Director's Blog 
Director, John Graham, offers his personal views on some of the big policing issues of the day. Appointed Director of the Police Foundation in 2005, John's voice is one of the few independent sources of information and expertise in the field of policing, uninfluenced by the vested interests of party politics or the Police Service. He has previously worked as a Civil Servant in Government (Home Office, Cabinet Office) and writes frequently on policing and related issues, especially youth crime and criminal justice. If you would like to respond to any of the blog entries below, please Contact John
28 July 2010 - Policing and the Recession
Talk of cuts in public services has become endemic. Politicians, senior managers, civil servants, journalists and even academics are all busy discussing how best to make efficiency savings, increase productivity and deliver better value for money. The private sector will expand as the public sector shrinks. We are entering new territory.
The Audit Commission, together with HMIC, has just published a report entitled “Sustaining value for money in the police service”. Although the title is somewhat presumptuous – there is, as the report itself states, no evidence that high spending is delivering improved productivity – it usefully suggests that savings can be made “by linking policing priorities to resource management,” but this surely begs the question why on earth wasn’t this done before? As Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI said in the Police Foundation’s John Harris Memorial Lecture last year, if you consistently throw money at a problem, you never need to demonstrate value for money. And the police service can hardly complain that it hasn’t had money thrown at it over the last two decades.
The Audit Commission/HMIC report fails to state the obvious, which is that there must be considerable scope for savings simply through cutting out all the extraneous activities the service has collected or been dumped with over the years. Perhaps it’s time to put a stop to mission drift, to return to core functions, to resist the temptation to do everything and be everywhere, to learn to say “no” and not always say “yes”, to be a ‘can’t do’ service and not always a (very exploitable) ‘can do’ one.
In early September, the Police Foundation will be holding its first Annual Conference. The theme, like so many conferences these days, is about the effective delivery of public services in a period of austerity. But as well as identifying the challenges, it will also explore the opportunities. Radical reforms which have been needed for some time may now be easier to achieve, not least force collaboration. Creating space for innovation is difficult at the best of times, but more so when resources are being squeezed. What are other public services or indeed other countries faced with the same problems doing? Putting forward innovative strategies and ideas for improving efficiency and productivity are all very well, but how will they be achieved while simultaneously resourcing an unprecedented security operation – the Olympic Games?
In the health sector, the government’s new proposals will deliver greater private sector involvement as GPs take on the commissioning of health services and outsourcing companies take over much of the back office functions in GP surgeries. This has led to a heated discussion about who will benefit - shareholders or taxpayers, professionals or clients – and whether “the privatisation of the health service” must inevitably lead to conflicts of interest and lower quality services being delivered by poorly trained, lower paid and smaller workforces. The Chief Executive of Capita said recently that he would be deeply disappointed if its take from the outsourcing of government services doesn’t double in the next five years. Does this matter? How will this affect the ordinary man-in-the-street? The same ethical discussion, which will be addressed at the Annual Conference, needs to be embraced by the policing sector. What will a leaner, smaller, police force look like, what should it no longer do and how might its values change? It is important, in the rush to make cuts, not to lose sight of the consequences they may have for ordinary human beings, not just for balancing the books.
Audit Commission (2010). ‘Sustaining value for money in the police service.’ London: Audit Commission.
8 July 2010 - When will the Police learn?
Congratulations to the IPCC. Their new Guidance, which came out in April 2010, places “learning from your mistakes” centre stage. The police will now, at long last, see complaints made by the public as an opportunity from which they can learn and improve rather than an unfounded criticism to be dismissed or, at worst, treated with contempt.
I am proud to say that the IPCC’s guidance stems from the research on local resolution that we published three years ago. It recognises the importance of “an early apology explaining how lessons have been learned when things have gone wrong or could have been done better” and how this “will often be enough to restore the complainant’s confidence.” But I fear that the message isn’t getting through to forces. Take the following real and recent case:
Two women complained to a police force about officers acting in an aggressive, intimidating and hostile manner. In response, a letter signed by the Chief Inspector provides a perfect example of what NOT to do. The letter refused to acknowledge even the possibility that his officers may have behaved inappropriately, affirming instead that their actions were correct in law. The letter stated that although an investigation could be conducted, “there will be no written apology from the officers involved”. Even worse, it stated that “an apology by a police officer is not an outcome that can be achieved by the Local Resolution process”, which even the old guidance from 2005 contradicts.
In the event, the case was investigated, the officers denied any incivility and since there were no independent witnesses, the complaint was not upheld. The women are now appealing to the IPCC. Can this possibly be a good use of tax-payers money? But more importantly, supposing the investigation had found that the officers had indeed behaved in an aggressive, intimidating and hostile manner? Would this still have meant that no apology would have been forthcoming? Surely a Chief Inspector must know how important public relations are to police legitimacy? If he had just been sworn at by someone on the till at Tesco’s, wouldn’t he have expected – even demanded – an apology? I know the police are sometimes on the other end of the foot and witness the most appalling aggressive behaviour from the public, but this is part of the job description. The same cannot be said for these complainants.
