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.
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...I don't understand why the police should be exempt from the system of separation of powers; checks and balances, that is so vital to democracies...there is a reason why judges and the police are answerable to the law, and not to politicians. It's a slippery slope from here to making the police a political instrument, and plainly, a misreading of what constitutes a healthy democratic state.
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