Real Policing

Addressing the new recruits before being sworn in as constables and receiving their warrant cards, the words of Chief Constable Peter Neyroud would prove foreboding.  No sooner had he sat down than he declared how within the next few years one third of the intake would be lost to other forces.  What Mr. Neyroud predicted was actually part of a long established pattern of gain and loss, although, to one force in particular.  It isn’t difficult to understand why a considerable number of officers in the home counties transfer to the Metropolitan Police over other forces.  With the lure of an increase in salary and a particularly desireable style of policing, the process is facilitated by the outgoing force’s disinclination to retain experienced and competent officers by addressing their reasons for transfer. 

Two months prior to my joining Thames Valley Police in April, 2003, Mr. Neyroud decried the large number of his officers being poached by the Met.  After only a matter of weeks on the frontline I often heard my colleagues express a determined intention to transfer.  The Met had to do very little beyond offering overworked and under resourced constables a £6,000 pay increase in addition to a style of policing which reduced the administrative burden while minimising the time spent in custody.  Met officers are at liberty to arrest a supect and take them into custody to be processed by the prisoner handling team.  This particular method is intended to ensure the maximum number of resources on the street at any one time.  Within London the sheer volume of calls alone and the numbers available to deal with them may explain why officers are perhaps no more visible there than anywhere else.  Furthermore, Met practices are also frustrated by unnecessary paperwork, crippling bureaucracy and targets.  Nonetheless, the Met has no need to actively poach officers who will run to London with open arms as long as surrounding forces pay less while relying on the goodwill of their officers to suffer indefinitely an administrative burden which perpetuates inefficient reactive policing.  Those who joined the police to spend the maximum amount of time on the street undoubtedly find the lure of Met policing irresistible.  On his part, Mr. Neyroud suggested at one time that the incoming force should compensate Thames Valley Police for the loss of their officer. 

On the other hand, there are those within the management structure critical of the Met style of policing who contend that Met officers are under developed and poorly rounded.  The prevailing system of policing in the Met has drawn criticism for not developing the skills of those who do not rountinely investigate crime, interview offenders and build case file papers for court.  However, the need to create well rounded officers who prevent, react to and investigate crime was proportionate and easier to justify at a time when crime was at a considerably lower level than at present and frontline resources were plentiful.  The current circumstances require an approach which places the maximum number of boots on the ground at any one time if crime is to be truly driven down, potential offenders deterred and the public reassured.  It is no longer possible for such basic aims to be achieved as long as fewer resources are also investigating the current levels of crime to which they are having to respond.  As undesireable as it may be that officers are less well rounded in some areas than in others, under the present circumstances of too much crime being committed and too few people available to deal with it, it is time to decide whether the role of a constable to react, investigate and proactively police is contributing to overall inefficiency.    
              
There are obvious lessons to be drawn from the examples of officers who leave surrounding forces in droves for one which provides greater remuneration for a more desireable style of policing.  Money and job satisfaction are important considerations in any profession but particularly in those where the rewards are either few or intermittent.  Police officers are also human beings and will tolerate lower pay where there is job satisfaction or the lack of job satisfaction where there is higher pay.  Precious few would suffer the absence of both.  Officers who joined to do the job where it’s meant to be done won’t need to seek satisfaction elsewhere if change takes place where required.  At the heart of the matter is the issue of police efficiency and the role of the constable.  As a consequence of the competing policing demands on those responsible for meeting them and the unfulfilled intentions of successive Home Secretaries, the British bobby has increasingly become a jack of all trades and the master of none.      

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2731203.stm

Johnno,

Regards,

The Government’s pledge to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime has been referred to as the biggest deception in history.  During a conversation with the officer responsible for this comment we discussed the necessity for identity cards and their capacity to prevent crime.  Government proposals that identity cards are necessary in the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration and organised crime do little to explain exactly how they will achieve their end.  Whether the same outcome could be achieved by other means has also received scant regard.  It is suggested that an identity card would allow an individual to confirm his or her identity in a convenient way using chip and PIN technology.  In contemplating the usefullness of ID cards, I considered the occasions when it would be necessary for an individual to confirm their identity, the kind of person who would be unwilling to provide confirmation and the measures police already have at their disposal in such instances.  

