduced speeding offences by 33% around Copenhagen, and the experiment may be extended to other police work.
The cut-outs have been placed beside notorious speeding blackspots near the Danish capital. Now they are to be erected at crossings where drivers often jump lights. From time to time they will be replaced by real officers.
In Bradford, West Yorkshire, some shops and garages have erected plywood police officers in an attempt to reduce shop-lifting - despite protests from the local police, who think that their plywood representatives will be widely mocked and will further reduce public confidence in the police. In Tyne and Wear, shoplifting plummeted by 70% in a year-long trial, when retailers installed cardboard cut-out policemen. And in Skokie, Illinois, USA, Anatomical Chart Co. are selling a full-size police mannequin for $375 - 'the urban scarecrow, the latest weapon in the war on crime' - which police place in otherwise empty patrol cars to deter lawbreakers, such as drivers intent on breaking the speed limit.
'A full-size police mannequin for $375 - the urban scarecrow'
Adapted from pieces in the Star (USA) monitored for the Institute by Roger Knights, from pieces in the Guardian by John Ezard and in the Times by Quentin Cowdry, and in the Economist; and from an item submitted by Michael Mc Sweeney.
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