Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

THE ROLE OF POLICE
Preserving rights
and building
legitimacy
During the revolutionary change to
come in the police service, we must
not lose sight of Peel’s foundational
principles, writes Shami Chakrabarti
Shami Chakrabarti is Director
of Liberty (The National
Council for Civil Liberties)
Britain’s model of policing by
consent is envied in younger
democracies the world over. Based
on Sir Robert Peel’s visionary principles,
our policing framework was designed to
maintain police legitimacy and preserve
human rights.
Values such as impartial service to the
law (as opposed to the whims of public
opinion), strict adherence to policing (as
distinct from judging and sentencing), and
upholding the tradition that the police are
the public and the public are the police,
have sustained the police service over
many decades, through good times and in
times of crises.
In recent years, policing has undergone
significant reform and more revolutionary
change is planned. In difficult and
tumultuous times it is even more
important that we don’t lose sight of the
enduring worth of these foundational
principles. Indeed, the value of our
policing model was never as evident than
during the handling of August 2011’s
riots. In the face of knee-jerk advice
from armchair-constables, police chiefs
were robust in rejecting calls for military
intervention, water cannon and plastic
bullets – used previously with disastrous
impact in Northern Ireland – and instead
redeployed and inflated the number of
officers on the street to good effect.
As tensions simmered in our own
towns and cities and politicians sought
to explain the events, the political and
operational independence of the police
meant that expertise and non-partisanship
led the response. Blanket punishments
were resisted, rights were protected and
legitimacy maintained.
Impartiality under threat
Yet the impartiality that was the hallmark
of this response is now under threat
with the introduction of elected police
and crime commissioners. This flagship
government reform is a half-baked import
from the USA where political ‘sheriffs’
have overseen endemic corruption and
damaged race relations.
The government said that Police
Authorities were not ‘visible’ enough
and that local people are not sufficiently
involved in local policing. But, if any
lessons can be drawn from the experience
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