The women in the above case described the process as having severely undermined their confidence in the police. That’s hardly surprising. Thankfully the approach suggested by the new Guidance means that the police should deal with public’s dissatisfaction, focus on early apologies and acknowledge fair criticism. Now we just need to make sure police officers know about it.
Look out for our forthcoming Briefing on Police Complaints
25 June 2010 - Second Jobs
Is this another media storm in a tea-cup or should we sit up and take note of the increasing numbers of police officers taking up second jobs? I think first and foremost it is important to put this in perspective. Compared with many other professions the proportion of police officers with second jobs is still very low. A 2009 survey revealed that 4,395 officers had reported having second jobs. According to the Labour Force Survey, 26.8% of the UK workforce has second jobs, a proportion five times higher than police officers. While the numbers may be rising, they are doing so from a very small base and compared with say teaching or the fire service, the police service still has a long, long way to go.
The main objections to police officers taking second jobs are that they may pose a conflict of interest or affect their performance as a police officer. In practice, they have to obtain the approval of their Chief Constable and are required in law to declare any external business interests; and checks are made to ensure any outside employment does not impinge on their public duties. But there are also real benefits to be gained from police officers taking up second jobs. Their tendency to see the world through the sometimes narrow and cynical eyes of a profession that day in, day out, deals with the flotsam and jetson of human behaviour becomes tempered. Their skills, some of which are unique, and their ‘can-do’ attitude can help to improve, even transform other businesses. And what they learn and see in other jobs helps to mitigate their isolation and the long term drift away from living in the communities they once policed and understanding the lives of the people they once knew. As Sir Robert Peel said nearly 200 years ago, the police are the public and the public are the police and if this is under threat, then perhaps encouraging more police officers to take on second jobs is not such a bad thing.
The Conservatives have been particularly vocal in their criticism of second jobs for police officers, struggling to see justification for supplementary work. Unfortunately in a political era overshadowed by MP’s expenses and their own second job scandals, striking poses on the moral high ground looks a bit rich. Not many police officers can expect to be paid £1,000 for a day’s work. Police officers today are unsupported by the rent and housing allowances of yesterday. Their opportunities to earn overtime are being cut back and they are faced with economic uncertainly as they wait for the axe to fall on public sector funding. Is it really any wonder that some have turned their hands to hairdressing?
11 June 2010 - Losing it in Birmingham
Is counterterrorism becoming synonymous with surveillance? The startling news that counterterrorism police are targeting hundreds of surveillance cameras on two predominantly Muslim areas in Birmingham might suggest that it is. A reported 150 ANPR cameras have been installed in the two areas (Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook), which is more than three times the number deployed in Birmingham’s notorious city centre.
Sold to councillors and citizens as a means of primarily combating anti-social behaviour, vehicle crime and drug dealing, Project Champion is the first of its kind to monitor a neighbourhood’s entire population on the grounds that they are seen as ‘at risk’ of extremism. It looks like the people of Birmingham had the wool pulled over their eyes. Maybe if they had been told that Project Champion’s £3 million grant comes directly from the government’s Terrorism and Allied Matters Fund they would have smelt a rat. But sadly, although it is well understood that secrecy in such matters fosters a climate of suspicion, undermines trust and puts strain on fragile police-community relations, this information was kept under wraps. Where was the community consultation? Where was the transparency? And where was the voice of reason within West Midlands Police itself that should have shouted loudly and clearly that this will most probably do more harm than good?
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights stipulates that the gathering of data must be both proportionate and necessary whilst ensuring minimal interference with privacy. Since all other ANPR projects have been used to monitor potential terrorism targets rather than entire communities, West Midlands police are treading on dangerous ground. Furthermore, they have declared their intention to store journey details for two years. This exceeds current police storage of CCTV images, which although it varies from force to force, tends to be between one and sixteen months. Have they lost sight of the right balance between security and liberty?
Despite the lack of supportive research the police continue to stand by surveillance cameras to the extent that 78% of the government’s crime prevention budget is spent on them. With an estimated 4.2 million cameras (one for every fourteen people) the UK defines what it means to be a surveillance society. There is a certain irony that this is being played out so graphically in Birmingham, where 35 years ago six innocent men were wrongly convicted of terrorist activity. Let’s just hope that in this instance, history does not repeat itself.
February 2010 - The Fall of Ali Dizaei
Ali Dizaei, a former Commander in the Metropolitan Police, was jailed for four years on Monday, convicted of misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice after he assaulted and tried to frame a businessman to settle a personal score. If the name is familiar to you, that’s because Dizaei has frequently and vocally accused the Met of racism in its past investigations of him.
There may not literally be champagne corks flying at Scotland Yard over Dizaei’s imprisonment, but there will undoubtedly be a sense of relief and even vindication for those involved in investigating him. The resolution of this matter should also allow for a degree of rapprochement between the Met and the National Black Police Association, of which Dizaei was chair.
