Chaos and Who Can Fix It
I joined the West Yorkshire Police Force in September 1978. It was not much longer before Margaret Thatcher gained power and appointed Willie Whitelaw as the Home Secretary.
Whitelaw immediately brought about changes within the force that went much deeper than recognising how badly we were paid. Equipment, such as modern radios and decent cars to drive, made a fabulous addition to our daily duties.
Officers were eventually issued with riot gear and this was simply a lifesaver. Prior to these protective garments, I can remember going around houses in Chapletown in Leeds taking dustbin lids from gardens to use as shields against bricks and petrol bombs. Yes, things were that bad.
Perhaps the biggest change that materialised was a zero tolerance stance on public order, shoplifting, burglary and car theft. We, as coppers simply did not stand by and do nothing. Yes, a heavy-handed approach to anti- social behaviour was often questioned by politicians, but they were quickly silenced on the basis that it was working.
Dedicated burglary, shoplifting and car crime teams saw detection rates soar and serious offenders removed from the streets to then enjoy or not, the “short sharp shock” of borstal or prison dependent on age.
Zero tolerance established a respect for the police because the public knew where they stood, a respect not seen since the days of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’. People would help you if you were in trouble, they would not stand and film you all the while laughing. Police officers were held in some regard within the communities for it was in those communities that we worked, locally, on the ground and in numbers.
We had an understanding of the people that we policed, because our roots were their roots. Recruitment came largely from the council estates and what was needed, foremost to be a good beat copper were two things, common sense and a basic grounding in life, together with a degree from the university of life not the academic university.
Fast forward to modern day policing and setting aside disastrous decision making from the higher echelons in dealing with the Covid crisis that has virtually destroyed the tenuous relationship between the police and the public. Crime is at an unprecedented high level.
Each and every day, 24 hours a day, men and women don the ‘blue’ and turn out onto the streets, under-staffed, under-resourced and blamed for everything that can and does go wrong. Stress in the police is at an all-time high. Officers carrying on working with an existing injury suffered on duty, is at an all-time high. Assaults on the West Yorkshire Police alone are running at 84 incidents a day. Can you imagine each day going to your place of work with a better than average chance of being assaulted?
The Police Crime Commissioners having empire built, do not directly help the rank and file. Senior officers with an eye on the next rank are rarely interested either. Decisions in tackling some of the major crime spikes are often far too late and usually weak. One questions the best use of resources and budgets by the strategists and senior officers.
There has been of course an enormous amount of success in fighting some crime, the detection of ‘county line’ gangs being one case in point. Knife crime and rape though are the nemesis of the modern police force.
As a detective I dealt with rape, it is simply a terrible offence. Many of the victims I observed, too quickly withdrew into themselves, rarely, if ever, to fully recover. Why then is this horrendous crime currently treated with the same seriousness as petty theft.
In North, West and South Yorkshire verbal cautions have been recently administered to perpetrators of rape. In a modern society this is as totally unacceptable, as it is unbelievable.
On a broader scale for example, in Manchester 100,000 crimes were not recorded or investigated properly resulting in the force being put into special measures. But how on earth did that ever come about? The Chief Constable Ian Hopkins was allowed to slink away and retire. But this act of retirement can only be viewed as a token gesture, as it fails to explain who was responsible or how this situation was allowed to happen. The Mayor of Manchester, doubling as the Crime Commissioner accepts no responsibility at all.
What is clear is that a 7.67% increase in the policing precept detailed in West Yorkshire council tax bills this year, is a true shocker, and replicated in many other areas. Inflation busting precept demands of cash from the public clearly do not make for better policing.
Members of the public are certainly starting to feel the effects now, of both the policies and attitude towards policing from national and local government as more and more become victims of crime.
A major overhaul of policing is urgently needed. A royal commission? Who knows, but unless someone in authority, roots out the bad management, ends the ethos and culture of two tier policing, establishes accountability and ends the politicisation of the Police things will only get much worse.
Stephen Place