By Dr Bill Dixon
The resignation of Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (and ‘Britain’s top cop’) following a meeting with the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson has led to bitter recriminations about ‘playing politics with the police’, and to unprecedented levels of interest in the constitutional position of the police.
As Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), Mr Johnson has been accused of overstepping the constitutional mark by forcing Sir Ian out of office. Worse still he’s been condemned for politicizing policing in London at a time when the capital is plagued by knife crime and faces a continuing terrorist threat. Meanwhile, Sir Ian himself has been blamed for contributing to his own downfall, amongst other things by lobbying too enthusiastically in favour of key New Labour policies. Stuck in the middle of this firestorm is Labour Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, who will eventually have to appoint Blair’s successor.
Although Commissioners don’t resign every day – the last Commissioner to fall on his sword was Sir Edward Henry in 1918 – control over policing in London, has been fiercely contested by national and local politicians, and successive Commissioners, since the Metropolitan Police was established way back in 1829.
In the early days, the Home Secretary had the whip hand and one of Jacqui Smith’s predecessors, Lord Melbourne, even went so far as to give detailed instructions on how the police were to handle a demonstration at Cold Bath Fields in Clerkenwell in 1833. As it turned out, the operation was a disaster and ended with a running fight between police and demonstrators in the course of which an officer was stabbed and killed. Half a century later, in 1888, local politicians called on the government to transfer the management of the city’s police to the newly elected London County Council.
The high point of what became known as the ‘doctrine of constabulary independence’, and the heyday of the Met’s chief officer as the master of all he surveyed, came 40 years ago when one of the most famous judges of the 20th century, Lord Denning, ruled that the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was ‘answerable to law and to the law alone’. The responsibility for enforcing the law in Britain’s capital city, he went on, was the Commissioner’s, and no mere ‘Minister of the Crown’ or ‘police authority’ could tell him how he should discharge it.
Then, 15 years later, the soon to be abolished Greater London Council (GLC) published a consultation paper calling for the Metropolitan Police to be brought under democratic control. Under the GLC’s proposals an elected police authority for London would be given a statutory duty to enforce the law and have ‘ultimate control of all decisions relating to deployment and policing methods’. The Leader of the GLC at the time was none other than Ken Livingstone, the recently unseated Mayor of London and one of the sternest critics of his successor Boris Johnson’s ousting of Sir Ian Blair.
The politicization of policing in London and the desire of locally elected politicians – be they mayors or councillors – is nothing new. In attempting to exert a measure of control over policing in London by toppling Sir Ian, despite the continued - if lukewarm and ultimately ineffectual - support of the Home Secretary, Boris Johnson has only succeeded in doing what generations of local politicians have tried but failed to do. Whether you prefer the politician or the policeman, Boris or Blair, is beside the point. Policing is too important to be left to the police. It is also, as Robert Reiner has reminded us, ineluctably political. If the sad end of Sir Ian Blair means that policing in London has become politicized again, and given locally elected representatives some influence over the strategic direction of their city’s police force, his resignation will not have been entirely in vain, and Johnson’s part in it not quite as reprehensible as Livingstone and others would have us believe.
Reference Robert Reiner (2000) The Politics of the Police, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Monday, 6 October 2008
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Knife crime in the news
By Helen Wells
Knife crime has again dominated the news this week as the number of teenagers killed by knives in London since the start of the year reaches 18. A review of news coverage about knife crime from just one day this week reveals a variety of different solutions to the problem being proposed across the Government, opposition, campaign groups and the media itself. Ideas include situational crime prevention, early intervention, and general deterrence and, as such, demonstrate a variety of different assumptions about how and why crime happens and can be prevented from happening. However, there is also some scepticism about what the statistics are ‘really’ telling us about the problem.