Many have suggested that the case has damaged the reputation of the Met. Indeed, Sir Paul Stephenson said it has damaged the reputation of the entire police service. The IPCC called “criminals in uniform” like Dizaei “the greatest threat to the reputation of the police service”. Paddick’s article in The Independent says that the affair “will do little to improve race relations in the police service or improve public confidence in the police”. The Daily Telegraph says the Met’s reputation is in ‘tatters’.
They are right to an extent. Certainly the last thing the police service needs is intense media coverage of a story involving race, corruption and a senior officer. From a public relations point of view, the sooner the Met ‘moves on’ from this affair the better. We are told that what is important is this: a corrupt senior officer in the country’s biggest police force did not go unpunished. According to the IPPC, this case proves that “nobody is untouchable”.
I hope they are right. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely: that is true of police forces as well as police officers and both have seen their powers grow and grow. So the focus on Dizaei should not distract us from asking serious questions about police corruption. SOCA and the IPCC are both looking at the question again. Perhaps like me they still clearly remember the Birmingham six and the Guildford four. If the public is to start trusting the police again, we need to know that Dizaei’s individual corruption is not indicative of institutional corruption. In short, we need to know that Dizaei is not the tip of an iceberg.
Strength in numbers
The title may be wordy, but it certainly has an all-star cast. ‘The High Level Working Group Report on Police Value for Money’ was published at the beginning of the month, with recommendations from the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Association of Police Authorities, the National Policing Improvement Agency, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Home Office.
It’s a sequel to the government’s White Paper on the topic, and there are no prizes for guessing the how the story ends: cuts. The Home Office has summarised the proposals, and you can read the full report here.
‘Developing smarter procurement policies’ is fairly uncontroversial and certainly long overdue, as is ‘finding cheaper IT solutions’. It means getting the police to buy goods (like vehicles, body armour and mobile phones) and IT services through national contracts, rather than have individual police forces shop around, which can only be a good thing. With regards to the more controversial proposals, namely “streamlining back-office support services” (which means cut the number of police staff) and “cutting back on overtime payments” (no translation needed), the Police Federation has, not surprisingly, come out against. It says the proposals fail to appreciate “the nature of the job that officers do”. But reducing the overtime bill will not be easy: attempts by the Conservatives and Labour (in the early 1990s and in 2002) failed. But what about the public? Did they have a say?
For two decades, police funding and police officer numbers have been increasing. Now, with one eye on the recession and the other on the election, the big chiefs of British policing have come together and decided that...nothing major needs to be done. Not for the police the massive cuts set to afflict the rest of the public sector. A nip here, a tuck there, but nothing really drastic. While the government has been stressing the importance of involving the public in deciding policing priorities in their local community, they weren’t even asked to contribute to this debate. If an independent assessment of value for money in the police service had been carried out, I dare say we would have seen very different results. With record numbers of police officers, considerably more resources now than ten years ago but no significant improvement in public confidence, shouldn’t the Working Group have seriously considered whether police numbers should be cut? The report asks police chiefs to ensure that, “the number of officers in administrative or back office functions is kept as low as possible” and to use administrative staff, “to reduce the administrative burden on frontline officers”, but don’t hold your breath.
29 January 2010 - The rise and rise of stop and search
‘Stop and search’ is never far from the policing headlines, and this story in Monday’s Guardian raises an interesting point about its use. (Before you read on and get confused by ‘Section 60’ and ‘Section 44’, the Met Police website has a good summary of them both.) Professor Fitzgerald says she has been unable to find “absolute proof” that the increased use of stop and search in London from April to October 2009 reduced knife crime: in some boroughs knife crime went up and in others it went down. Establishing cause and effect is never easy, but this doesn’t sound like it’s very robust. So, for example, knife crime may well have gone up a lot more in the boroughs where it rose had it not been for the increased use of stop and search. But what I take issue with is the implication in the Guardian article that the use of Section 60 stop and search is inappropriate to fight knife crime. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Order Act 1994 allows for stop and search in response or to prevent “incidents of serious violence”. Surely a stabbing is an incident of serious violence? If you don’t think it is, read the description of the repercussions from a stabbing from a doctor's point of view.
But where I do have concerns is where stop and search is used to target black and other ethnic minority groups. This can have very serious implications for community relations (as a quick reading of Lord Scarman’s report on the Brixton riots in the early 1980s will remind you) and the evidence on this disturbing. The numbers speak for themselves: in 2008/9 the Met stopped and searched 17,453 people under Section 60. 42% of them were Black or Black British. Also, and this is in some ways more worrying, the numbers stopped and searched are soaring. According to the Home Office, the Met conducted 4,348 in 2003/4. As we have seen, by 2007/8 , this had risen to 17,453 and Professor Fitzgerald’s figures suggest the upward trend continued in 2008/9.
Our police forces need to be careful. Much of the admirable work by the Met and London’s communities to build trusting relationships could be undone by just one badly managed stop and search and the more there are, the greater the risk. Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s 2008 Review of Policing warned that stop and search is one of the most important mechanisms through which the public and the police interact and often determines the views each holds of the other and so needs to be undertaken with the utmost courtesy and respect. In our haste to crack down on knife crime, the police must avoid provoking collateral damage in London’s most ethnically diverse communities.
