Real Policing

Dear Mr. McNulty.

Having written to you personally in December, 2006, only for my letter to remain unanswered, I believe I can be forgiven for not writing to you directly a second time.  On two occasions, during last night’s Panorama and also on The Tonight Show with Trevor McDonald in December, 2006, your comments, which contradict Government policy, left me puzzled as to exactly what you do and do not expect of police officers.  On The Tonight Show last December, you explained you do not want police officers chasing quick and easy detections but to remain true to core policing principles.  On last night’s Panorama, you said you do not want standing armies of performance counters and inspectors crawling all over forces.  Furthermore you stated you do not want accountability getting in the way of effective policing.  Ironically, and by your Government’s infliction, that is exactly what you now have.  Unbridled politicising and ill-conceived Government interference in policing matters has brought about the very consequences you say you do not want, by methods which, when confronted with them in television interviews, have appeared particularly abhorrent to you.  Whether or not such consequences were intended, they were certainly capable of being anticipated.  Therefore, I am left to conclude that you are either confused as to what it is you want or, perhaps, that you know better how to bring about those circumstances you hope to avoid than those which you do not.

Similarly, you have stated that you expect more police on the front line, more visibility and more accountability, the latter of which your Government currently uses perfomance indicators to measure.  I suggest that productivity has been confused with performance by setting targets which measure the effectiveness of the police based on whether or not they meet them.  Setting targets creates target driven policing which itself compromises discretion, a vital element of practical policing, alienates the public and is immediately at odds with a service whose role is both complex and difficult to measure.  The responsibility of a police officer owes just as much to non-crime incidents, such as sudden deaths, traffic collisions or tracing missing persons as it does to detectable crime.  Police officers whose productivity is not measured in terms of how many crimes they have prevented, how many daily jobs they have attended and how many live investigations they are carrying have every right to regard performance indicators with contempt and ridicule.  Measuring performance over productivity has ensured that those on the front line spend more time in the station processing the paperwork for which a tick in the detection box is the reward.  Consequently, visibility is all but diminished and accountability is assured, although to whom, unless something goes drastically wrong, it is difficult to say.  Once again, ill-conceived Government policy has achieved the opposite outcome to that which you profess is your desire.  The result is anticipated by those who perform the role but is less obvious to those who do not fully understand it.  Yet, you can enjoy no such recourse to ignorance having spoken unequivocally regarding what you do not expect of police officers.

Moreover, as you also stated so decisively on Panorama, it is your job to ensure police officers are freer and freer from bureaucracy, targets and all other encumbrances to effective policing.  However, in light of several contradictory statements, one may be forgiven for regarding you as someone who poorly understands the nature of policing, of time tested methods and of the kind of policing to which the public consents.  Your casual disregard for the views and experiences of serving officers, so excellently illustrated by Stuart Davidson, revealed the extent of your arrogance and ignorance of the complexities of operational policing.  Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown will fair no better in the eyes of police officers and a highly suspecting public if they believe that equipping officers with palm pilots to relay information back to the station is more effective than the police radios they already possess.  Reducing the administrative burden on officers is the true objective, not devising more efficient ways for them to shoulder the burden.  The knowledge and understanding of policing methods which is conducive to achieving the outcomes and objectives you desire appears lost amid confusion and statements which contradict Government policy.  Until you decide exactly what it is you want of the police and allow them to decide how best to achieve it, not only are you wasting police time, sir, but also that of everybody else.      

Sincerely,

Johnno Hills. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7000000/newsid_7000400/7000434.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&news=1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6992957.stm                                      

Dear Mr. McNulty.

Good morning.  I am a serving police officer who watched the ITV’s Tonight programme broadcast yesterday evening, 11th December, 2006.  I found myself rather alarmed by your comments and on the strength of them I felt compelled to write to you.  As a serving officer, my colleagues and I have seen the pressure and stress of a job, which is by its very nature high-pressured and stressful, compounded by the undue pressure endured by officers in their attempts to acquire a certain number of detections per month to satisfy Government targets.  This directive among front-line officers has proved particularly unpopular and, ironically, has served only to shift the focus and to diminish performance in terms of the quality of the product and the service delivered by the police. 