One of the selling points of identity cards is the ease with which the carrier can confirm their identity.  In lieu of any explicit information to the contrary I assume the Government is implying confirmation of identity to a police officer.  There are but a handful of instances where it is necessary for officers to ask for confirmation of identity, such as where there are grounds to suspect a person’s involvement in an offence (either as a perpetrator, aggrieved or a potential witness) or during a stop and search procedure.  In the majority of cases, the need for confirmation of identity arises when officers attend a scene either during or after the commission of a crime.  Experience of front-line policing has lead me to believe that those among the relatively law abiding who are asked by a police officer to confirm their identity are generally forthcoming in doing so.  Those less inclined to confirm their identity are often known to police anyway and, if known to police but not to an individual officer, are among those whose identity can be confirmed using other means, such as the National Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) in custody.  In either case, where involvement in an offence is suspected and identity is in doubt, establishing identity provides another reason to justify arrest.  It is entirely possible that the provision of ID cards will achieve no greater compliance from those already willing to offer confirmation of identity or those who are reluctant to reveal an identity which can be confirmed by other means.  As for crime investigation, the existence of CCTV, forensic evidence or intelligence can open up crucial lines of enquiry leading to the identity and arrest of an offender.  An ID card will tell an investigating officer little that is not already known prior to arrest.                                                

Another major selling point of identity cards is their purported necessity in the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration and organised crime.  In respect of terrorism, it was in fact circulation of CCTV images of the 21st July, 2005 bombers which led to their identification.  It is difficult to see how ID cards would have achieved the same outcome and how they will prevent further attacks from occurring.  In such cases, it is intelligence gathering, covert officer surveillance and CCTV which leads to the identification and targeting of terrorist suspects.  It is also worth noting that ID cards did not prevent the terrorist attack in Madrid on 11th March, 2004.  With regard to tackling illegal immigration and organised crime, the impact of ID cards is also difficult to discern.  It is highly unlikely that those who enter our country illegally will declare their illegal status in order to obtain an identity card.  It is also by no means certain that those who have entered illegally, whether or not they commit crime, will be deported back to their own country, in particular if it is regarded as socially unstable.  Controlling illegal immigration is an argument better suited to the reinforcement of our porous ports and other embarkation points than the introduction of ID cards.  As a means to fight organised crime, high grade intelligence and a thorough secondary investigation will yield far more in terms of identifying an offender (in the unlikely event the identity of anyone involved in organised crime is unknown to police), the extent of his criminality, his actions, assets, connections and associates.  Again, ID cards will tell an investigating officer little that is not already known prior to arrest                      

Whatever the reason for the Government’s implacable determination to introduce identification cards, it is somewhat disingenuous to justify doing so on crime prevention/investigation grounds.  ID cards are an unnecessary addition in light of other means which enable officers to identify those who are reluctant to identify themselves.  If the introduction of ID cards has not proved to be effective in combating crime, terrorism or illegal immigration in other countries there is no reason to suppose they will do so here.  Indeed, the tangible benefits of ID cards remain unproven.  Therefore, it is left to the testimony of those who enforce the law to identify their potential for preventing or investigating crime.  The most effective crime prevention tool is police officers on the ground the deterrent and reassurance value of which appears to have escaped the current Government.  If the Government had recognised their value in this regard they would have reduced bureaucracy, diverted the administrative burden away from officers (beyond that which ensures accountability), established a fairer system of measuring productivity and employed front-line officers in considerably greater numbers.  Better still, they would not have interferred at all.  The fact that they have and with such disasterous consequences suggests the kind of ignorance of crime prevention and investigation which will do little to inspire public confidence that the Government’s faith in ID cards is not misplaced. 

