28 October 2021

Trusting the Police

A question of new powers.

By Robert Kilconner

The bill on assisted suicide is now well on its way through Parliament. The public generally are in favour, presumably taking the view that there is no point in keeping people alive just to suffer, and it now seems likely that it will become law. There are however those who oppose it, including the Archbishop of Canterbury whose resistance is not so much based on theological grounds (for example that suicide is a sin from which it is hard to repent) but rather on concerns that the new law might be abused by families who are anxious to dispose of elderly members for financial reasons.

Also on its passage through Parliament is the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which increases police powers and in particular their powers to stop and search those who have been convicted of carrying a knife. Again there is opposition, this time from a group of ex-policeman including the inevitable Lord Paddick, concerned at the possibility that the new law will be abused. Specifically:

“When stop-and-search powers are misused, they can be counter-productive, a waste of time and resources and, most importantly, damage relationships between the police and the public.”

That there is a common element between these stories is obvious. Both concern reforms which would probably benefit the public at large but carry a risk of abuse. In both cases that risk is put forward as a reason not to take proposals further. Having identified the common element, however, there’s also a fundamental difference. In the first case the possible abusers are greedy members of the public, willing to help in some drama of death from which they will benefit like the villains in an Agatha Christie story. In the second, the possible abusers are the police themselves, reeling from a lack of public confidence following the Sarah Everard case, and not to be trusted with instruments which would help them to control the current epidemic of knife crime.

We may not be able to reduce the risk from greedy legatees who are generally beyond the control of the civil authorities; surely, however, the risk that the police will abuse their new powers should not be dealt with by withholding those powers but rather by making sure that the powers when granted do not get abused. That does not mean surrounding them with rules and sending everyone on a training course but rather tackling some of the cultural issues which mean that, in some areas, the conduct of the police has fallen short of what is needed and indeed what the public expect.

It is a little odd that those leading the charge against the new provisions are retired senior police officers. They have all had important leadership roles and if it is indeed true that the police cannot be trusted with the powers that they need then they are representatives of the cohort which has failed. To see them now using that failure as a political weapon sticks in the throat, particularly when some of them are known to have political ambitions. Nevertheless, irritation at their posturing is not really the point. We need to get to a position where our police force can be trusted with the weapons it needs and we need to do that as quickly as possible.

Readers of this column will be aware that we have strong views on this. If the culture within the police does not match what the public expect then the answer is to let in the light by broadening the criteria for entry and encouraging individuals to join the police service on the basis that after a spell they will move on to careers outside it. Will that result in there being more middle-class policeman? Certainly it will.  Might that mean less of a social match between the Police and the communities with which they work? Perhaps. Will the training required when people join and leave the police cost money? Yes, it will. Will making the police more like normal employer bring its culture closer to that of the community at large? The answer to that is a resounding “yes”. In the end it is the last question which is the important one. Enough said?