| The July terrorist bombings jolted British law enforcement into unprecedented visibility on the streets of London. That makes some citizens nervous. But the extra costs of a greater police presence—both financially and politically—just may be worth it. At New York’s Penn Station a couple weeks ago, two groups of boozy young men squared off. The disagreement? The respective qualities of the New York Mets and the Chicago Cubs. It was the kind of situation that denizens of major cities know all too well—and that sometimes escalates into violence. This time, though, it was different. A clutch of police officers and heavily armed military personnel simply strolled toward the overzealous (and intoxicated) young fans. The two groups broke up quicker than Britney Spears’s first marriage. The law enforcement personnel weren’t at Penn Station to break apart drunken brawls; they were there to prevent terrorism. But their mere presence was a serious deterrent, and illustrated an unexpected benefit of the city’s heightened state of alert. It is a side effect that will be most welcome across the Atlantic. In England, a crime is committed every second. Antisocial behavior and low-level crime have become a public obsession there. The problem is particularly acute in London, where during last year’s mayoral election, 46 percent of voters deemed crime and disorder as the most important issue facing the city. Opposition politicians have taken to describing Britain as the “sick society of Europe.” After his recent election victory, Prime Minister Tony Blair felt obliged to announce that combating hooliganism will be a priority in his third term. This summer’s terrorist attacks have led to a simple solution, albeit one the public has been pushing for decades: More bobbies on the beat. Tony Travers, an expert on city government at the London School of Economics, points out that the response to the attacks has had the “accidental effect of producing more of the kind of visible policing that people want.” Travers says, “There has been more visible policing in London since the 7th of July than at any period in modern history.” The results have arrived quickly. British Transport Police have noted a significant decrease in crime on the London Underground. Jan O’Neill, a British Transport Police spokeswoman, describes the stepped-up police presence as “having had a very beneficial effect.” Few criminals, it seems, are inclined to snatch a bag and charge through a Tube station in the present climate. The extra policing doesn’t come cheap. In London, the cost of patrolling on Thursdays—the day of the week on which the July 7 and July 21 attacks occurred—is estimated at roughly $3.6 million per day. Londoners will likely have to foot the bill through higher taxes. But if the extra policing succeeds in cutting crime as well as preventing another attack, most will regard it as money well spent. Some worry that London has got the balance between civil liberties and security wrong. This feeling intensified following the tragic—and mistaken—shooting of the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes by armed police. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Muslim commentator, opined that, “For all the Asian and Arab families I know, this blast-to-kill policy is more scary than the bombs.” However, the vast majority of the public feels that the authorities are tilting the balance in the right direction. A recent poll conducted for The Economist by British research firm YouGov found that only 20 percent of people thought, at the time, that the police were wrong to shoot Menezes. Since the police have been deployed in large numbers following the attacks, there has been a 50 percent rise in public confidence in the force. It is hard to imagine that Londoners, who have long called for more police on the street, now want them to stand inert against the very kind of nuisance crime that is such a public irritant. Indeed, support for these expensive operations might only flag if Londoners believed they were paying to fight terrorism but not getting safer streets as well. There is a tendency to view all homeland security expenditures as reactionary and one-dimensional. But like any other government spending, the security funds have unintended effects. Although the money spent on antiterror policing may reduce petty crime, the resources being pumped into contingency planning to deal with biological and chemical attacks will lead to countries being better prepared for a flu epidemic. Research funding increases the possibility of making medical breakthroughs. The U.S. National Intelligence Council recently predicted that continued investment in defending against biological attacks could lead to such advances as a therapy that would prevent pathogens from entering the body. This development would do more for global public health than anything since Sir John Harrington invented the flush toilet in 1596. The real test for public support for the new policing measures will come when the tax bills arrive or if there is another deadly case of mistaken identity by London’s armed police. For the moment, though, the public seems more than content to pay the price in terms of both cash and civil liberties for this stepped up policing. This support will likely continue, as these are the kind of trade-offs that most Londoners would have accepted before July 7. Londoners crave security from crime, as well as from terrorism. It’s tragic they had to experience the latter to enjoy the former. James G. Forsyth is assistant editor at FOREIGN POLICY. | 
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