22 January 2010
There is much that is commendable in what Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has said about the public intervening in crime.
“People should have the right to defend themselves, their family and their property,” he said. Absolutely.
The first thing to do is call 999, and then make “a reasonable judgement” about intervening, he said. Spot on.
But I worry that his comments will be misconstrued because of their ambiguity and timing. They came hot on the heels of the release of Munir Hussain, a householder from Buckinghamshire sentenced to 30 months for grievous bodily harm with intent. After a burglary at his home in September 2008 (during which he and his family were tied up and held hostage), Mr Hussain and his brother pursued and attacked one of the intruders, leaving him brain damaged. In reducing Mr Hussain’s sentence to 12 months suspended for two years, Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge made his reasoning clear: He was showing “mercy” in a case of “true exceptionality”, which had “nothing to do with the right of the householder to defend themselves or their families or their homes”.
In other words, Mr Hussain was still guilty, and his attack on the burglar was still illegal. Is this what Sir Paul meant when he said, “I have always believed people should have the right to defend themselves, their family and their property and we should not just allow but encourage citizens to intervene with crime”.
Maybe. It’s hard to tell. Comments about the right of citizens to defend themselves, made by the country’s most senior and visible police officer, in the middle of a media hullabaloo, need to be crystal clear or they risk condoning vigilantism.
And what of the timing? Law and order is always a hot topic with politicians – and it is especially so with an election looming. Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling has said that the Conservative party intends to change the law in this area, while the government believes that the present situation is satisfactory. Was it really necessary for the Commissioner to comment publicly on this case and risk associating himself with the policies of a political party so close to an election? It’s not just members of the public who need to make “reasonable judgements” about interventions
December 2009 - Intercept evidence
Once again, the use of intercepted communications as evidence in court has caused headlines and head-scratching. After a series of mock trials, the Home Office has concluded that the practice is not yet “legally viable” because it breaches defendants’ human rights. This failure to find a workable model doesn’t surprise me - it’s a complicated issue with implications for civil liberties, privacy, the work of our law-enforcement agencies and public trust in them. Here are some of the issues as I see them: Let’s start with the police and intelligence services. If they have evidence of a suspect’s involvement in serious crime or terrorism, and want to intercept his or her communications, they must apply to the Home Secretary for a warrant. In 2007, 2026 such warrants were granted in England, Wales and Scotland. But as soon as a warrant is issued, there are civil liberty and privacy implications. What is to stop the Home Secretary acting politically? And what of the human rights of those not subject to a warrant but participating in intercepted communications? There is a good case to be made for warrants being granted by a member of the judiciary rather than the government. Things aren’t much simpler in the court-room. On the one hand, some argue that the disclosure of intercept evidence makes for fairer trials because it gives the accused a right to hear and contest the evidence presented against them. The human rights group Liberty makes this point forcefully here. On the other hand, the police and intelligence agencies worry that the use of such information could put them at risk, by exposing their methods of operation and encouraging criminals to change their style of communication. And then there’s the bigger picture. The former head of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington and the Information Commissioner’s Office have both warned that the expansion of state surveillance could lead to a climate of suspicion and fear. And some argue that the debate is already ahead of itself because the value of intercept evidence has not been established. Why? Because surveillance and communications intercept operations are necessarily covert and so little empirical data on surveillance and intercept exists in the public domain.
The Home Office has signalled its intention to continue looking for a solution to this - it doesn’t take long to understand why they’ve had so much trouble. For a concise yet comprehensive overview of the key issues which arise from the use of intercepted communications, including the use of intercept evidence in other countries, see the most recent paper in our “The Briefing” series, entitled ‘Police interception of communications’. It is available to preview or purchase here.
July 2009
I want to tell two stories that I think say something profound about the police, but which you are unlikely to read elsewhere. All too often we forget the good things – not the brave things – that police officers do. On my way to work this morning a man fell in the middle of a very busy major road crossing in central London. He started to have a seizure whilst the rush-hour traffic continued to swirl past him on either side. An off-duty police officer stopped to help and those of us surrounding this poor man were mightily relieved that someone with authority had taken charge. He was only young – certainly less than half my age – but he knew how to administer first aid and probably saved this man’s life. I don’t know his name and once the ambulance arrived he no doubt set off on his daily duties like the rest of us. Unlike those who will be recognised for their bravery at tomorrow’s 14th Annual Police Bravery Awards ceremony, this unknown officer will be off doing something else to help people. We shouldn't forget that this is why most police officers decide to do what they do.
