Police & Crime Commissioners, The potential establishment of political control over policing! Options

[Ruwan Uduwerage-...]

Since 1829 policing in Britain has been mainly free from direct control of political meddling. In November 2012, the electorate of the Thames Valley Police Authority area (Berks, Bucks & Oxon) will be asked to vote for a Police & Crime Commissioner, plus a Police and Crime Panel. This replaces the current Police Authority, which for all of its faults (and there are many) is fairly independent with both Councillors and lay individuals represented.

The PCC's aim is to cut crime and deliver an effective and efficient police service within their force area, and make the service more accountable to the communities that they serve. Sounds good so far!

A Tory prospective candidate Colonel Tim Collins (Rtd), has already publicly assured voters in Kent where he intends to stand for election as PCC that he sees the police primarily as "rat catchers and not social workers".

For me Colonel Tim Collins' thoughts that the service should be ‘rat catchers and not social workers’ says it all, and seeing members of the public as "rats" is hardly conducive to positive engagement, and is an excellent example of the total ignorance regarding the complexities of policing in todays society, that so many politicians express. Sadly, if the truth be known, few people outside of the criminal justice system are really conversant with the complexities policing, and this leads to many problems such as unfulfilled expectations.

The Colonels viewpoint will though win support with an element of the 'red top' and other tabloid readership, and in doing so questionably take policing back to the time, when the local Chief Constable was the subordinate to, and did the bidding of the local 'Lord'. Lets face it 'Lord Peter Wimsey' or worst still 'Bertie Wooster' are not the kind of persons who should have any influence over modern policing.

One of the biggest problems for me is that in a time when the service itself recognises that there should actually be fewer police forces, this proposal will mean the continuance of the current 43 automatous chiefdoms that make up the police services of England and Wales.

One commentator recently said of the direct control of the police by politicians "show me a country where politicians have direct control of the police, and I will show you a dictatorship". This may not be totally true, but bringing politics directly into policing does not make it moire effective, efficient and economic, and certainly does not mean that the quality of service will increase.

Having said all of this, PCC's seem to be a 'done deal', and the most that we the public can do is demand that those people putting themselves forward are credible candidates who are able to put their role before party politics. Due to the reality that the political parties have the mechanism for the selection, and support of a candidate, the majority of PCC's will be affiliated to a particular political party.

[Richard Garvie]

Totally agree, hopefully a solid independent candidate can be found for us all to support, not just for the top job but the other positions too.