Brits Crack Down on Computer-Abusing Police

LONDON—The Big Brother known as England has been battling with negligible success the proliferation of pornography for many years, even, it appears, within the ranks of its police. New figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a relatively high number of law enforcement employees have been disciplined over the past five years for misusing official computers.

“A total of 2,383 employees have been investigated for computer misuse since 2005,” reports the Sun, “and the number of people caught breaking the rules is increasing annually.”

In fact, the paper says the number of investigations has increased more than 50 percent in just three years, from 398 in 2005 to 600 in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available.

“It was also revealed that some 30 pornographic pictures and videos were found stored on a police computer during a routine ICT system health check in 2008,” says the Sun.

But porn is not the only pastime of the Bobbies. It turns out social networking sites such as Facebook also are favorites of the British police, and that 10 Cheshire police workers “have been carpeted for using social networking sites.” We don’t know if by “carpeted” they mean fired or something less final, but it sounds serious enough.

The Sun also reports that critics of the police are adamant that police should stop “larking around on their computers and catch criminals instead.” If larking means something akin to fapping, we certainly agree.