Senior police officers from the UK and US are meeting in California to swap ideas on techniques of policing. They will also sign a memorandum committing them to working together on key areas of crime and terrorism.
 Some groups say the UK has taken too much advice from the US |
But what good can co-operation be with a country where murder rates and gun crime levels far outstrip anywhere in Western Europe? What can British officers hope to learn from a country where two million people reside in prison?
For starters, the UK can learn how to deal with spiralling gun crime, gang warfare and rampant drug trafficking, according to Bill Bratton, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
He said: "You are 10 to 20 years, or a generation, behind us in the experiences that we have gone through.
"That's good news for you because you have the opportunity to learn from our successes and failures."
Mr Bratton, along with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, introduced zero-tolerance policing in New York which they claim slashed crime by almost 50% during the 1990s.
They increased numbers of police on the street and cracked down on even the smallest offences such as vandalism and graffiti.
Mr Bratton is a key player in the framing of the cooperation memorandum, which will cover four main areas: DNA evidence, management of major cases, dealing with gangs, guns and youth violence, and terrorism.
Chris Fox, chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said the US and UK share many common concerns.
"These seminars are one example of the excellent opportunities the alliance will produce to discuss current thinking in our respective countries," he said.
But not everyone shares Mr Fox's enthusiasm.
Campaign group Rethinking Crime and Punishment says zero-tolerance is a simplistic approach to a complex problem.
"With zero-tolerance you don't really tackle the underlying problems, which are poverty and social exclusion," said spokesman Joe Levenson.
These techniques can often have the effect of criminalising large sections of the population, he said.
He believes the UK may have already taken too many pointers from the United States on criminal justice.
Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos) and the "three-strikes and you're out" rule - whereby an offender is given a life sentence after three convictions for serious offences - are based on US thinking.
Mandatory minimum sentences and a high prison population also come from the US, he says.
Poverty
Centre for Public Services, a policy think-tank, also criticises US-led ideas.
It says measures such as Asbos and targeted community policing often re-locate rather than solve the problems.
"Policing isn't the whole solution," a spokesman said, pointing out that poverty is almost always at the root of crime.
Professor Tim Newburn, of the London School of Economics, says the US "wouldn't be my first choice" of country for criminal justice advice.
But he believes UK police could benefit from their San Diego trip.
 |  These measures have been carried forward on the grounds that they make a difference |
He said: "One very useful thing is the Comstat management information system that Bratton used at the NYPD to collect crime data." Comstat is such an effective system that most police departments in the US now have it.
"Also Bratton introduced public meetings where local police chiefs are held to account. We're not really doing that over here," he said.
'Face-time'
But he added that the meeting was really about networking and officers spending "face-time" together.
Whatever the police chiefs take from their meetings and memorandums in the US, the British government remains confident that its policies are working.
A Home Office spokesman said numbers of police officers were at a record high and crime was falling.
He said: "The Home Office has put in place a range of measures to equip the police to crack down on crime and anti-social behaviour.
"These measures have been carried forward on the grounds that they make a difference."
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