On Tuesday I appeared on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV alongside LBC breakfast radio presenter Nick Ferrari and TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson to discuss the merits, or otherwise, of DNA and CCTV.  The discussion became polarised when Nick stated that such measures are an infringement of civil liberties.  Nick also contended that DNA does not work, citing a case of a 72 year-old Swindon man suffering from Parkinsons disease who was arrested and charged after his DNA profile matched that found at the scene of a burglary 200 miles away in Bolton.  BBC’s Panorama featured this particular case and attributed the error in identification to either a mislabelling of samples or a chance DNA match.  The charge against the male was subsequently reversed by the CPS.  In light of this and similar examples, DNA evidence cannot be regarded as infallible.  However, its effectiveness ought to be considered on the basis of successful outcomes which far outnumber rare identification anomalies and transference of DNA.  Importantly, DNA always requires supporting evidence linking the offender to the crime and not merely to the scene itself.  A jury would be unlikely to convict on the strength of DNA evidence alone and no judge is likely to instruct a jury to do so.  Whatever the infringement of DNA and CCTV upon civil liberties, in respect of crime investigation and detection the advent of both has proved invaluable.           

I wish to begin by explaining that due to the prevailing culture of risk assessments and litigation, police officers have much to do to ensure accountability.  Private information such as phone records, bank details and surveillance images is not laid bare for the police to have unhindered access.  Police officers are required (rightly so) to create a paper trail by which to justify why they require the information they seek in addition to whether such intrusion is proportionate to the proposed outcome of the investigation, whether the information can be acquired by other non-intrusive methods, how the information will serve to progress the investigation and also the extent to which intrusive methods are likely to infringe upon the civil liberties of innocent persons (referred to as collateral intrusion).  

Addressing the above points requires the completion of a document called a RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) which can run to several pages and in no way guarantees that because police officers ask for the information they are assured of getting it.  The RIPA form passes through the hands of a liaison officer before reaching the Superintendent and, in some cases, the Chief Constable, for authorisation.  It is then sent to the appropriate crime liaison department at the independent company/agency who then release the information to the intelligence bureau within the investigating force before it is passed to the investigating officer.  It is easy to draw alarming conclusions regarding the accessibility of private information based on the media’s portrayal of police practices.  I daresay I would draw similar conclusions if I were unfamiliar with the level of justification officers are required to show and the administrative hoops they have to jump through in order for the information to be considered for release.  Of course, I can only offer testament to the necessity for police officers to apply for private information in pursuit of the investigation and detection of crime.  As for the motivation and intentions of other bodies with similar access to the same information, I cannot truly say.        

With regard to DNA and CCTV, however sinster or menacing some may consider them to be, to an investigating officer with few lines of enquiry, the existence of one or both can affect the outcome of their investigation dramatically.  Having performed exactly the same tasks as 130,000 other officers allocated low to medium level crime to investigate, I feel justified in drawing from operational experience.  On Tuesday’s programme I retold an incident which occurred in High Wycombe involving a male arrested for being drunk and disorderly outside the town nightclub.  A DNA sample taken from the male in custody and sent to the Forensic Science Service for inclusion on the national database matched the profile recovered from the scene of an unsolved rape which occurred three years previously.  The male was charged with the offence and subsequently convicted.  Similarly, as the investigating officer of several crime reports where the aggrieved party did not report a crime against them for several days, I was left to retrieve CCTV footage as the last possible line of enquiry.  More often than not, subsequent circulation to other officers of stills from the CCTV images came back with a positive identification of the offender. 

Whilst I take into account Ulrika Jonsson’s point regarding more police officers on the beat, a robust and sustained officer presence is likely to drive down crime but will never completely eradicate it.  However, in order to investigate an offence they were unable to prevent, officers must have recource to certain investigative tools which increase the likelihood of a successful outcome.  I also wish to address the argument that CCTV drives crime into areas with no CCTV coverage.  Once again, I draw upon operational experience that in a large proportion of incidents, from drug induced thievery to a drunken rumpus or a violent assault, many such acts are opportunistic and are committed without regard to whether or not the offence is captured on CCTV.  Conversely, the progression of many an investigation can be scuppered by a timer-rotating CCTV camera pointing in the opposite direction to where the crime is taking place!        

