by Jon Lackman | 17 January 2007 | Uncategorized
From the Guardian (second item on page): “The Metropolitan Police Authority recently told its art and antiquities squad, which now employs only four full-time officers, that it would be dissolved unless it becomes 50% self-financing by 2008. As a result, the unit is trying a radical new tack: recruiting curators and art historians to work as special constables. The scheme, dubbed Art Beat, is set to launch in April. Detective sergeant Vernon Rapley told the Art Newspaper that officers are ‘not receiving as much information as we would like from the art trade’ – hence the need to recruit from museums such as the Victoria & Albert and the British Museum in London, as well as from university departments and insurance companies. Helen Kennedy of the specialist crimes department said yesterday: ‘Some museum and Art Loss Register employees are due to start their specialist training at the end of January. Successful candidates will have full police powers.’”
