The U.K.’s Misguided Effort to Criminalize Protests

In the introduction to her 2013 book, “Policing Protest,” the Italian scholar Donatella della Porta described the stereotypical image of a British policeman as a “friendly bobby giving directions to a foreign tourist.” That amiable, unarmed, neighborly figure, she noted, was emblematic of a traditional policing style in the United Kingdom that had once been seen as a model by many agencies elsewhere in Europe. Today, the prevalent image of British security forces could not be more different. On March 12, a London Metropolitan Police officer was charged for the kidnap and murder of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, an […]