Indeed, rank and file officers currently find themselves in the midst of a drive to generate performance statistics which leads them on a crusade for a quick and easy detection.  As a result, officers are only able to deliver a limited service to the public if time to fulfill their quota of detections is to be created.  It is to be expected that it would not be long before the public are alerted to the true nature of modern policing.  Arguably this was a point illustrated by tonight’s television report.

Whilst I recognise the need to gauge police performance, it is hardly fair and in no way paints an accurate picture of the overall quality of police performance when officers are assessed on certain aspects of their role.  This has inevitably created a two-tier system of policing where officers cherry pick jobs there is a greater likelihood of detecting in order to fulfill their quota for the month.  Other low level crime such as section 5 public order and cannabis possession are considered easy detections and are dealt with readily in order to, for want of a better expression, chase statistics or play the numbers game.

As a result of the culture that has been created, the core principles of policing as you referred to them have had to be compromised in order to satisfy performance criteria.  Indeed, quantity has almost certainly replaced quality and policing is something which is carried out in the midst of the hunt for detections instead of detections being generated in the midst of routine policing.  In a like manner, I would like to pose the question to you that if you knew you were evaluated on certain aspects of your job, would you not make that your primary focus in order to meet performance criteria as set by your office and filtered down through the ranks of the service?  In addition, what do you consider would be the consequences for those aspects on which you are not measured and which also constitiutes policing to the public as they understand and value it? 

I am particularly disappointed that the obvious problems which have arisen as a result of current policy were not anticipated by those who devised and implemented it, resulting in the two-tier system of policing we currently have and which was brought to your attention by the television interviewer.  Your response to the assertion by the interviewer that officers will be more inclined to seek out the quick and easy detection to satisfy targets was that they ought to remain true to core policing principles.  This is no easy task at all and in my experience as both a police officer and a member of the public core policing principles have been compromised in order to generate statistics which paint an inaccurate picture and are arguably doing very little to placate a suspecting public. 

Ultimately it is the public, the service and your officers who suffer, something which is demonstrated in delays in officer attendance, a less than obvious police presence on the streets and in many cases an inadequate service given to the public.  All the while higher level crime flourishes.  Consequently, programmes such as The Tonight Show broadcast on ITV portray the service in the manner experienced on a daily basis by highly professional officers who carry out their duties with the deepest commitment to preserving life and protecting property and whose commitment is being frustrated by current policy.  The general public is not stupid and I for one shall follow your advice and encourage my colleagues to do the same and remain committed to those basic policing principles for which I joined the service in the first place.  Indeed, not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.  I respectfully ask for your balanced consideration of the merits of my thoughts and experiences and wish to thank you for taking the time to consider them. 

Sincerely,

Mr. J. R. Hills.

Hi Johnno,

I’d admit that I am one who has lost interest in reading papers and watching the news, I find current affairs generally just get me wound up about how things are going.  As a serving police officer I don’t need the extra stress levels.  So this evening whilst waiting for a Chinese take out I picked up a copy of today’s Sun to flick through.  I saw your feature and read it twice over, finding myself mumbling yes yes under my breath as I did so.  Curiosity roused I have spent an hour thumbing through the website and forum with keen interest.  At first I thought this was some Sun ploy to reel in officers’ views but have dismissed this now and chancing an arm by contacting you.  Odd really how I had to consider the professional standards risks before typing this out.

I can only admire your courage and attempts at correcting a situation that is spiralling out of control and see that you yourself appear to have been victimised for daring to express such an opinion.  I too am sick of the statistical nonsense and removal of officer discretion and have been at odds myself with the crime recording department for refusing to arrest a person for the sake of a detection when arrest isn’t always the most appropriate course of action.  Likewise I am also ashamed to say that I have at times avoided arrest when I knew that it would have meant a 5 hour wrangle through custody at the end of a 10 hour shift plus associated paperwork time post custody.

The amount of paperwork, email devices and on line training packages generated by namby pamby political correctness is mind numbingly absurd.  I even got told off in a training class for calling a flip chart a flip chart, even though it clearly had the words ’Flip Chart’ written on it.  Why?  Because it may cause offence to epileptic people - Say what?  Please, can we go back to treating everyone like a grown up and not third year secondary school pupils.  

I can feel myself getting carried away and probably have much more I can add and examples to give, many of which you will already be aware of.  So for now I will just finish by saying the very best of luck in this noble battle. 

kind regards,