Restoring faith in the police

There are two types of critics of the police. One group would love nothing more than to see the institution abolished. We know exactly who they are, and destroying the police is just one of their anarchic values. Fortunately the second group of critics comes from the sensible majority who believe in law and order.

The truth is that most people who look upon the current situation with dismay are fundamentally supportive of the police as a matter of patriotic pride. They want an effective police force that honours civil liberties while dealing with criminals robustly. The commentary may be strident at times, but it is well intended.

If it were possible to define the situation in concise terms, I might say that policing has adopted a grating ‘progressive’ persona while, as a historical institution, its values should be firmly conservative – in the sense of preservation, not politics. Chief constables love to refer to tradition but reject it in practice.

It is frustration, not malice, which prompts former officers like me, or current ones who contact the press anonymously, to voice our concerns. We recognise there are no easy solutions to complicated problems. With that in mind, this essay is intended only to suggest a handful of points for further discussion.

It is also important to acknowledge that, in most respects, the police do a good job. Officers attend many thousands of incidents every day, and you don’t hear about most of them because they just get on with the work, using compassion, humour, tact, persuasion and the other tools which competent policing requires.

Behind the scenes there are call-takers who can delicately take a report of a rape one minute and then try to persuade a caller not to leap off a bridge the next. (I’ve worked in that role, and I can say I found it more demanding than attending the incidents as a response officer.) But there is so much that needs fixing.

Before we can address the discrete problems, we need to define the fundamental function of the police in clear terms. The matters which concern the public are mostly those areas in which the police appear to have drifted from that purpose. As I said before, I don’t believe the policing by consent theory is helpful.

The Statement of Common Purpose is better, with a straightforward focus on upholding the law, preventing crime, bringing lawbreakers to justice and keeping the peace. The oath of allegiance adds the protection of human rights, but officers have long understood their core duties to be protecting people and property.

A new definition, based on those principles, is the first step on the road to restoring faith in the institution. Maintaining the King’s peace, preventing and solving crime (not ‘non-crime’), and upholding civil liberties all need to be in there. But such an oath must also include a duty to be neutral on social and political issues.

I have described how woke policing arose from the misplaced belief that the police have a right and a mission to promote ‘progressive’ ideas. By definition, this is an infringement on our freedoms of belief and expression. The police should arguably hold no values other than the key principles as described.

The response to an incident should therefore be judged strictly against our new definition of the police’s role, rather than in deference to the sensibilities of certain groups or communities. Appeasement is only ever viewed as weakness by all involved parties. Victims lose trust and aggressors are emboldened.

This first stage needs to be set via an Act of Parliament to be legally binding. Currently, the functions I have referred to are based in tradition, not law. The Act should also repeal the ‘specific duties’ for public bodies from section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 which impose unnecessary ‘diversity’ agendas on the police.

With the police’s function defined explicitly in law, we could then look at specific areas of concern. I have discussed police training at length, referring to areas that are lacking and the quality of instruction. The College of Policing’s replacement should have the sole purpose of providing accurate training material.

I need say little else on training other than it needs substantial infrastructure. Many forces have inadequate facilities because police chiefs are reluctant to spend money when they cannot see immediate results. Classrooms lack modern equipment and there are few good facilities for rehearsing practical scenarios.

Similarly – and this would require a significant commitment from the Government – more police buildings are urgently needed. Forces closed many police stations and moved resources to central hubs. This had the predictable effects of diminishing community contact and increasing response times significantly.

By way of example, when I joined my force, the expected response times to urban and rural incidents were under 10 and 12 minutes respectively, and we usually beat those targets comfortably. Those standards now stand at 15 and 20 minutes, and it is not unusual for emergencies to be attended even slower than that.

We often hear there are too few officers. There is some truth to that, but it is used as a political brickbat, not a clear explanation of the resourcing problem. It is wholly incorrect to say the Tories cut 20,000 officers; numbers dipped (as people left the profession) because recruitment was paused for a year and a half.

The problem is not one of numbers directly, but one of retention. This is, in part, simply a reflection of society’s rejection of the thirty-year-career model. But there is also a problem with the environment, and some of the blame for that lies with chief officers and the College of Policing’s recruitment standards.

My home force has seen a fairly consistent turnover of approximately 700 officers and civilian staff annually. While some civilians switch roles to join as officers, that is still roughly a tenth of the workforce leaving every year. That conveyor-belt creates administration and training needs. Irreplaceable skills drain away.

Can circumstances like that – which are replicated across the country – be solely down to evolving career choices and retirements? It is unlikely to be so. Something else is going on, and I think the primary reason is lack of support. Staff do not trust the leadership to back them up, and there is good reason for that.

