A fair
cop?
JANE WELLS looks at the mounting problems facing the police, and assesses their attempts to contain the crisis. Senior officers in the Met have got a lot on their plate.
Their force recently came in for heavy criticism in the Wapping report on police conduct at the News International plan in 1987, Officers, it found were out of control.
Complaints of racism, of false arrests and beatings, and of suspicious deaths in police have dogged the Met over recent
And a string of successful civil actions for damages against the police are heginning to take their toll: not just the Met's reputation. but their bank balance is suffering as the public by-passes the ineffectual Police Complaints Authority in London and take their cases straight to court. The Met paid out more than £500,000 last year for wrongful arrests, malicious prosecutions and assault.
Just hefore Christmas, record six-figure damages were awarded to black lay preacher Rupert Taylor who was fitted-up on a drugs charge by police in Notting Hill. More recently, athlete Linford Christie has received undisclosed but "substantial" damages for unlawful arrest and libel when the police swung into action on their unwrillen rule: a black man in a Mash car must have nicked it,
But men from the Met are taking the problem seriously. They have at least two ideas.
One has been to introduce a more polished management style, "The Plus Programme'. This initiative includes a "statement of valucs displayed on police noticeboards all over London. It promises to protect, help and reassure people in London.. to be seen to do all this with integrity, common sense and judgement. We must be compassionate, courteous and paticnl.. professional, calm and restrained in the face of violence and apply only that force which is necessary to accomplish our lawful duty. This rings a bit hollow in the light of their actions during poll tex protests across the
Police are also to be treated to discussion groups (where they are advised If someone calls you a pig, remember it suinds for profesintegrity and guts, and say thankyou*), better overcoats, new pullovers, and more pol plants (the green variety, rather than attempted drug busts) in station lobbies.
FEATURES
25 "Alright! Which one of you lot wants to see our new pot plants?"
The other idea is to bring a bit of market pressure to bear in the force. A working party has been set up at Scotland Yard to explore possible profit-making services, Besides getting driving lessons and vehicie maintenance and repair from your local bobby, you may be able to pop down to your local cop shop (literally), to pick up handy accessories and emphasis on memorabilia. Whether Items stocked will in clude rubber truncheons or any leit-over con fessions and convictions remains to be scen.
This latter idea is particularly Thascherite: il mirrors attempts in the NHS from 1987 onwards at income generation, with local targets set for cash-raising schemes as diverse as car parking services and weaving company advertising into hospital carpets.
To see the same disastrous solution' plied to the problems of the police force is more surprising. It's a pathetic, desperate response to what many, right across the political spectrum, recognise to be a deep crisis - in public confidence, and in police practice,
A recent MORI poll showed thai nearly two thirds of the public think that the police bend the rules to get convictions. Only 17% believe they do not More than half think there's one law for the public, another for the police. The same proportion have cither little respect" or "mixed feelings" for the police.
Thirty years ago 839 of the British public had 'great respect for the police. Today only 40% will admit to glowing pride in the great British bobby. Another poll a year ago showed that more than one in five people believed that corruption is widespread in local police forces: Only 325 believed that police corruption was
Clearly the problem is no longer restricted to the Met, or even to other metropolitan forces at the sharp and of policing inner cities. At Jeast 21 of the 43 forces in England and Wales are currenily involved in inquiries into other forces over allegations of corruption and criminal malpractice by officers. Recent wellpublicised scandals show a nationwide spread: set-ups and corruption in Manchester; falsification of evidence by the West Midlands scrious crime squad (now disbanded); and over-enthusiastic "clear-up rates' for crimes in
The depth of the problem is highlighted by the willingness of the establishment to own up Lo it, Tory newspapers run stories calling for inquiries and the relcase of innocent prisoners like the Birmingham Six from jail. Even the police themselves are beginning to admit to the scale of the problem. Deputy Commis-
John Dellow of thc Metropolitan Police, and the current President of the As. sociation of Chief Police Officers admitted: •We have certainly run out of the rotten apple
Most marxists will agree that with the thetoric and the reality of Thatcher's free economy' goes the growth of in ever-stronger state. The two go together, of course, hecause the deep economic and 50cia] divisioms created by Thatcher's policies require increasingly repressive forms of social control.
Meanwhile the police themselves are calling for urgent action to tackie recruitement difficulties and low morale, with better condi: liens, pay and status high on their list of re.
Socialists will watch with interest to sec how far Mrs Thatcher's favourite public sector workers" get in fighting that battic although organising solidarity to support their demands won't be a top priority.
The more urgent battle is to see that the demands for real justee of the many vicums. caught in the vicious pincer movement of British justice and Thatcher's laws, are met
And unlike the leaders of the Labour Party, socialists will be keen to see that the blame for last month's poll tax violence rest, not with its victims but is perpetrators: the police and their paymasicis.