G.B. ENGLAND. London. In response to past violence in 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 management 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 vigorous debate, questioning whether the direction they are going is in 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.

PSRD (Police Scientific and Research Development Branch) newest department is exploring methods of cleaning poor quality video recordings. Video is now widely used for security in banks, factories and shops but is often badly maintained. The lab has already had some success, as it is able to demonstrate with an hillarious tape of a smash and grab raid on an electrical shop. Originally indecipherable, the "cleaned" tape show three panic stricken men racing backwards and forwards, carrying televisions in their arms, bumping into each other and tripping over trailing cables. 1981.