All too often we also forget how the police can sometimes come up with really effective solutions to crimes that don’t rely on the heavy hand of the law. For this story, I am indebted to Dr Gloria Laycock, who related it to instantaneous applause at a conference she chaired on Monday. It has to be put in writing, if only for posterity. Gloria lives in a semi-detached house in Brighton. Like her neighbours, she has a number of plant pots in her front garden and one day, when she returned from work, she discovered that her plants, like those of her neighbours, had been stolen. It transpired that all the plants had been taken by one of her very own neighbours, who had promptly installed them in his back garden. The police were called, but instead of arresting and charging the man for theft, they decided to steal the plants back and return them to where they belonged. Imagine the man’s face when he came home from work that evening! The police then gave the man two choices: either he apologised to all his neighbours or he would face prosecution. Imagine his squirming embarrassment at having to apologise to all of his neighbours for stealing their plants! There’s no way he’ll ever do that again. So the police: (i) acted illegally and (ii) ignored their own sanction detection targets in order to: (i) ensure the same crime won’t ever happen again and (ii) secure the respect and confidence of the people they were serving. Simply brilliant.
30 June 2009
I’ve resisted saying anything about the G20 protests so far. Major incidents of this kind are highly complex and contentious, especially where fatalities are involved, and understandably emotions on all sides run high. But today I read the Home Affairs Select Committee’s report on the protests and there are clearly some lessons to be learnt – not least from what it fails to say. The report identifies a number of factors that contributed to the problems that day, in particular the presence of too many untrained, inexperienced officers, the misuse of police powers, the lack of effective communication with journalists and protesters and officers not displaying their identification numbers. It makes some sensible recommendations, such as endorsing the ban on the deployment of Taser (referred to as “Conducted Energy Devices”) at public protests and the need to boost the resources of the IPCC so that complaints – and there were more than 250 of them – are dealt with much more quickly (they currently take between 12 and 18 months to resolve). And although it says a little about the controversial police tactic of “kettling”, it justifies this by deferring to the review of police tactics being undertaken by HMIC.
But the Select Committee’s report is equally interesting for what it fails to say. By blaming “inexperienced and untrained” officers, it deflects attention from those more senior officers with responsibility for command and control, especially those in charge of the Territorial Support Groups (who, incidentally, are specifically trained for such operations and therefore neither “inexperienced nor untrained”). No account is taken of the events leading up to the protests, especially the announcements in the media of impending violence. If some police officers were “fearful”, maybe this was because they had read and believed some of the stories in the press about “small groups of anarchists hell bent on violence”; or the statement by the Commissioner of the MPS that he anticipated violent disorder; or the alleged comments by certain police officers that they were “up for it”. The scene for confrontation, already fuelled by the anger felt towards the bankers and the politicians widely held responsible for the current global financial crisis, was already set long before the protests began. But there is one, even more pertinent, issue which the Select Committee failed to address, which is that if lessons for the future are to be learnt, the way in which the policing of major protests has become increasingly authoritarian (some could say paramilitary) needs to be recognised and addressed. This is a real and serious threat to police legitimacy and ultimately the rule of law. Police legitimacy is always threatened in situations where protesters believe they have “right” on their side, so their primary task must be to maintain their legitimacy by avoiding confrontation, using the subtle (but much more effective) skills of negotiation to manage a situation in which they are caught between a rock and a hard place. I really don’t want to see the day when our police are mentioned in the same breath as the CRS (riot police) in France.
12 June 2009
The Home Office has just published its evaluation of neighbourhood policing and on the surface, it doesn’t make for good reading. In essence, the Home Office is saying that so far, Neighbourhood Policing doesn’t reduce crime, improve victim satisfaction or increase public confidence. But is this really true? I think the jury is still out. What this report really says is firstly, it is too early to say - in Chicago, it took 8 years before the benefits of community policing were felt – and secondly the evaluation was flawed right from the start. It is simply not possible to use national police performance data to demonstrate local changes in crime and confidence rates. It is very rare that evaluations of initiatives to reduce crime show any impact at all at the national level. This begs the question why such a research design was chosen in the first place. The pilot that preceded it, the National Reassurance Policing Programme (NRPP), was not only evaluated locally, but delivered real improvements in outcomes. What were the Home Office researchers thinking of?
Our own work on citizen-focused policing and community engagement in Norfolk, the impact of which was measured locally using qualitative as well as quantitative measures, shows some really encouraging changes. Over 3 years, the proportion of local residents who think the police are doing a good job rose from 1 in 6 to just under 1 in 2. More people thought the introduction of neighbourhood policing had impacted positively on crime and anti-social behaviour than negatively, and more people felt safer than not. While not evaluated to any level of scientific sophistication – we just don’t have the money that the Home Office has – we used a similar approach to that adopted by the NRPP (sensible) and spent much less time and money doing so (sensible). I think this report says more about lack of judgement and wasting public money than it does about neighbourhood policing.
June 2009
On Tuesday evening, Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI, gave the 25th John Harris Memorial Lecture on the implications of the recession for policing. He talked about the decades of fiscal austerity ahead and how the police, like other public services, will need to do more with less, concentrating on how they might increase productivity rather than simply asking for yet more resources. The police, for their part, are complaining that what with the Olympics and the recession (yes that old chestnut), they will need yet more resources – crime will go up won’t it?
