Wednesday, September 02, 2009

AMERICAN STYLE POLICING FOR ISRAEL? 2

AHARONOVITCH: NO MUNICIPAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS

The Jerusalem Post
September 2, 2009

Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch expressed strong opposition to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's announcement on setting up municipal police forces throughout the country. Netanyahu called to set up such forces earlier this week.
 
"A municipal police force will not exist. As the appointed minister, I will not allow this to happen," said Aharonovitch Wednesday, in a special Knesset plenum discussion initiated by Kadima to address the rising wave of violence in Israel.

The public security minister stressed that in his view, municipal policing would need to be established within the existing police infrastructure and not as independent bodies. "Municipal police will not be established and will not exist within the Israel Police," he said.

On Monday, one day after a 50-year-old man was stabbed to death in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said in a discussion that Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Aharonovitch would travel abroad in order to learn how to deal with the rising wave of violence in Israel. The prime minister also said that he would like to establish a municipal police force.

Netanyahu said in the discussion that "the question is what exactly they have done in other countries in the world with municipal police departments where crime has decreased."

"What are the characteristics common to these places where this process has succeeded? There are seven cities in the US which have demonstrably reduced crime, and all of them took similar steps" the prime minister added. 

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