White paper on police reform

I've not had time to read this through yet, so more to follow when I have.

For the moment though, the proposals for elected police commissioners remain extremely worrying - and seemingly unsupported by anyone outside the government (although I stand to be corrected on that). It seems to me one issue here is that elected police commissioners will not automatically 'give the public a voice', since by definition large swathes of that public will have voted for someone else (especially, as seems likely, the commissioners stand on party tickets). In all likelihood many others will not have voted at all. How does democracy, as the simple rule of the majority, work in relation to a public service which must be open and accessible (and accountable) to everyone?

Close to the heart of the problem is, I think, that this government follows the previous administration's apparent belief that policing is something done by/for 'us' against 'them'. Since 'they' don't vote, aren't really part of society and so forth all that remains is for us to decide how best to deal with the problems they create. But there is no simple us and them. Offenders are very often also victims, the 'law-abiding majority' regularly break the law, and today's anti-globalisation protester is tomorrow's doctor, plumber or perhaps even politician.

Reconciling extremely complicated and conflicting positions and issues is a central part of what policing is, and this is not something amenable to control by one person elected on a specific mandate. Collective local democratic control (perhaps organised on similar lines to a parliamentary committee, or something that looks a lot like a Police Authority) seems much better suited to such a task.

Anyone who's seen The Wire will know one possible outcome to all this. Direct political control of the police does not automatically lead to policing in the interests of 'the community' but rather policing at the behest of whoever shouts loud enough - moral entrepreneurs, moral majorities, entrenched local hierarchies, or newspapers concerned only with maintaining circulation. Another possible outcome is the reverse, local commissioners so tightly bound by what they can achieve in legal terms (for example, they will presumably be unable to trump the HRA and or indeed any other relevant legislation, regardless of what their electors want) that they are effectively powerless, something which would run the risk of further damaging public trust in the ability of (local) democracy to ever achieve anything.

One in ten police .....

Channel four news and others are talking about Dennis O'Connors report (PDF) on 'Policing in an age of austerity'. In amongst some very sensible points about, for example, archaic shift patters that ensure less people are on duty on Friday night than on Monday morning, there's one of those really annoying media factlets that always seem to grab the headlines and wind up anyone who thinks about them for more than 30 seconds.

This time it's this:

At present just one in every 10 of all police officers is "visible and available" to the public at any one time, the report warns, despite the fact that policing has enjoyed year-on-year budget increases over the past 40 years.


Seems terrible, no? What are they all doing? Skiving? Filling in forms? Both? Well the clue is that this really does mean one in every ten of ALL police officers (see page 14 of the report). Around half of the total of  police officers and PCSOs are in neighbourhood or response teams - these are the police who are 'available' to the public (the rest are doing other stuff - you know, investigating serious crimes, things like that; some probably are filling in forms, although they might call some of them 'evidence' or 'statements').  Of that 50 per cent, subtract the approximately two thirds not on duty, the others who are on holiday, sick, in training etc, and in turns out that three quarters or more frontline staff who could be 'public facing' at any one time actually are. Not quite so shocking, is it?

No wonder the public are so obsessed with bobbies on the beat - stories like this just inform them that most police aren't doing anything at all. You have to wonder what the report writers were thinking, going with this in their executive summary. Some internal politics here, possibly?

Grauniad editorial on the coalitions record on 'liberty'

Hard to find much to disagree with here. I particularly like "Labour is clinging on to its recent authoritarianism despite losing all authority".

It'll be interesting to see, though, what happens when the quick wins - ID cards, Section 44 stops - dry up and the more difficult stuff, like prisons, comes to the fore. I kind of think Ken Clark really means it. But do his backbenchers?

And then, of course, there are the calls for the return of the death penalty, the banning of full veils, tilts at the Human Rights Act and other somewhat less 'liberty-oriented' missives emerging from the Tories (and, to be fair, elsewhere as well).

Crime down, again

The latest British Crime Survey/police recorded crime data shows another fall in the number of crimes committed and in the risk of victimisation.

This is starting to get a bit spooky. The government certainly can't cope with it, since the latest figures relate to the time when Labour were still in power. So the ConDems are reduced to saying, essentially, that this is the wrong type of crime and if we looked at the sort people are really concerned about, um this might be going down as well, but it's still going up too, dammit! And anyway we don't count it properly. Or something.

Political denial aside, the continued reduction in both recorded crime and the crime reported in the BCS is posing some really interesting questions for criminologists. Most academic criminologists, as far as I'm aware, buy into two key narratives. First, most crime is about/caused by deprivation (relative and absolute), inequality, and other socio-economic 'bads'. Second, police numbers, initiatives, crime prevention measures, and particularly imprisonment can have only relatively minor effects on crime, mainly because of point one. These are certainly my own default positions.

Yet the continuing reduction in crime has occurred over a period in which socio-economic bads were not dealt with in any meaningful way (the latest figures are even post-banking crisis). Inequality, certainly, has probably increased over recent years. And the reduction has occurred at a time of increasing police numbers and record levels of imprisonment.

