G.B. ENGLAND. In response to past violence on the streets of Britain, British police are fast changing. Instead of the image of the avuncular bobby on the "beat" elite Special Patrol Units are being formed in each police division, highly mobile and trained weekly in the use of firearms, and drilled in the use of riot control equipment and the managment of street violence. No longer the passive force they used to be, Britain's police are becoming a highly technological force with the use of sophisticated computer networks, and specialised electronic methods of crime detection. This has provoked in Britain a vigourous debate, questioning whether the direction they are going is in the fact the right one. People argue that this new highly agressive form of policing is provoking more of the type of street violence which it seeks to dispel.

Members of the Manchester Tactical Aid Group arrive on the scene of a stabbing in the city center during a Saturday night fight. 1981.