It had to happen. Sooner or later some criminal justice entrepreneur would consign the "broken windows" theory of policing into the dustbin of history.
Broken Windows, remember, is the brilliant concept developed by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling and famously implemented in New York City by Joseph Bratton. The idea was to arrest vandals and turnstile jumpers because it usually turned out that they had outstanding warrants, sometimes for serious crimes like rape and murder.
But that's old hat now. The British cops, as reported by Simon Heffer, have now come up with "disabled parking space" policing. Heffer's source, a "chief constable" or in US terms, police chief,
told his officers to question the drivers of every car improperly parked in a supermarket disabled parking space, for this reeled in huge quantities of villains. The vehicles concerned were almost always illegal in some way, and the occupants often wanted on bail warrants, or for more serious crimes.
Talk about a natural. Now the cops can just sit in the Starbucks built into most every supermarket, drinking coffee and eating a don... --er make that a freshly baked organic muffin--and just check out the license plate of every car that parks in the nearby handicapped parking space.
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