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STRAIGHT LINE

Police service and government control

Government interference has resulted in an erosion of police autonomy at a time when police accountability is at its highest. Unless genuine decision-making power is developed, the devolution of authority to middle management does no more than create potential scapegoats within the intermediate ranks.
WE have now become accustomed to the term "police ser-vice" rather than "police force" being used of police agencies,
and there is little doubt that it expresses the desired relationship between police and public much more clearly. Police officers have always provided a service to society, and indeed, have prided themselves on so doing.
For police to acknowledge themselves to be supplying a social service is to acknowledge that they are part of the welfare state. It is somewhat ironic that police finally accept that they are part of a state structure at the very time that structure is under threat.
The most basic requirements of life are food, shelter and personal safety and security, followed very closely by health and education. Personal security and safety were assured by a judicial system which could provide everyone with redress for wrongs, the cornerstone for which had been laid in 1215 by Magna Carta and developed over the centuries. The state had responsibility for the court system, but otherwise the rudimentary mediaeval roots of the welfare and justice systems were no part of government responsibilities.
In the middle part of the 19th century the state started to take responsibility for welfare, when British, European and other governments began to concern themselves directly in education, Poor Law reform, regulations for workplace safety, and in Prussia, the first worker’s compensation insurance. The first recognisable modern police bodies date from about the same time, an indication that the modern state was also prepared to take responsibility for ensuring the safety and security of its citizens.
In the modern industrialised world, food, water, and security are taken for granted, and when a country descends into chaos, as happened in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, these are the very things the loss of which is felt most urgently by its people. In this context, it is no surprise that the coalition forces in Iraq in 2003 stated that the re-establishment of police was as great a priority as the restoration of electricity and water supplies.
In the modern, democratic world, police are required to do far more than simply maintain order. Order can be maintained by sheer brute force, as many totalitarian regimes have shown: in some, like Stalin's Russia, terror became a government monopoly. Modern, democratic police agencies need to maintain order peacefully, remaining answerable to the public for the manner and scope of their actions. From the 19"' century onwards making a complaint to police provided a means of free access to the criminal courts for every member of the public. Pure law enforcement occupies a relatively small proportion of police working hours.
The emphasis on crime prevention (in Britain, the wider term "community safety" is used), obliges (in Britain the obligation is statutory)) police to work with local and community groups. Policing is a state (or at least local government) run task, and is now overtly concerned with the welfare of society. Any police agency that considers itself to be a service (and many that retain the old designation of a force) can, with good reason, be called part of the welfare state.
The police will always remain a 24-hour emergency service, available when all other services are out of hours. It may well be that as financial constraints cut the availability of specialist social services, the welfare role of police will grow rather than dimin-
ish just because they are always available.
Governments have an important role to play in police accountability. A dynamic tension exists between police, the law and society where a balance of control must be reached for the maintenance of a civil society. There have been number of changes in the attitude of the government of police, most notably in Britain since the election of Tony Blair's New Labour government in 1997, where a number of Acts of Parliament intended to address the perceived problem of rising crime have, as will be shown, made quite fundamental changes to police strategic planning.
A problem with applying the business model to the provision of police services by the state is that criminal justice is an important state monopoly; emergency health provision is a near state monopoly. Individuals can decide whether or not they want bicycles, and if so, which bicycle they want at what price. They do not choose whether or not to become victims of crime, or to have a heart attack or stroke, but when this happens they require the police or health service to be available immediately.
Police are rightly one of the emergency services, since their services are, to a large extent, those that the recipients need because of untoward circumstances, not through any positive choice in the matter, Most of us would rather go through life not needing the professional services of a police officer, any more than we would choose to require the service of a heart surgeon or a dentist, but are glad that these professionals are available when the need arises.
In a variety of ways decisions about policing matters are being taken away from police. Government interference has resulted in an erosion of police autonomy at a time when police accountability is at its highest. Unless genuine decision-making power is developed, the devolution of authority to middle management does no more than create potential scapegoats within the intermediate ranks.
What recent trends have shown is that police is Britain are no longer allowed to set pragmatic goals but are expected to meet politically motivated government targets. The cult of statistically driven management and financial control bodes ill for policing, as it serves to stifle innovation.
Policing in the past was criticised for its rigidity and unwillingness to change traditional practices, but the last two decades or so of the 20th century saw police agencies shake off organisational inertia and undertake major changes in their approach. The start of the 21st century has seen policing aware of the need to change, but unable to do so through external constraints.
The writer is a columnist for The Daily Star.