So what is going on here? How do we deal with these contradictions? Are they contradictions? Are we just plain wrong? I very much doubt it, as it happens. When you look into it properly, the numbers simply don't stack up to support the idea that police numbers/imprisonment can have major effects on the general level or rate of crime (for a whole range of reasons, not least because so few 'crimes' ever make it to court) - although in certain limited circumstances they definitely can.

So what is the story?

Section 44 stop and search powers 'scrapped'

I was reminded of this today, and it's definitely still worthy of comment! This is probably the most relevant part of the story:

 "Officers will no longer be able to search individuals using section 44 powers. Instead they will have to rely on section 43 powers, which require officers to reasonably suspect the person to be a terrorist. And officers will only be able to use section 44 in relation to the searches of vehicles. I will only confirm these authorisations where they are considered to be necessary, and officers will only be able to use them when they have 'reasonable suspicion'."

This news is only to be welcomed, and you have to say hats off to the government for taking this step. Section 44 stops were certainly invidious from the human rights angle - whole parts of the Terrorism Act 2000 revealed the shocking illiberalism of New Labour at its worst - but police powers of this nature are also highly likely also have some direct, negative impacts in terms of the position of the police in the community and, in the long run, the ability of the police to do its job.

Put simply, the use of powers such as Section 44 will in many cases be experienced as profoundly unjust by those members of the public involved (the vast majority of those stopped under the act, remember, had done nothing wrong). Being stopped by the police under any circumstance is, potentially, bad enough. Why have they stopped me (again, which is the woeful experience of many people from ethnic minority groups)? I've done nothing wrong! But under normal conditions police officers can attempt to explain why the stop took place, what their grounds for suspicion were, why they felt it was necessary to take action. If no grounds are needed, this makes explanations much more difficult, if not impossible. In most cases the use of Section 44 must have boiled down to 'because I felt like it' or  'because you don't look right' - what other criteria would there be for making a stop under this legislation rather than under the other powers police have as their disposal?

Section 44 made lawful activity in public places subject to the whim of police officers, removed a vital check on the behaviour of the police, and made the demonstration of procedural fairness on the part of the police much more difficult, not least because this widely used legislation was in and of itself deeply unfair. It must have harmed the relationship between the police and people from communities across the country, imperilling the cooperation police have to have in order to function effectively.

Obviously the above runs the risk of white-washing 'normal' police stop and search practise, which is far from perfect in many many ways. But Section 44 really pushed the envelope in a wholly undesirable direction. And as far as I'm aware it proved almost entirely ineffective at actually catching any terrorists - the arrest rate (for all offences) for Section 44 stops was 0.5% in 2009/10. The conviction rate must have been miniscule.

But I think there is a pretty big silver lining to all this, quite aside from Theresa May's announcement. It is a perfect demonstration of the ways in which good police practice in ethical and normative terms - here, using stop and search powers sparingly, in situations where good reason is needed and  reasons are explained to the people stopped - coincide with what the public consistently say they want the police: fairness, neutrality, respect and the demonstration of proper procedure.  Legislation should be framed to encourage these behaviours not, as Section 44 did, discourage them.

How to lose friends and alienate people

Police officers recorded trying to stop 16 year old taking photos of military parade.

Top marks to the young man for standing up for himself!

Domestic violence and the World Cup

This story caught my eye yesterday. The 'End the fear' scheme set up in Manchester seems like a very good idea, and viewed from a positive angle any increase in the reporting of domestic violence is to be welcomed.

But I think there are several problems with the way the story is presented. Most importantly there's no evidence that acts of domestic violence increased - the reporting of such acts went up, at a time when women were (quite correctly) being actively encouraged to come forward. We don't know if more domestic violence was occurring, of if the same amount was going on but more of it was coming to the attention of the police.

This has two unfortunate implications. Firstly it adds credence to the idea that a certain type of man (and we can probably guess which type - working class football fans) can be provoked into violence simply by their team losing. This seems to me to tap into cultural stereotypes amount working class people as irrational, easily provoked etc. I may be reading too much into this aspect of the story, but I kind of doubt it.

But leading on from this, and much more importantly, I think the story as presented downplays the extent, and frequency, of the violence suffered by some women. I'd be very surprised if many of these cases are 'new', in the sense that it was the first time the woman involved had been subjected to violence. It seems much more likely that this was usually the latest in a series of attacks, but the woman was on this occasion encouraged to come forward by the publicity around the scheme. So rather than an increase in domestic violence linked to the world cup, we're actually just getting a better picture to the real level of 'everyday' violence.

Stories like this have the unfortunate effect of both 'othering' crime - domsetic violence is committed by lumpen proles who get wound up by football matches, unlike nice middle class people - and downplaying the real level of victimisation suffered by women.