Of course, in an ideal world where no crime is committed, police officers, DNA databases and CCTV cameras would be unnecessary.  However, we live in a world where those who successfully commit crime will not tell the truth about doing so.  Perhaps I am mistaken in thinking that the public place less trust in the Government than the police.  Yet, it is likely that public perception regarding the Government’s potential misuse of private information is the reason why many are unnerved by the increasing accessibility to it.  For a police officer, such information is not easily accessible at all, cannot be trawled through arbitrarily and indeed cannot be requested unless an offence has been committed where it can be shown that the individual is a suspect.  Furthermore, if a belief in the Government’s possible misuse of a national DNA database provides the strongest objection to it, establishing a database which is protected by an independent body accountable to the people and not to the Government ought to be considered.  Nonetheless, an issue of particular national importance is worthy of extensive national debate to decide if, having regard to all information and facts, the investigation and detection of crime justifies the continued infringement of civil liberties.                 

Next time: The falsehood of identity cards as a crime prevention measure. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7010000/newsid_7012100/7012121.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm&news=1

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,

Johnno,

The other evening I sat down to watch ITV’s live coverage of Liverpool’s Champions League match with Toulouse. Before the match started Liverpool paid a moving tribute to Rhys Jones who was so tragically murdered last week.  As a mark of respect the ‘Z Cars’ theme music was played, this in itself brought back many memories.

When I first joined the Police Service there was a certain bonding between just about every officer.  Everyone on each shift had close friends and the comradeship was second to none.  We would pull together in an attempt to achieve the right result.  We had less technology at our disposal but still managed to muddle through.  My word how things change….

Here we are in 2007, with state of the art technology at our disposal, however one has to ask why the modern day police force is so disjointed.  Comradeship appears to be a thing of the past.  Welfare has fallen by the wayside.  The majority of Senior Officers are no longer interested in Police Officers performing an extremely difficult role in policing the country at present.

We have become fragmented since the introduction of Specialist Departments, I refer to MIT’, Support Teams and so on.  Once upon a time Tutor Constable’s were officers who held at least 5 years police service.  Several of today’s tutor’s have 2 years at most.

One has to ask the question, ‘where has all the Experience gone’?

In my opinion the quality of Probationers coming through has deteriorated rapidly.  Some have little or no idea how to complete statements, and perform the most basic of duties.  Officers are placed in posts not by experience but by Competency Related Interviews which as we all know hold no bearing on whether a person can perform that role.  The police station where I am currently stationed is fast becoming over run with PCSOs.  Whilst I do not wish to overly criticise PCSOs we end up yet again with poorly trained officers, with limited powers.

Our role as police officers is changing at such speed that it is difficult to keep up with many of the changes.  We are bombarded with emails and training courses which are internet based.  The Criminal Justice Dept/CPS require far more work in respect of file submission.  Officers are given daily tasks to perform, alongside the pressures of detections and other time consuming issues which appear to be part of a police officer’s measured targets.  Basic things such as the welfare of an officer are no longer given the importance that it once was.  The once caring side to the Police Service died long ago!

We appear to have become more interested in tearing ourselves apart with Professional Standard Departments suggesting that police staff should bubble up another member of staff if involved in inappropriate behaviour.  Gone is the ‘happy ship’ that we once knew and loved.  With crimes of violence beginning to bite, we need to re-focus, adjust our methods of policing, and give the public what they want.  I refer of course to more police officers on the beat, less bureaucracy, and less of the target driven culture that our Government has imposed upon us. The police force cannot be run as a successful business, it never has and never will. The sooner someone tackles these issues, the better.  Modern day policing is at present a complete mess!

An ANON serving officer.

In January this year I became the officer in the case of a racially aggravated common assault.  The incident occurred at approximately 5.30am on new year’s eve and concerned a chinese lady who was racially abused outside her house by four stone-throwing youths.  My involvement led me to attend a strategy meeting on the estate where the incident took place.  The four suspects were among several youths aged between 12-18 years who were orchestrating a campaign of terror and intimidation of local residents.  The youths were “well at it” with a degree of regularity unmatched by seasoned law-breakers twice their age.  Some of the youths were from broken homes while others were not.  Some had suffered personal trauma while others had not.  What was common to all of them was a lack of adult supervision which left them without boundaries, sanctions or consequences for their actions.  Speaking to the parents and guardians of the youths resulted in little more than an indignant denial of the allegations which betrayed a desire for their children to be anywhere else but under their parents’ feet. 

