Policing: Police and Crime Commissioners

For what reasons did the Coalition Government abolish police authorities in 2012? What problems do you think are raised by the introduction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners? This essays objective is to take into consideration the rationale of the Coalition governments’ decision to replace police authorities with elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC). A critique and a background of the police authorities operations will be discussed and evaluated. A brief history of policing before police authorities were established will also be explored.

Furthermore, the reasons why there was a radical reform to PCC’s will be debated and the problems that may arise. Policing has always been a challenging issue and it most likely will always be challenging. Sir Robert Peel’s first principle of policing stated: “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder” (Cited in Theresa, M 2010). There has been an attempt to always cling onto this. The only difference is how certain authorities or political groups approach it. In the nineteenth century, autonomy and power were located within boroughs, locally.

After a few attempts to try to centralise the police force and a few police corruption scandals which occurred in the 1950s, it was finally the time for the government to produce a centralised, professionalised group of senior police officers. In 1964, under the Police Act, these smaller, more manageable forces were to be known as “police authorities”. Their role was to ‘‘secure the maintenance and of an adequate and efficient police force for their area’’. (Citied in Williams, C 2003). However, the police authorities are now being replaced by elected PCCs.

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The main purpose of this reform is to restore the drive for local policing priorities and the public by leading engagement with local policing partners. This will boost the empowerment of local communities in criminal justice affairs. Beginning with a little history of how and why police authorities were introduced. Throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, police power was largely seen as a responsibility of local government, and police were controlled by the appropriate local institution.

The policing were in the hands of the local government and the boroughs of England and Wales, by whom fiercely protected the police powers exercised by their elected watch committees. These powers were symbolic of the city's independence, and police forces were crucial exercisers of executive power locally, concerning poor relief, licensing laws, the regulation of the streets, and the imposition of morality on the community. The 1835 Municipal Corporations Act introduced democracy to the self-governing towns of England and Wales.

The only compulsory statutory duty was to select a watch committee to run the police force. The self-governing towns can be described as self-confident, prosperous and autonomous. The committees had complete power over the activities and composition of their forces. (Citied in Brogden, M 1982). The government aimed at increasing centralisation within the police force but after a few attempts to intervene, they failed. The first attempt by the state to reduce the autonomy of the towns and cities came after the 1853 Select Committee on Police, which recommended extending compulsory police provision to all areas.

The Home Office were under no doubt that, the most efficient way to run each force would be to put it 'under the orders of Government. However, these recommendations from the Home Office had to be consulted with the opposition of the local government. In 1854 and 1856, the Home Office's attempts to pass police bills that limited the rights of boroughs to control their own police forces were defeated by the borough. The boroughs also had total autonomy and democratic control over operational decisions.

The watch committees, meeting weekly, had the power to hire and fire members of their forces and were prepared to exercise it. (Citied in Emsley, C 1996). Further action was done by the Labour representatives in the 1920s to gain centralisation. By 1939, Labour controlled 18 out of 83 county boroughs. The Home Office took increasing responsibility for producing a class of leaders for police forces, and thus intervened increasingly in matters of training, promotion and appointment. The Home Office also began to intervene more in the appointment of Chief Constables.

The 1950s Whitehall introduced a policy of refusing to appoint any Chief Constable who had no experience in a different force: this was clearly designed to create a more nationally homogenous and professionalised group of senior police officers. Since the increased effort for involvement with the boroughs and watch committees, there was a growing demand of professionalism within the police. The boroughs had co-operated fully in modernising and homogenising the police forces, through co-operative training and communication. Citied in Loveday, B 1994) Between 1919 and 1964, the state tried using 'efficiency', 'economy', and 'national security' as reasons to centralise control, before successfully employing 'corruption' to achieve this. The 1960 Royal Commission was actively steered by the Home Office along its own centralist agenda, resulting in the 1964 Police Act, subsuming city forces into counties. These were influenced by the nature of two policing scandals of the late 1950s, which gave the Home Office a convenient point of entry with which to attack the status quo. (Citied in (Ludtgarten, L 1986).

Both scandals were cases of corruption within the boroughs, the Brighton Borough police force in 1957, where the chief constable and two officers were arrested and charged with a variety of corrupt practises, and in Labour- controlled Nottingham in 1958, where there was an investigation launched on Labour councillors and succeeded to prove that two labour councillors and the Secretary of the District Labour Party had been bribed on a visit to East Germany. Events such as mentioned above involving corruption led to the boroughs finally losing their police powers completely.