I have some sympathy for the view that crime, particularly certain forms of property crime, is likely to increase as unemployment rates rocket, but I have less sympathy for the current actions of Surrey Police Authority, which is trying to reverse a government decision to cap its budget this year. Surrey, not exactly a hotbed of crime (or unemployment for that matter), is not the first and won’t be the last to complain about budget cuts, but it’s not what happens to you but how you respond to it that matters. Let’s have a look at Leicestershire, which compared with Surrey almost certainly IS a hotbed for crime and unemployment. Like Surrey, Leicestershire is a high performing police force and, like Surrey, police constables make up a high proportion of its officers. But unlike Surrey, the proportion of senior officers to front line officers is considerably smaller, so instead of threatening to cut front line officers – a red rag to any self-respecting citizen, not just those living in Surrey – why not just cut some of the fat at the top? If every force did what they have done in Leicestershire, it would release at least 6,000 frontline officers. But I somehow doubt that the Chief Constable of Surrey offered this alternative to the good citizens of Surrey.
Over the coming years, instead of continuing to make the case for yet more bobbies on the beat, for which the public have an insatiable appetite, the police service will have to show how they will increase their productivity and demonstrate value for money without unduly cutting front line officers. And actually this shouldn’t be too difficult for a service which has seen its capacity grow relentlessly in the last decade. The amount of public resources invested in policing has increased by nearly £5bn (a real increase of over 40 per cent) since 2007 and the number of police officers, at 140,000, has reached a record all time high. What’s wrong in asking a public service that has received such a massive input of resources over the last ten years to demonstrate that from now on, instead of throwing more money at any new problem that comes along, they should juggle their existing resources more efficiently? Perhaps it’s time to move from “tough on crime” to “tough on the uses of taxpayer’s money”.
18 May 2009
The Government has just published its response to the House of Lords report on surveillance, which was published earlier this year. The response is largely defensive, with most of the Lords’ recommendations receiving short shrift. The bottom line is that the Government and the House of Lords have very a different idea of what the right balance should be between protecting the public whilst ensuring their right to privacy. The only real ground the Government gives is on DNA, where it is clearly unable to resist the decision of the European Court of Human Rights to put its house in order. Everywhere else, power trumps wisdom. Despite the rhetoric about the importance of maintaining public trust and confidence in the Government’s respect for privacy, the Government shows little intention of allowing this to get in the way of “protecting the public”.
The Government’s response refers on a number of occasions to the need for a “necessary and proportionate” response. No mention is made of the fact that there are already more CCTV cameras in the UK than in any other country in the world or that there are more people on the UK’s DNA database than in any other country in the world. Where’s the proportionality? At what point does the “balance” become “unbalanced” if we are already at the extreme end of the international continuum?
The Government also refers on several occasions to the safeguards afforded by the four (why isn’t there just one?) Commissioners - surveillance, information, interception and intelligence; but if you ask the Commissioners themselves, they will say that their powers are very limited and their resources too small to be able to act as any kind of break on the exponential growth of the surveillance society.
Almost ironically, the Government exposes its own impotence when it ducks the Lords’ sensible recommendation to extend controls on the private and not just the public sector. It maintains that protecting data on, for example, health and crime is much more important than protecting any of the data the private sector may hold – but is it? What about all the data that enables the private sector to profit from targeting children with their increasingly sophisticated advertising campaigns? In the run up to the Beijing Olympics China invested heavily in surveillance systems, allowing corporations to make huge profits on the back of tax payer’s money. Is that what awaits us in 2012? The signs are certainly not encouraging.
7 May 2009
So it looks as if the Government will be forced into a u-turn on the retention of DNA samples from innocent people. It was always only a matter of time before the Government would be required to reverse laws that are clearly in breach of the right to privacy. The European Court of Human Rights’ ruling will almost certainly lead to the Government having to wipe the DNA profiles of innocent people from the National DNA database after a set period of time or on request. The argument in favour of retaining the DNA profiles of people who have been arrested but subsequently released or acquitted is that the more people who are on the database, the greater the chances of matching a person to a crime scene. But the figures don’t back this up. Between 2002/3 and 2006/7, the number of DNA profiles almost doubled from 2 to nearly 4 million, but the proportion of crimes for which there is a DNA detection has remained constant at about 1 in every 250. Strangely, the chances of a DNA/crime scene match are higher in Scotland, where the majority of innocent people’s records are automatically deleted on acquittal.
There is no doubt that the use of DNA in forensic investigations can be really important in helping to solve certain types of crime. The average detection rate for burglary, for example, is about 17%, but this rises to 40% when DNA is detected at the scene. For thefts from motor vehicles, the value of DNA is even greater and DNA has even been used to disprove a false confession to rape. But while most of us would wholeheartedly support the retention of the DNA profiles of serious offenders, it is another matter entirely when it comes to retaining the DNA profiles of innocent people. With the exception of California, there is no other country in the developed world where this happens. And we are also world leaders in the deployment of CCTV, automatic number plate recognition, internet tracking and other forms of technology-enabled surveillance systems. The right to privacy has been seriously challenged in this country in the last decade and I welcome the European Court’s judgement. I suspect it won’t be the last.
