Round the World
| Published date | 01 December 1966 |
| Date | 01 December 1966 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X6603901208 |
| Subject Matter | Round the World |
•
Bound
the
World
Items appearing in police magazmes
all
o,er
the world.
TOUGHEST PATROL
An
account of the policing
of
Msinga district, .. the toughest patroJling
assignment"
in the Republic of
South
Africa, is given in the September
issue of
SAARP,
the
magazine of the
South
African Police.
The
district, which extends
for
726
square
miles is policed
from
three
stations
on
its periphery.
Tribal
trouble is
the
main
reason
for
the need
for
police patrols, the old tribal
encounters-which
usually resulted only in a
few sore heads and bruised
bodies-having
developed into personal
and
family vendettas, usually involving shooting
and
killing.
The
patrols today
are assisted by helicopters since even a
Land
Rover
can penetrate only a
few miles into the reserve.
There
are, moreover, no visible tracks
and
not
even horses
can
negotiate the
mountain
slopes.
Nor
does
it
appear
that
the
inhabitants
of the reserve are cooperative
with
the
police patrols,
and
locating suspects has become an almost im-
possible task.
The
Bantu women have a certain
shout
which they use to
warn of the
approach
of the police
and
this
shout
is taken up along the
ridges, enabling any suspects to
make
their escape inland.
At
night the
same service is provided by
the
kraal
dogs which begin barking when the
patrols are still several hundreds of yards away.
The
patrols do
not
normally take rations with them, the
aim
being to
complete the
patrol
in a single day. Fifteen miles there
and
back across
country
is
not
unusual as a day's march.
BREATH
AND
ALCOHOL
The
use of
portable
breath
testing
equipment
as a preliminary check on
the alcohol consumption of drivers is considered vital
for
law enforcement
by Prof. Casier of the Universite de
Grand,
Belgium, a country where
blood/alcohol levels to be used as evidence in
court
must be obtained from
blood samples.
Writing
In
the International Police Chronicle Prof. Casier states that such
equipment
is ..
indispensable"
for the detection of alcohol concentrations
ranging
from
80 mg./lOO mi. (the proposed limit
for
this country)
and
150
mg./lOO mi. Amongst
other
countries
the
U.S.A.,
Germany,
Switzerland,
Japan,
Czechoslovakia
and
France
make
use of this form of preliminary
testing.
Prof. Casier points
out
that
a
breath
test
taken
at the time of an acci-
dent
gives,
for
small alcohol doses, a
much
more
accurate idea of the
degree of intoxication
than
the clinical methods used by the doctor who
may
see the suspect anything up to two
hours
later.
GOOD SAMARITANS
A
claim
that
the
State of California is the first in the United States
to have introduced a
form
of
compensation
for
injuries resulting
from
aiding in the apprehension of offenders or the preventing of offences is
made
by Mr. Alan Cranston,
that
State's Controller, in the American
magazine Police.
The
law setting up
the
scheme is now just over ayear
old.
The
first payment, on
May
3, this year, was
made
to a
man
who had
fractured his right
hand
when he captured a ..
prowler"
in the yard of a
neighbour's home.
The
award-$269.6o--was
made
in respect of
that
part
of his medical expenses
not
covered by insurance. Awards must be
approved
by the local law enforcement agency, the Attorney General's
office
and
the
Board
of
Control.
619 December 1966
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