A royal commission on the police had been appointed in 1960 to review the constitutional position of the police throughout Great Britain, and in 1964, the Police Act was introduced. (Citied in Willams, C 2003). Returning to answering the question more directly now, the Police Act of 1946 mirrored the interests of greater efficiency and greater central control over policing. It allowed for the amalgamation of existing forces into more efficient units, merging them into a more manageable number of 43 forces in England and Wales.

The watch committees were replaced with police authorities. This new system was characterized as “the tripartite structure” of police accountability. The tripartite system distributes responsibilities between the Home Office, the local police authority, and the chief constable of the force. (Citied in Williams, C 2003). This tripartite system provides accountability to Parliament through the Home Secretary (who has responsibility for policing policy including centrally setting key priorities that are formalised within a National Policing Plan).

Police Authorities were composed of councillors (two-thirds) and magistrates (one-third) and their role was to ‘‘secure the maintenance and of an adequate and efficient police force for their area’’. (Citied in Williams, C 2003). To liberate this duty they were provided with a number of specific and statutory responsibilities which included appointing and dismissing its senior officers, making sure arrangements are in place to consult the local community about the policing of their area and heir priorities, publish an annual local policing plan and a best value performance plan, setting out the policing priorities, performance targets, and the allocation of resources, to publish a three-year strategy plan, which must be approved by the Home Secretary and monitor the performance of the force in delivering the policing plan. (Joyce, P 2011: 118, 127). Although there have been issues raised about police authorities and these concerns will be brought to the surface, it can also be argued that police authorities have constituently tried to provide “an efficient and effective” police force.

This can be shown by all the legislation that has been introduced. The 1994 Police and Magistrates Act, Courts Act (PMCA) 1995, the Police Act 1996, and the Police Reform Act 2002, have all endorsed the tripartite arrangements and aimed to fundamentally ensure and provide an adequate, efficient and effective police force. ( Citied in Williams, C 2003). The introduction of the policing pledge in 2008 by the Labour party, although it has been scrapped by the Coalition government, aimed at restoring public faith and to ensure the services being provided locally were adequate.

Promises such as providing monthly local crime rates, answering all non-emergency calls promptly, providing information to the community on their Neighbourhood Policing Team i. e. where they are based, how to contact them and how to work with them were stated on this document, to increase community engagement and involvement. (Citied in The Policing Pledge, 2008). There has been placed a great deal of importance on empowerment, localisation, decentralisation of power and community involvement. There has been many green and white papers published to support this.

David Blunkett’s “Civil Renewal” Agenda (2003) and David Cameron’s “Big Society” Agenda (2010) has influenced trends towards “community engagement, confident and cooperation” within their respective policing reform programmes continues. The agendas extensively focus on the responsibility of the government and every citizen’s efforts to strengthen communities, to revitalise our democracy and to provide more power and opportunity into people’s hands and security for all. It is believed that the engagement of everyone is necessary to make that happen; the government alone cannot fix every problem.

Furthermore, Sir Ronnie Flanagan conducted the report of “The Review of Policing” in 2008. Flanagan stated that involving local communities in political decision-making processes is crucial and delivering in partnerships, developing the workforce and improving performance at force levels. (Flanagan, 2008). As mentioned above, there were concerns regarding the police authorities. One of the main issues was that central control undermined local police affairs power and authority. In the early 1980’s, there were clashes between police authorities and chief constables relating to who would have the final say in particular activity.

The reliance of the Home Office by chief constables tended to increase the power of the central government over local police arrangements. In addition, the introduction of the 1994 Police and Magistrates Courts Act enabled the Home Secretary to determine and set national objectives or priorties. This task was previously done by chief constables. Furthermore, the police areas would be assessed on their attainment by comparing to a set of performance targets. Empowerment, localisation, and decentralisation are clearly not desired. (Citied in Williams, C 2003).

Additionally, the situation continued to be aggravating as further developments such as the targets imposed by central government were extended and became the key tool of performance management. Police forces had to deliver on activities, which were determined centrally. Public Service Agreements (PSAs) were introduced in 1998 to promote clarity in service delivery, again centrally. This target regime led to the bulk of police work focusing on achieving the targets imposed on them, this made it impossible to concentrate on local concerns. This again suggests the central power undermining powers and authority locally.

Also, it was suggested that centrally determined targets “tend to distort priorties, tempting officers into using their tine in unproductive ways into directly fiddling performance figures” (Loveday and Reid, 2003: 19). Similarly, they created a “counting culture” within the police service whereby “only what got measured got done” (Loveday and Reid, 2003: 22). Additional research was undertaken in 2003 investigating the role of police authorities in public engagement. Participants that were interviewed saw police authorities’ independence from the police force as very important.