As the term suggests, a strategy meeting is intended to bring together public bodies to develop a multi-agency approach to problem solving.  Strategy meetings involve prominent organisations such as social services, police, local council and community health services.  While such meetings can be productive in developing familiarity with the services other agencies provide, some may question their long-term benefit as long as there are those who avoid taking the responsibility they are content for other agencies to accept.  During the strategy meeting, I listened as the facilitator revealed the offending history of each child.  What soon became evident was the raised threshold regarding the level of crime considered unacceptable before triggering an Acceptable Behaviour Contract (ABC) or an ASBO.  Realistically, such a disproportionate response to an already advanced tendency to crime is unlikely to succeed, particularly in the absence of a solemn commitment from parents.  Multiple breaches of an ABC result in little more than candidacy for an ASBO which itself allows multiple breaches to go unpunished.  Placing children on ABCs or ASBOs presupposes that by virtue of being the subject of one they will automatically fall in line.  In lieu of stricter adult supervision, ABCs/ASBOs place a responsibility on youths to correct the kind of behaviour a lack of supervision has given rise to while breaches (which greater adult supervision could reasonably prevent) are insufficiently punished.  Without a commitment from and consequences for both the youth and their parents or guardian such breaches are, perhaps, inevitable. 

While I fully advocate personal responsibility, I have come to recognise the unrealistic expectations placed on those who have never been taught to accept it.  Conversely, through parental neglect, there are those among our youth who have been given too much responsibility and control over their own lives which does not translate into responsible behaviour within society.  Before joining the police I worked in a home for one or two children in need of intensive support as a result of physical, psychological and sexual abuse.  The staff were responsible for essentially re-parenting the children and providing the boundaries unknown to them before coming into care.  The children had to relinquish responsibility and control of their lives to the staff and (often for the first time) acknowledge their place in society as chilldren.  Some of those we cared for accepted their situation sooner than others.  However, in the early stages they all rejected boundaries and 24 hour supervision.  Until such time as they were able to accept the responsibility of behaving themselves with other children they remained closely supervised by staff.  Many of our charges were too psychologically damaged for the intensive support program to have any lasting effect but I believe the approach was correct.  It is imperative to remove the responsibility for their lives from those who should never have been given it in the first place and equally imperative that it is not returned to them until such time as they are able to accept it.  None of what I have said do I consider to be justification for crime.  Far from it.  I appreciate the value and importance of respect, boundaries and routine.  I am merely drawing comparisons between two examples which support what most of us already consider to be chief among the causes of violence, anti-social behaviour and social degradation in general.                       

Whether or not parental responsibility is reclaimed by those who have abdicated it to their children, the responsibility rests with the police to protect the public from its effects.  However, limited street resources, paperwork and targets ensure that the perpetual cycle of response policing remains unbroken and the thin blue line stretched to breaking point.  Meanwhile, polemics and pundits who are more concerned with statistics suggesting that violent crime has either increased or decreased overlook the grave consequences each occurrence results in and also the potential for further explosion.  The reality is one of the proliferation of guns and knives in the hands of those with a dismissive attitude toward human life and little to deter or punish them.  Therefore, police reform is imperative in order to better protect the public and regain their faith and trust.  Responsibility by the most efficient means possible to reclaim our streets must be swiftly returned to the police.  Responsibility for their children by those who have absolved themselves of it must be retaken.  Responsibility for their lives of those too young to cope with it must be removed forthwith.  To do otherwise will engender the kind of ruin of which we will all be forced to partake.   

I wish to offer my sincere condolences to the family and friends of little Rhys Jones.  If you have any information which can help catch Rhys’ killer, please contact the incident room on (0151) 777 8722 or text the word CRIME followed by your message to 61051 or e-mail your information to murder@merseyside.police.uk.  Alternatively, you can provide information anonymously by contacting Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/30/nrhys430.xml

On Monday, the front page of The Sun newspaper decried a state of anarchy in the UK.  In the days after the appalling deaths of Garry Newlove and Evren Anil, the Daily Mirror commissioned a survey of 1,400 people to establish exactly how many feared becoming a victim of crime.  From those polled the Mirror extrapolated that 42% of the public were too scared to leave their homes.  Further statistics revealed 175 knife point robberies in the UK every day, showing an increase during the last two years from 25,000 to approximately 64,000 per year.  Ensuing media debates sought to clarify to what extent the Mirror’s findings reflect the nation’s fears or whether such headlines are nothing more than scaremongering.  Whether accurately reflected in statistics or not, the fear of crime is real and justifiable to many.  Identifying the causes of crime is entirely necessary, however, that does not obviate the need to address a system of policing inadequate to deal with its effects.