23 April 2009
Yesterday saw the quarterly ritual of the Home Office publishing their crime figures and the media sensationalising them. Even the Guardian’s headline, “Police Figures Show Huge Crime Rise”, stretched journalistic licence into new realms of fantasy. Not only did the crime figures show a drop, not a rise, of 9 per cent (10 per cent if you prefer the BCS measure) over the previous year, but even violent crime, which usually gets the media frothing at the mouth, went down by 8 per cent (or a sizeable 12 per cent if you use the BCS). And while crime rates hit their lowest levels for decades, 2 out of 3 people continue to think it’s going up – small wonder, you might conclude, given the media headlines.
Notwithstanding the media’s insatiable appetite for sensational crime headlines (actually I now think a newspaper which had the guts to report the fact that crime is dropping like a stone might even have a scoop on its hands), the real story here is about the complete public distrust in announcements by politicians. The public are already cynical about government statistics – only 1 in 7 believe they are used honestly – but the integrity of crime statistics has taken a real battering under New Labour. This reached new heights at the end of last year when No 10 insisted on releasing selective statistics on knife crime despite the objections of statisticians, including Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority. Not only did this breach the government’s own code governing the release of official statistics, it cemented in the minds of the public the view that politicians are fundamentally untrustworthy. If the public don’t believe the figures, why should they believe the politicians who use them?
Less than a year earlier, the Statistics Commission argued that to protect the integrity of government statistics, real distance between politicians and the statistics they use needed to be created. Similarly, a report by the Treasury said that the production and presentation of official statistics must be free from political interference, and to be seen as such, in order to maintain public trust and confidence. And an independent review of crime statistics by Professor Adrian Smith recommended that the Home Office’s statistics on crime should be published independently, with any political commentary kept separate. But in its official response, the Home Office just couldn’t see the wisdom in handing over the crime statistics to an independent body. Given that the new single top down target for the police is to increase public confidence, this is paradoxical at best and schizophrenic at worst.
2 April 2009
Is this Blog being read by more people than it should? Probably not, but it’s a fair question to ask in light of the recent story that China has allegedly developed hacking capabilities that can reach any computer in the world. Their GhostNet network has hacked into embassies, multi-national media groups, NGOs, international organisations, government foreign ministries and even the offices of the Dalai Lama. There have been reports in the press of hackers from China attacking the computer networks of British government departments and while the Chinese actions are perhaps not of immediate concern to UK citizens, it is a sign that even the most protected networks are at risk from cyber-attacks.
The IT revolution has changed society profoundly. Everyone is now so dependent on the computer and the internet, which have become an integral part of all our daily lives. But the IT revolution is also revolutionising crime. As well as fostering new types of crime, the IT revolution means traditional crimes such as identity theft, fraud, forgery, offences against the person and child pornography can now be done more effectively and on a much wider scale using new technologies. Perpetrators can plan and execute their attacks from anywhere in the world, using fictitious online persona to hide their true identities. Whilst all of these offences have risen continuously over the last 10 years, the sharpest increase has been in offences against the person, what is commonly known as cyber-bullying or online harassment. A recent report by Garlik stated that there were over 2.5 million cases of online harassment in 2007, of which only a tenth were officially reported.
In practice, the consequences of cyber-crime (and hence the means of preventing or controlling it) are not restricted to national boundaries, so domestic laws and their
enforcement are of limited use. The effective policing of cyber-space will require serious investment in developing international cooperation and international law – neither of which we are very good at.
17 March 2009
The new Commissioner of the MPS, Sir Paul Stephenson, has announced that police officers will (mostly) no longer patrol in pairs. The default position for beat officers is now patrolling alone and PCSOs could soon follow. Heralded in the national press as a triumph for common sense – it will virtually double police visibility on our streets in one fell swoop – Londoners can rest assured that Sir Paul is on their side, responding to what they say they want. But is it really in their best interests?
It is probably true to say that single officers on patrol are more approachable than those who walk in pairs; that single patrols mean more police on the streets which reassures people (or at least most of them); and that greater visibility improves public confidence, the government’s new single target (and a clue maybe to Sir Pauls’ announcement). But increasing police visibility doesn’t necessarily translate into less crime. According to the Home Office, a police officer patrolling every day will only happen across a burglary once every 7 years. More importantly, why is the public still crying out for more “bobbies on the beat” when crime has fallen consistently and substantially for some years now? In actual fact the public are really expressing a desire for a particular style of policing – “the golden age of Dixon of Dock Green” – rather than expressing a rational and informed opinion.
Most people who respond to public opinion surveys on policing never have any contact with the police and are rarely troubled by crime and disorder. Their opinions are based on second hand accounts and powerful media images that make them fearful and seek reassurance. Friendly “bobbies” provide such reassurance. But a more rational approach to the allocation of limited resources would start with outcomes (what is most effective in reducing crime) rather than inputs (more foot patrols). So while using public opinion polls to determine policing policy may have political benefits – and at least Sir Paul’s announcement is a more subtle version of his predecessor’s overtly political stance on some aspects of policing – the end result is pretty well the same.
