A peculiarly British obsession

When discussing the relationship between police and public in Great Britain one thing above all others always comes up - 'bobbies on the beat'. In the main, the view will be that there aren't enough, and if only we had more then this would somehow magically solve the 'crime problem'.

This is so strong a theme that it appears that press and politicians follow public opinion on this issue, in contrast to their more usual stance of assuming people think a certain way in the face of evidence to the contrary. Think for example about the divergence between how punitive people are thought to be and how punitive they actually are (see here for an interesting discussion of some of the issues). The public obsession with this type of policing is so strong that police officer's have been heard to complain that some people would like a constable standing permanently on their doorstep - keeping the world at bay, presumably.

In this context it's hardly surprising that the Home Office have apparently tried to inflate the proportion of time neighbourhood teams spend 'on the beat'. One issue is the usual one of government setting itself targets (here, the policing pledge) and then having to wangle the figures, to a greater or lesser extent, to meet them. Wangle more, here, I think, because I suspect 'attending neighbourhood meetings' is not what most people would mean by 'on the beat' - and that's before the ASA's concerns about the 80 per cent claim appearing to apply to all 140,000 thousand officers kicks in.

But perhaps another issue is more fundamental. Is it really an efficient use of resources to have sworn officers wandering around the streets waiting for something to happen, or could their time be put to better use? While some beat patrolling will always be a good idea, especially that done by PCSOs, should the police be the first and only institution involved in providing visible agents of social control in local areas? That they pretty much are says a lot about the gradual removal from public space of others who used to do something similar - park wardens, bus conductors and so on - and is probably an example of the gradual colonisation of that space by the criminal law, at the expense of other ways of maintaining order.

One argument is of course that patrolling police make people feel better. And they probably do, to some extent. But is this enough in itself to warrant such expensive activity? Are there other benefits to beat patrols - do they have any deterrent effect, for example?Actually, they might, if limited to crime hotspots, although you kind of get the impression that such targeting would go against the spirit of the policing pledge. What about deterrence more widely? Has anyone done some kind of cost benefit analysis, or is beat patrol considered to be a good in and of itself? If it is, for example in terms of public confidence, how long do the effects last - are they effervescent, only lasting for a few minutes, or longer lived? Do they apply to all people, or are some scared or annoyed by a very visible police presence?

These are all really interesting questions, and I certainly don't think we have answers to them all yet. Which makes it all the more bizarre that the Home Office should make itself a hostage to targets which may not actually be that useful and which in any case it has to fudge in order to achieve. And then undermine public confidence in crime statistics again by playing a bit fast and loose with the figures.