The State Of Police

Bear With Me On This, We're Going Off-Mental Map Today

Thanks to 'Paul Warburg', 'Mediazona', the BBC and '2000AD' for background information, and once again I'm not sure how long this Intro will be, especially as it's intended to skirt between reality and fiction and the narrow demarcator where they overlap.  Art!

     This, as you should surely know, is Judge Dredd, 22nd Century lawman of the future, where they don't bother with an enormously bloated, extremely laggardly  and hideously expensive legal system.  Ol' Stony Face is judge, jury and quite  frequently executioner as well.  Thus 22nd century television programming is not infested with legal dramas, which is a definite bonus.

     Here a slight aside.  Conrad is still waiting for the promised 'Mega-City One' television program that was promised to arrive in 2021.  Still stuck in development hell, one presumes.  Art!

Artwork by the incomparable Rob Smith

     Here are some statistics about the Big Meg - which is always always always seen as the first established Mega-City with the first Judge System in place.  Total population: 800 million, at least before the Sovs do a lot of urban planning with nukes.  Number of Judges: 65,000.  Thus, one Judge for every 12,000 citizens.  No wonder they wanted to try introducing the Mechanismo version.  Art!

A robot Judge.  What can possibly go wrong?

     The rationale for the Judge system is that the Mega-cities are enormously overcrowded, incredibly stressful and dangerously lawless environments, where only a new kind of policing would work.  The Big Meg leads the way in being primus inter pares*, you might say.

     Please note that today's title is not so much about a police state, which Mega-city One arguably is, but more about the nature of law enforcement, and our focus in this Intro is upon - 

     Mordorvia!  Yes, I bet that surprised you.

     You see, one of the underlying buttresses of Putinpot's dictatorship is the police force, which can be relied upon to uphold the Rule Of Putin, not the rule of law.  Notionally, it is 900,000 strong, making their police to perp citizen ratio 1:160.  Art!

'Politsiya'

     HOWEVER - finally that word! - Conrad tracked down an item from the BBC back in October 2023, which he remembered as quite an eye-opener.  The Beeb's correspondent spoke to current and ex-policemen, all rendered anonymous lest they were bestowed a sentence of ten years in the prison colony.  Police were leaving the service in drives, which is even worse than droves.  What were the reasons?  Art!

     One police major complained that wages hadn't increased, but inflation had, and he had trouble simply making ends meet.  Others were leaving or had left for jobs as taxi drivers or couriers, which paid far better and were far less stressful.  Technically they might then be liable for conscription, as police were exempt, but if you're raking it in as a cabby then you have bribe money and to spare.  

     This exodus from the ranks means additional work for those remaining, such as having to work 16 hour shifts and the lack of back-room support staff means police officers having to do lots and lots of paperwork.  Judge Dredd would sympathise.  Not only that, a lot of the policing involves people denouncing each other to settle scores and disputes, such as 'she has curtains like the Ukrainian flag'.  Art!

This will be all the rage in 50 years

     This disenchantment with the police is not new in Modern-day Mordor, and - gasp! - it precedes the Special Idiotic Operation.  Back in 2021 there was a shortfall of 90,000 police, which increased to 152,000 by 2024, and is now at 170,000 as of mid-2025.  

     Obviously - of course!- the SIO has made things worse, as young men who like uniforms and guns are siphoned off into the army.  The official statistics are that 25% of police positions are vacant, BUT this refers to towns and cities and the vacancy rate in rural areas is as high as 75%.  After all, why bother slogging it out as an underpaid Politsiya when you can get a year's salary signing as a contract soldier?  Art!

Er - well, yes, there is Death and all his friends

     So what happens if there is a dangerous shortfall in police numbers?  Why, as in Central and South America, you get the rise of vigilante organisations to fill the gap.  In Mordorvia this is embodied in "Ruffian Community", who now have the distinction of having murdered an Armenian, which they have gotten away with scot-free during breaking and entering their flat.  No police prosecution, because they help the police carry out anti-immigrant sweeps, thanks to said police shortages.  Normally these vigilante organisations go through a honeymoon period of being relatively law-abiding, but RC seems to have made a short-cut to outright criminality here.  Art!

There are no Nazis in Ruffia.  No sir.  None whatsoever.  Nil.  Nought.  Honest.

    Well well I've only got about half the Intro done that I wanted to, and am going to have to finish here for today or we'll have an Intro 1,500 words long, which I'd be quite happy with but you the audience probably not so much.  We will be getting back to Ol' Stony Face, too. 

     
Penny Wise, Pound The Counter

 - and see what you get.  This is either Malicious Compliance or Petty Revenge, you can decide.  The tale was related by City Hall Urban Grunt - and they did really describe themselves as a 'grunt' in that they were the very lowest of employees on the federal payroll - hereafter CHUG.  They were in charge of taking payments for property taxes back in the days of King Paper, where citizens would need to pay piffling property charges to remain in legal possession of their 18 square feet of allotment or similar.  Art!

CHUG is busy beavering away inside

    Late payment of these taxes incurred a penalty payment, which might be cleared by sending in a cheque - remember those? - or paying cash in person.  Enter Ticked Off Strident Homeowner, hereafter TOSH, who walked up  to CHUG, slammed a small medicine bottle on the counter and loudly declaimed "I hope whoever sent this <insert swear> bill has to count these <swear> pennies!"

     Fate smiled upon him, for it was CHUG who had processed the due payment, as they saw their own signature on his receipt.

     MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE ACTIVATED

     CHUG informed him that she needed to check on whom processed the bill, and gaily skipped off to their archive, where she spent at least 10 minutes confirming what she already knew.  Art!

Looks like money-laundering to me

 
     She then waltzed gaily back to TOSH, happily informed it was her and took another 10 minutes to count, re-count and re-re-count his -

     39 pennies.

     20 minutes after slamming his coins down on the counter, TOSH shuffled out of city hall, purple-faced with rage and embarrassment and avoiding eye contact with anyone, especially CHUG as CHUG was spitefully pleasant and smiley the whole time.

"The War Illustrated Edition 20th July 1945"

There's well over half the volume to go, with the Second Unpleasantness only having less than three weeks left to run, so one wonders, with a certain degree of curiosity, what else they will cover?  Art!

     This is a Mosquito undergoing extempore repairs in Burma, near Arakan, before it goes out again to make life miserable for the Japanese, whom probably preferred the malarial version to one mounting four 20 mm cannon.

You What?

There are a few things that make one stop and stare, and this is one.

     Conrad thinks this might be biting off a tad more than can be masticated.

     It did put me in mind of a sci-fi novel I read decades ago, "The Last Day Of Creation" which involved time-travel to before the Mediterranean filled up with water.  Art!

     No, I have no idea what that cover is about either.

And with that, I am done.  DONE!

* Sorry for using the zombie language.  "First among equals"