2nd March 2009
Another day, another think-tank report on policing. This time it’s Reform, apparently an independent, non-party political think tank, but an organisation which looks suspiciously right of centre favouring, in particular, neo-liberal solutions to public service provision. The report advocates what is currently the Conservative party’s centre piece for improving local accountability – the introduction of a locally elected Commissioner for Criminal Justice and/or Policing – which makes me somewhat sceptical about their claim to be independent and non-party political. Commenting on their report, “A New Force”, Sir Norman Bettison states on behalf of ACPO that their report is “based squarely on opinion rather than evidence”, a criticism which has also been made of Reform’s work on the NHS.
Having said this, some of their “recommendations” for structural reform, although on the whole unsubstantiated by any evidence other than references to the HMIC report, “Closing the Gap” (which incidentally has its own evidential gaps), are by no means unintelligent: that serious and organised crime needs to be dealt with within the Police Service rather than outwith (i.e. via SOCA); that there are plenty of ways of increasing value for money within the police service; and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to local accountability. But I’m far less convinced about some of their other “recommendations”, such as turning the MPS into a national police force to tackle serious and organised crime and re-structuring the 43 forces to increase productivity and accountability. These cannot be improved simply by rearranging the deck-chairs, even if modest economies of scale are achieved by doing so. Ronnie Flanagan got much closer to the truth when he said in his Independent Review of Policing (sic) that it is cultural change rather than structural change that leads to real improvements in policing. And I wish think tanks which aren’t independent would stop saying they are.
19th February 2009
Should I be worried by the fact that I might have been filmed over 300 times by CCTV cameras on my way to work this morning? This was one of the many questions the House of Lords Constitution Committee considered in its recent report "Surveillance: Citizens and the state". Mostof us do not even notice these cameras anymore, nor are we aware of the fact that our personal details are stored on numerous databases around the country or even seem to care. The government now wants to track all our emails, internet transactions and phone calls but apparently "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". But history teaches us that we should guard against complacency, question governments that seek to control our every move and, most recently, develop a healthy mistrust of the global corporations that claim they are merely collecting our personal data so they can provide us with a better service. How far away are we from installing CCTV cameras in people's homes to tackle domestic violence or taking every child's DNA at birth just in case they one day might commit a crime? When do we know that the extension of surveillance has gone too far and what would we do to stop it?
Most members of the public feel genuinely reassured by the presence of CCTV cameras and police officers are on the whole convinced that they are an indispensible aid to detecting crime and convicting offenders. But the evidence says otherwise: only three per cent of crimes are solved using CCTV, 80 per cent of CCTV footage is unusable and in some neighbourhoods CCTV has increased the fear of crime.
A healthy democracy is one in which governments are trusted by the people who elect them. How can this trust be nurtured if citizens are spied upon by the very people they elect to represent them? So I welcome the Lords’ report, which reflects the Information Commissioner’s concern that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society. I welcome too their call for an independent appraisal of the research evidence on the effectiveness of CCTV in preventing, detecting and investigating crime. And I welcome their support for the recent European Court of Human Rights ruling that will now prevent the government from storing the DNA profiles of innocent people for an unlimited period of time. But their suggestion that the government should introduce Technology Impact Statements to assess the impact of any new technological developments on the privacy of individuals misses the point. It is not just people’s privacy that is at stake here but a way of life.
6th February 2009
Save for the snow, the biggest event over the last week or so has been the appointment of Sir Paul Stephenson as the new Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service. I hope that Sir Paul will prove to be an excellent Chief Commissioner, but it’s by no means an easy job as his predecessor will testify. As well as the people of London, he will have to meet the demands of both the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary while running one of the biggest Police Services in the world. And like Obama, he faces some virtually unprecedented challenges, including the potential impact of the economic downturn on crime and public disorder and preparing for the Olympics in 2012. These could eclipse other challenges, such as continuing to provide a visible presence on the streets of London with little immediate prospect of additional resources and ensuring the MPS continues to be an increasingly diverse police force in the face of the National Black Police Association’s ethnic minority recruitment boycott.
I welcome Sir Paul’s early statement to the press that he will not become a celebrity cop, but will focus on the job of delivering better policing in the Capital. We see too many senior police officers being drawn into politics, pronouncing their views in the press and TV almost on a daily basis and drifting on occasion over the carefully drawn line of police independence. Politics and policing do not mix well and in this era of increasing media scrutiny his judgement to keep his head below the media parapet is to be welcomed. (In March we will be hosting a debate in Oxford on what is the proper relationship between politics and policing so watch our website to find out what was said).
But I think that the most important task Sir Paul faces, if perhaps not the most glamorous, is continuing to build solid relationships with all the London communities he serves. This is the bread and butter of policing, the source of police legitimacy that is crucial to meeting all manner of challenges, from protecting young people from knife crime to preventing the next terrorist attack. Without the people of London on his side, facing these challenges becomes an almost impossible task. So I wish you well Sir Paul and if you want my advice, listen hard to the people you serve and only then to the politicians who will want to bend your ear both this way and that.
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