More Food for Thought

We've been following the comments in a couple thread and the "Food for Thought" one is producing a bit of well thought out dialogue. Here's a little more to keep it going - Firstly, we took no position on GPS. We tried to appear neutral on the issue and frame it in a manner that would provoke discussion. Personally, we think it can be a tool for good or evil (good being efficient police work, evil being bosses using it to pick on people). Note the words "pick on."

We were aware that the Fire Department trucks have been equipped with GPS for years. Their reasoning is that in the event of a large structure fire, they needed to be able to see where and what type of equipment was set up - and that makes sense. They also need to be able to cover the rest of the city efficiently in the event that 50 pieces of apparatus are concentrated at one location. Point taken.

Same thing with Streets & Sanitation. Yes, they are about the most politically connected of all departments, but when it snows, they have to get the streets clean and GPS makes sure that each plow is following it's route, in it's assigned ward and making the required number of passes to keep traffic flowing.

Police work is "random patrol" some of the time and "directed patrol" other times. Is GPS something that would assist in directed patrol? Sure. Random patrol? Only in the sense that it could be used to make sure you were in your assigned area. You have a great deal of freedom in a car - no one is looking over your shoulder - which coincidently is also the problem - no one is telling you what to do. You can take the initiative on certain problems or you can drive around burning city gas.

In our opinion, manpower shortages need to be addressed first before they try to slap a GPS band-aid on the whole situation. But we aren't holding our breath assuming they'll do it.