One such debate took place during Victoria Derbyshire’s morning programme on BBC Radio Five Live to which I contributed.  Victoria asked whether the public were justified in their perceived fear of becoming a victim of crime considering that, according to Home Office statistics, crime is falling.  Based on my own limited knowledge, I wish to explain how crime statistics are compiled.  The Home Office takes police statistics (crimes reported to the police) which are then compared with those of the British Crime Survey (BCS).  The BCS measures the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking around 50,000 people aged 16 and over about the crimes they have experienced in the last year.  The BCS is considered to provide a better reflection of the true level of crime than police statistics since it includes crimes that have not been reported to, or recorded by, the police. The BCS estimates that only around half of all crime it measures is captured on police recorded crimes.  This is largely due to people who do not bother to report crimes because they think the crime was too trivial or the police couldn’t do much about it.  Interestingly, it was reported recently that the BCS was underreporting crime by about 3 million incidents per year because it did not allow for a particular person to be victimised more than five times in a year. The error means that violent crime is actually at 4.4 million incidents per year, an 82% increase over the 2.4 million previously thought.  It is understandable why many consider Home Office crime statistics to be unreliable, particularly as their processes do not factor in offences against those under the age of 16 and serious crimes such as rape, murder and fraud.  Similarly, those forces who engage in the multiple criming of a single incident in order to generate multiple detections further skew the sample. 

Regardless of exactly what crime statistics mean and what they are intended to convince the public of is just as much a subject of debate as the processes by which the statistics are compiled.  Statistics aside, the double-edge sword of media coverage of violence and brutality provides the public with their right to know while at the same time proliferating fear.  Yet, public fear is grounded in far more than what is read in newspapers.  It is compounded by a person’s experience of crime, the level of criminality in their community and the capacity of police to deal with it.  Regardless of what the Home Office wants the public to believe, the public are certain to lose confidence in the police if, after several calls from informants, the police fail to tackle ongoing anti-social behaviour or vandalism swiftly and robustly while supported by an equally robust justice system.  Indeed, the public recognise the absence of police on the streets as an opportunity for crime to take place and for their fear of crime to breed.  Statistics do nothing to abate fear legitimised by the lack of a visible police presence to prevent, deter and reassure.  Generally speaking, street police officers understand the needs and expectations of the public in a way that senior officers and politicians do not.  It is simply not good enough to argue based on statistics that the public’s fear of crime is both unreasonable and imperceptable as justification for maintaining the current state of inadequate policing.   

It is right for MPs and senior officials to identify the causes of crime but not without showing due regard to the capacity of the police to deal with the effects.  Whether or not crime is attributable to poverty, poor parenting, alcohol or drugs, and whether or not statistics are reliable and accurate in quantifying crime and the fear of crime, the question of the capacity of the police to respond remains.  Crime may well be going down overall but violent crime, anti-social behaviour and vandalism are increasing.  Indeed, statistics are like a bikini.  It’s not what they show, it’s what they don’t show that matters.  What matters to the public is reliable, consistent and robust street policing unencumbered by bureaucracy, paperwork (which has more to do with Government monitoring than police accountability) and targets.  What also matters is a reliable, consistent and robust judicial system whose sentences reflect an obligation to punish and deter while protecting the public.  If that requires more prisons to be built to accommodate those who won’t toe the line then so be it.  Either we pay with our wallets or we pay with our lives.  It should not be down to the likes of Norman Brennan of the Victims of Crime Trust or myself to provide the opposition to the poor management of our justice system.  Therefore, I am off to Whitehall this afternoon for an appointment with a senior politician whom I intend to tell all about it.     

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/08/20/too-scared-to-leave-our-homes-89520-19660883/

http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=138129&speeches=1