David Cameron suggests that prison is the answer for anyone found carrying a knife without good cause. He says “The Government should say not just that there is a presumption you will be prosecuted if you carry a knife, but that there will be a presumptions that you will go to jail. It is not a minor offence. There is no excuse for carrying a knife when you walk out of your door.” However, he also suggests that the breakdown of family life has played a part in the current “epidemic”, and suggests that, as part of his Knife Crime Action Plan, “family measures” should be combined with a clamp down on school discipline and a National Citizens Service scheme – much like national service – for 16 year olds. (The Sun, 7th July 2008)
Cherie Blair, in her role as the Chair of the Street Weapons Commission told the Daily Telegraph that she believes “that there are no quick fixes to solve the problems of gun and knife violence in Britain.” She cautioned that no single policy would “reverse the trend of young people carrying weapons…but an effective response will need action from a wide range of organisations - from central government, the police, local authorities, schools, communities and individuals.” The report of the Street Weapons Commission (link) recommends “rigorous action by the police through intelligence led targeting of 'impact players’, focussing on weapon crime 'hotspots’, and preventing criminal gangs from operating, and so helping remove the glamour and financial rewards of criminality [as well as] more support for voluntary and community groups working on the ground with vulnerable young people”. It, too, believes a combination of enforcement prevention is the answer: “Enforcement has a crucial preventative role in itself that needs to be acknowledged. All ways of dealing with knife and gun crime have an important role to play and there is more to do through all means of tackling the problem - diversion, support and sanction.” (Daily Telegraph, 7th July 2008)
Other reports suggested that hospital and school employees had begun to demand body armour to protect them amid fears of stabbings by members of the public. The Daily Express claimed there has been a “stampede” from doctors, nurses and teachers when they were offered protective vests by a private company. (Daily Express, 7th July 2008)
Elsewhere, suggestions have been made that we need to know more about the problem before we can hope to solve it. Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary) has suggested that hospital staff should be compelled to inform police when patients are treated for stab wounds in the same way that they have to report gunshot wounds. She said that this would help to establish the true scale of knife crime in Britain amid concern that many offences go unreported. (Daily Telegraph, 7th July 2008)
Also sceptical about our level of knowledge about knife crime are most police officers, according to a ‘think-tank report’ reported by the Daily Telegraph. 80% of police officers apparently think that knife crime has got worse in the last five years. The Telegraph reports that “Its findings are in stark contrast with the British Crime Survey, which states that the level of knife crime has remained stable in recent years.”
Of crucial importance here is the fact that the British Crime Survey does not include interviews with under 16s about their experiences of crime. In May this year the BCS launched consultation on the issue of extending its methodology to include under 16’s experiences of victimisation. (www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/bcs-consultation-0508.pdf)
Knife crime has again dominated the news this week as the number of teenagers killed by knives in London since the start of the year reaches 18. A review of news coverage about knife crime from just one day this week reveals a variety of different solutions to the problem being proposed across the Government, opposition, campaign groups and the media itself. Ideas include situational crime prevention, early intervention, and general deterrence and, as such, demonstrate a variety of different assumptions about how and why crime happens and can be prevented from happening. However, there is also some scepticism about what the statistics are ‘really’ telling us about the problem.
David Cameron suggests that prison is the answer for anyone found carrying a knife without good cause. He says “The Government should say not just that there is a presumption you will be prosecuted if you carry a knife, but that there will be a presumptions that you will go to jail. It is not a minor offence. There is no excuse for carrying a knife when you walk out of your door.” However, he also suggests that the breakdown of family life has played a part in the current “epidemic”, and suggests that, as part of his Knife Crime Action Plan, “family measures” should be combined with a clamp down on school discipline and a National Citizens Service scheme – much like national service – for 16 year olds. (The Sun, 7th July 2008)
Cherie Blair, in her role as the Chair of the Street Weapons Commission told the Daily Telegraph that she believes “that there are no quick fixes to solve the problems of gun and knife violence in Britain.” She cautioned that no single policy would “reverse the trend of young people carrying weapons…but an effective response will need action from a wide range of organisations - from central government, the police, local authorities, schools, communities and individuals.” The report of the Street Weapons Commission (link) recommends “rigorous action by the police through intelligence led targeting of 'impact players’, focussing on weapon crime 'hotspots’, and preventing criminal gangs from operating, and so helping remove the glamour and financial rewards of criminality [as well as] more support for voluntary and community groups working on the ground with vulnerable young people”. It, too, believes a combination of enforcement prevention is the answer: “Enforcement has a crucial preventative role in itself that needs to be acknowledged. All ways of dealing with knife and gun crime have an important role to play and there is more to do through all means of tackling the problem - diversion, support and sanction.” (Daily Telegraph, 7th July 2008)
Other reports suggested that hospital and school employees had begun to demand body armour to protect them amid fears of stabbings by members of the public. The Daily Express claimed there has been a “stampede” from doctors, nurses and teachers when they were offered protective vests by a private company. (Daily Express, 7th July 2008)
Elsewhere, suggestions have been made that we need to know more about the problem before we can hope to solve it. Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary) has suggested that hospital staff should be compelled to inform police when patients are treated for stab wounds in the same way that they have to report gunshot wounds. She said that this would help to establish the true scale of knife crime in Britain amid concern that many offences go unreported. (Daily Telegraph, 7th July 2008)
Also sceptical about our level of knowledge about knife crime are most police officers, according to a ‘think-tank report’ reported by the Daily Telegraph. 80% of police officers apparently think that knife crime has got worse in the last five years. The Telegraph reports that “Its findings are in stark contrast with the British Crime Survey, which states that the level of knife crime has remained stable in recent years.”
Of crucial importance here is the fact that the British Crime Survey does not include interviews with under 16s about their experiences of crime. In May this year the BCS launched consultation on the issue of extending its methodology to include under 16’s experiences of victimisation. (www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/bcs-consultation-0508.pdf)
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