The reality behind ‘police reform’
THIS SUMMER saw the publication of a new Home Office
Green Paper on proposals for changes to the organisation and structure
of the police force across the UK. Although steeped in New Labour-style
spin and management-speak – as in the title, ‘From the neighbourhood to
the national: policing our communities together’ – the Green Paper does
raise some interesting questions, in particular about the role and
accountability of the police.
An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)
survey conducted in 2007 found that 37% of people thought putting a
compliant in about the police wouldn’t make any difference while,
significantly, 30% of black people surveyed were worried about police
harassment if they lodged a complaint. The same survey revealed that
only 14% of those spoken to were ‘very confident’ that complaints would
be treated impartially. Confidence in complaints being treated
impartially was significantly lower amongst those from an ethnic
minority.
The IPCC survey reveals that a significant layer of
the population has growing questions about the accountability of the
police force. This has been exacerbated by a number of high profile
incidents over the past few years: the shooting of Jean Charles de
Menezes; the botched ‘terror raid’ in Forest Gate; and in the press more
recently, the sight of Omar Ahmet being held at gun point at Bournemouth
train station after being mistaken for a suspected bomber. However, just
as big a factor in this perception of the police is people’s daily
experience; this is especially the case amongst young people and black
and Asian youth in particular.
The Home Office’s Green Paper is partially a
response to the growing prevalence of such attitudes and a key theme
running throughout the document is "holding the police to account
locally" (Policing Our Communities, p14). However, the solutions put
forward are at best token gestures and at worst nothing more than spin.
The Green Paper proposes the introduction of
"directly [elected] individuals, known as Crime and Policing
Representatives (CPRs)" onto Police Authorities. These would sit
alongside appointed ‘lay justice’ representatives, such as magistrates,
and local councillors, but would make up the majority of the Police
Authority under these proposals. It also proposes that "where a local
area already directly elects a mayor, this person will automatically be
their local CPR".
The direct election of police authorities is not
unheard of. Indeed, when the Metropolitan Police was established in 1829
borough councils appointed watch committees which were responsible for
local police forces. Then, the control of police was seen as a local
government function and the watch committees were solely comprised of
elected councillors, who had powers to appoint constables and officers
as well as controlling their pay and work priorities.
This gave much greater local control and
accountability of police than the minimal proposals put forward in the
current Green Paper. However, this was before the majority of working
people had the right to vote, never mind having a party that represented
their interests to vote for! In reality, the watch committees
represented the developing (and newly enfranchised) industrial and
commercial capitalist class and their business interests.
Although working class people now have the right to
vote at eighteen thanks to the huge struggles of the late 19th
and early 20th century, we are faced with the dilemma of not
having a mass political force that represents our interests. In that
respect, the limited proposals to ‘democratise’ police authorities
cannot put control of the police closer to working people’s hands. In
fact, the report’s emphasis elsewhere on the role of business reveals
the Home Offices’ intention to not only prioritise their interests but
further the involvement of private companies in policing, as the
government has already done in other public service areas: "We need
increasingly to ensure that big business plays its part in crime
prevention as well as local partners" (p10).
The further involvement of big business in policing
is a step away from the sort of accountability that the Green Paper
claims it wants to further. More than that, it is a worry for anyone who
has seen the record of the private sector in other public service areas.
It should not, of course, come as a surprise to anyone who has followed
New Labour’s public service ‘reform’ over the past decade. To give just
one example, security guards for court holding cells are now privately
contracted and for the most part provided by the private firm Securitas.
As well as the immediate implications for health and safety and
accountability that bringing a private contractor in to provide this
service, it means that these court workers are not on civil service
contracts like other court staff and it cuts across their ability to
defend pay, conditions and services in this particular sector.
Merging Police Authorities so that they cover wider
areas is also being put forward. This was initially proposed in 2005 and
would have meant job losses in police civilian support staff as well as
associated agencies such as the court and probation service. Although at
that stage the proposals were not carried out, the Green Paper again
raises the idea of "close collaboration across a range of business
areas… as an important first step for those exploring the possibility of
voluntary merger" (p69). Again, this would raise the threat of job cuts
as well as increasing Police Authorities’ unaccountability under the
cover of the Green Paper’s other ‘democratic’ reforms.
However, although these moves to make the police
seem more accountable are probably the most high profile section of the
report, they are only one part of the Green Paper. For instance, the
section on Community Support Officers (CSOs) stresses that CSOs are
currently perceived as ‘policing on the cheap’. The Green Paper’s
proposals to counter that attitude are not to increase pay or extend
further training for CSOs but to give them more powers, without any
redress in the form of increased local accountability.
Most worrying of all are the proposals relating to
stop and search laws. Under the cover of "freeing officers to focus on
what matters" (p39) the Green Paper proposes "scrapping the stop and
account form entirely". At a time when police powers to stop and search
have already increased through so-called anti-terror legislation, it is
alarming that police could no longer have to record their reasons for
searching someone or the outcome of the search but would only have to
"record ethnicity information by radio" (p39). These proposals are put
forward despite the fact that the Green Paper itself recognises that
"young black men feel particularly disaffected from [stop and search] as
they are often subject to it" (p22).
Although dense and filled at times with very
confusing double-speak, the proposals in the Green Paper are important
to know about. Working-class people are naturally concerned about crime,
and violent crime in particular. But recent events undermine what trust
there is in the police force. The fact, for instance, that no police
officer faced charges for the shooting of Mohammed Abdul Kahar in the
Forest Gate ‘anti-terror’ raid creates legitimate fear and anger amongst
workers, and young Asian workers in particular.
We need to call for greater democratic
accountability of the police via locally elected and accountable police
committees made up of community members and trade unionists. The
proposals drawn up in this Green Paper on the one hand offer elections
to bodies with very limited powers, but on the other put forward
proposals which would increase the ability of the police to act in an
unaccountable manner. Like many public service ‘reforms’ under New
Labour there is a dangerous act of smoke-and-mirrors taking place here.
Overcoming crime, for socialists, means
fundamentally the eradication of the social conditions that produce
crime. But within this present society, campaigning for democratic
accountability of the police, far from undermining the ‘fight against
crime’ helps raise questions in the minds of workers and young people
about the true role and nature of an undemocratic, unaccountable and
increasingly repressive force. Therefore, when the government recognises
questions are being asked about the role of the police, and attempts to
manoeuvre so it appears steps are being made to redress this, it is
important for socialists to expose the processes actually taking place,
which in this case are a continuation of the ‘reforms’ we have seen
across public services and which have all been to the detriment of
working people.
Greg Maughan
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