The police and us

A recent report published by the Civitas think-tank explains, much of the frustration and loss of confidence we feel in the police. In 2006-07 there were almost 30,000 complaints about the police, a record since records began 17 years ago. These cover neglect in duty and failure to respond, but they also cover things like rudeness and insensitivity.

It seems that because of the target-driven culture, where each officer is expected to achieve a certain number of "sanction detections" per month, by charging, cautioning of fining an offender, all sorts of distortions are now appearing.

Officers go for easy targets, for motorists, law abiding householders, or even children. So for instance, children chalking a pavement are reprimanded.

They give a low priority for crimes which will involve a great deal of time for a conviction. So responses to crimes like burglary are sluggish, and statements about serious crimes may not be followed up for months. Given that one of our complaints is that they spend too much time on unavoidable, that is government-required, paperwork, it is understandable that there is delay on some on some areas of detection.

Relative importance of types of crime is being blurred - a child stealing a chocolate bar is a statistic like someone committing a murder. Minor motoring offences become likewise elevated into serious offences, because of their contributions to statistics.

Anyone convicted bears a criminal record, which will stop entry to countries like America, and damage career prospects at home. We are apparently having talks with America to persuade them to disregard very low level "crimes", but why are they crimes and why are so many people convicted of them?

Is the situation remediable? Yes, but only if the top-down target culture is removed, which should reduce the distortion and the waste of resources in paperwork. The easiest way to achieve this must surely be to make policing more local, rather than from some remote regional centre. Why not make police accountable by making the chief responsible to voters by the need to be re-elected very three years? Local needs and preferences would be a matter of prime importance, and performance failures would be punished.