Ironically, forces have been getting much better at putting welfare and occupational health measures in place. That’s fine, but the type of support that is required is not emotional but practical. Officers struggle with slow and complicated computer systems, intolerable shift patterns and voluminous workloads.

Recent years have also seen a notable increase in dismissals. Some of these will, of course, be absolutely proper, but there is very much a culture of witch-hunting and scapegoating that punishes excessively. This starts at the local force level and goes right up to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

There isn’t a firearms officer in the country who doesn’t expect to be thrown under the bus if he has to shoot a suspect. Platitudes are frequently offered by chief officers who promise to support their officers, but no one believes them. Chief constables will not defend their staff if they fear reputational damage.

In order to stem the tide of departures, some forces have resorted to employing ‘retention ambassadors’. This mechanism will not stop people leaving, of course, but it will help the human-resources managers and chief constables convince themselves that a person’s decision to leave was beyond their control.

I think there is also an argument for redesigning the roles of chief constables and their deputies. Their skills are not conducive to good management but, as experienced officers, they are more adept in command-and-control settings. I would rather restrict their roles to overseeing incidents than juggling budgets.

This model would require fewer police chiefs across the country and could hand the day-to-day running of police forces to civilians with more relevant skills. And, if their promotion prospects depended more heavily on evidence of command experience than ‘diversity’ projects, far better people would rise to the top.

As it currently stands, the promotion structure is almost entirely dependent on conformity to a corporate message. This is all about slogans, not Socrates. You won’t find many critical thinkers in UK policing. It is perhaps the finest validation of the theory which Stanley Milgram described in Obedience to Authority:

“Throughout this experience with authority, there is continual confrontation with a reward structure in which compliance with authority has been generally rewarded, while failure to comply has most frequently been punished. Although many forms of reward are meted out for dutiful compliance, the most ingenious is this: the individual is moved up a niche in the hierarchy, thus both motivating the person and perpetuating the structure simultaneously. This form of reward, ‘the promotion’, carries with it profound emotional gratification for the individual but its special feature is the fact that it ensures the continuity of the hierarchical form.”

Improvements in policing will not be achieved in isolation. Reform of the criminal justice system is needed. Part of that would require a change in the relationship between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. It is taking longer than ever to send a defendant to court, and there are several reasons for this.

I can remember when the decision to charge a defendant was made by the investigating officer and the custody sergeant. It worked very well. Defendants would have their first hearing in the magistrates’ court within a week. Officers now have to spend weeks waiting for permission from the CPS for to proceed.

The (digital) paperwork which is now needed for even the most basic of case files is excessive. Twenty years ago, a file for a simple case would take no more than an hour to assemble, and it required about six pieces of paper for the initial hearing. The process has become far more complicated and burdensome.

I would posit that the concept of ‘released under investigation’, which sends a suspect away without bail conditions but places no time limit on resolution, is not compatible with the Pal -v- The United Kingdom judgement which requires the police to justify their interference with a suspect’s human rights.

One of the difficulties that the police face is the sheer range of incidents which they are expected to deal with. Shoplifting has effectively, if not formally, been decriminalised. I have heard a chief constable admit that he’s not interested in sending officers to shoplifting incidents when there are domestics to attend.

This reflects an interesting piece of police psychology. Should the police prioritise domestic incidents because there is a very small chance of them escalating to murder, or should they target shoplifters who always have an impact on society in terms of cost, disorder, drug-related crimes and serious criminality?

Despite all the risk assessments, police intervention at domestic incidents does not prevent murder. Those crimes will, tragically, happen anyway. The police have no power to remove a victim from a situation which could result in her death. Locking up shoplifters, though, has an immediate and visible social benefit.

I am not for one moment suggesting that one type of incident should be chosen above the other, but that is precisely what happens every day. Interestingly, if a shoplifter is banned from a shop and yet returns there to steal, the crime he commits is burglary, but it is never prosecuted as such. Perhaps it ought to be.

The consequences of ignoring certain crimes is best illustrated by how the police gave up tackling unlawful drugs possession, choosing instead to focus on suppliers and dealers. This has led to drug-driving offences and countless mental health incidents which the police now complain bitterly about having to deal with.

Perhaps the reformation of the police should involve a separation of responsibilities. County forces have no need to concern themselves with counter-terrorism, but they dedicate resources to it, even though this is the role of the security services. Serious organised crime could also be dealt with at a national level.

A revised structure of accountability is also needed. The current system of police and crime commissioners is ineffective. Their default answer, when questioned about policing, is: “That is an operational matter for the chief constable.” But they exist precisely to challenge the operational decisions of chief constables.

I have covered quite a lot in these articles but there is, of course, a great deal more to consider. I am not advocating a back-to-basics approach because there never was an effective policing model. Even if there had been, it would not work now. We need a modern strategy if we are to see faith in the police restored.