Police numbers

In the spirit of political evenhandedness, tonight's short post is on the fascinating subject of what the Con/dems are going to do about police numbers. Well actually it is quite interesting, once you get under the skin of it a bit. And perhaps even something the new government might get right.

This was of course something of a holy grail for New Labour (and indeed appears to have been for the SNP in Scotland). More  police was inevitably seen as a good thing, in much the way that more prison(ers) was, in essence, also seen as just the right thing to do. But, given the lack of any robust evidence (much evidence at all, in fact) that more police=less crime, perhaps this holy cow needs to be poked around a bit, if not actually humanely slaughtered. And that's certainly what the Home Office spending review hints at, with numbers like 20,000 less officers being mentioned out loud, although you can't help feeling that the 40 per cent cuts figure is scare-mongering to make what eventually does come seem not do bad.

It seems very easy for many people to assume that less police is automatically a bad thing. It will certainly be presented as an efficiency saving (cutting admin and bureaucracy) which leaves 'front-line services' intact. But perhaps less police, doing less things but hopefully doing them better, might not be such a bad thing after all. It often seems we live in one of the most over-policed countries in Europe, with a police presence demanded at almost any event. They often seem superfluous. For example, if people are just getting along with things at a small demo, or a street party, or a little festival or whatever, do officers really need to hang around? After all, we usually get on with life pretty well knowing that the police are there if needed, not hanging around our every move waiting for something to happen.

Who knows, less police doing less things but better might actually make people feel a bit more confident about what they do do! Although having said, where this leaves the apparently insatiable public demand for more bobbies on the beat is anyone's guess - that's surely something the government can't be seen to threaten. Or is it?

Public confidence in the police (part 12,329)

So, continuing the hopelessly un-timely nature of recent posts, we return to Theresa May's dismissal of the PSA23 confidence target (PDF).

As noted previously, very mixed feelings on this. There's no doubt that the specific question was a complete dog's dinner that not only shackled police performance to that of the local council in a way probably entirely foreign to most members of the public. It also included the startling methodological innovation of a quadrupled barrelled format (police and local council; crime and ASB). And those problems are essentially the hors d'oeuvre before the main course of whether a single-item measure of public opinion, no matter how valid and accurate, should be the over-arching performance measure for the police. Not because public opinion isn't important - it certainly is - but because the extent to which opinion is entirely, or even primarily, tied to things the police actually do remains rather unclear. Diffuse concerns about the nature and direction of social change might be just as important influences on people's opinions as what transpired the last time they had contact with a police officer, in the aggregate at least.

And yet, it is because what people think about the police is so important, in terms of cooperation, deference to officers at times of stress, for compliance with the law - in the final analysis, the entire practise of policing by consent - that we should be very concerned about recent developments. The emphasis on pubic confidence arose, remember, out of a general recognition that public opinion surrounding the police is problematic, in some communities and sections of society at least, and there exist pockets of real alienation from the uniformed police and the wider society they so often represent. Even among the safe, comfortable middle classes, who in general continue to profess great support for the police, it is possible to detect significant issues with trust and an undermining of the legitimacy of the law (witness the way almost no-one thinks traffic policing is sensibly conducted, that speed limits apply to everyone except oneself, etc. - see here for a proper discussion of this specific issue).

With the best will in the world, will increasingly cash strapped forces continue to emphasise public confidence in the same way as in recent years if there is no target involved? On first glance it seems unlikely. Furthermore, it remains unclear as to what the government will replace the current regime with, although presumably the elected commissioners will figure in a significant way.

We should not forget that all the current evidence suggests that the best tool police actually have at their disposal to enhance public confidence - the best thing they can actually do - is improve the way officers interact with individuals and the way local forces interact with communities. This was, potentially, a classic win-win situation. Those concerned with continued problems in the relationship between police and community saw a way to encourage the police to behave in more procedurally fair and respectful ways, and police managers got a relatively easy and extremely cheap way to address their targets (although, of course, the ridiculously short-time scales imposed by the previous Home Office regime mitigated against any real progress being visible within the time frame allowed).

But if the new regime reverts to a classically instrumental focus on crime reduction we could be faced with a lose-lose situation. Much police work is of necessity instrumental and short-term, in that it is directed at problems which need a rapid and effective proximal solution. But if the policy emphasis is directed too heavily in this direction, and switches away (arguable, even further away) from developing styles of policing which treat citizens and communities with dignity and respect, not only do we risk losing sight of ethically and normatively desirable styles of policing, but we also run the risk of (further) de-legitimising the police in the eyes of those they police and serve, with all the consequences this will have in terms of cooperation and compliance with the law.

Put simply unfair policing will likely generate, in the long run, more crime. Most police officers of course treat most people fairly and with respect most of the time. But a switch away from positioning public opinion at the centre of the debate runs the risk of not strengthening support via a focus in the core business of 'fighting crime' but undermining it by losing sight of what policing should be about - working with individuals and communities to build a stronger, safer and (dare I say it) perhaps fairer society.