This was because of the risk of corruption or abuse of power. “If it was 100 per cent fully independent, then I think that would make a lot of difference to people, and I think they would feel a lot happier knowing that it was being kept an eye on. ” (Home Office 2003: 19). However, many participants thought that police authorities did not appear to be independent enough, and this could undermine the community’s confidence and trust in them. There was a feeling in many groups that the number of independent members should increase or even that authorities should be composed completely of independent members.

There were worries that the independent members might not have a fair say, as councillors and magistrates have an overall majority on the authority. (Citied in Home Office, 2003). ““You’re paying it’s your community, you live there, so you should have a say in how it’s policed. ” (Home Office 2003: 17). The community does seem to desire to get involved in the decision making, however when asked who made decisions about spending and who was responsible for the monitoring of police performance, there was very little spontaneous mention of police authorities. (Citied in Home Office, 2003).

These findings suggest that police authorities are not adequate or efficient enough, people living in the communities have very little knowledge of police authorities and the question is why? More should be done to advertise and involve the community in the decision making process of what happens in their communities. Their involvement would increase the confidence in the police and create a more coherent community. Conversely, as the Coalition government scrapped the policing pledge, they also disposed police authorities in 2o12 and replaced them with elected police and crime commissioners (PCC).

The Coalition government strongly believed that it was vital to replace bureaucratic accountability from central government to democratic accountability to the public. PCCs will make forces truly accountable to the communities they serve, ensuring that resources are properly targeted to where they are needed and giving the public a greater say in measures to reduce crime and improve community safety. The main aim of PCC was to “put power directly in the hands of the public”. (Home Affairs Committee, 2o1o:10).

The key powers of PCCs are to set the police force budget and to hire and fire chief constables. Citied in Home Affairs Committee, 2010). The Elected PCC’s have overcome issues that the police authorities did not: the community involvement, empowerment and local governance is greater. The community elects their own PCC’s locally and it represents the drive for local policing priorities and the public by leading engagement with local policing partners. This new approach to policing is boosting the empowerment of local communities in criminal justice affairs. They will hold the elected chief constable to account; making sure that policing is responsive to the communities’ needs.

There is an increased democratic accountability. (Citied in Home Affairs Committee, 2010). However, this new reform also faces a few critiques. Lord Blair referred to this proposal as “the most lamentable provision about policing I have ever encountered” (Blair, 2011). Firstly, the PCC will replace the 17 or 19 members who currently represent a police authority. It is impossible to imagine how one person can adequately represent the diverse demands of the vast range of communities found in the areas covered by police forces, whether they are heavily populated urban ones or cover geographically large rural areas. Joyce, P 2011). As the policing needs and concerns of neighbourhoods are usually vastly different and are often in direct competition for finite police resources, it is a concern that a PCC will seek to direct policing to address the localised, sectionalised or political interests of those who elected him or her into office thus serving to politicise policing and opening the door to the possibility of corruption. (Joyce, P 2011).

Before the 1964 Police Act, there were claims and investigations into policing corruption scandals: the Borough police force in 1957 and in Nottingham in 1958. Citied in Willams, C 2003). Its due to these concerns about policing corruption, the police force became centralised. This is a major concern and strict safeguards and monitoring will have to be established to avoid it from happening again. Secondly, there is the question as to whether this reform was needed. It is fair to suggest that it is intensely politicized and a populist measure. Valid criticisms can be made concerning the operations of police authorities, however this did not mean they were performing a poor job and providing a poor police service.

Party politics were not injected onto the agenda. In fact, there was a good working relationship between the police authorities and the chief constables in many areas and the communities and local policing benefited from this. (Joyce, P 2011). Ian Loader (2008) stated that the “government is urged to take another ride on the law and order merry-go-round, to issue a fresh batch of crowd-pleasing-measures that can appease its apparently angry and anxious consumers”. Many will harmonize with this.

The government is in need of public support, confidence and trust and the best way to get the local communities or “customers” support is to respond to our demands. As was mentioned above, the community would like more opportunities to get involved in the way their communities are being policed and the new reform of elected PCC’s can be perceived as a crowd-pleasing-measure. (Citied in Loader, I 2008). Garland again has famously said that the policy-making has become profoundly politicized and populist.

Policy measures are constructed in ways that value public opinion over the views of experts and the evidence of research. “The dominant voice of crime policy is no longer the expert or even the practitioner but that of the long-suffering, ill served people- especially the victim and the fearful, anxious members of the public”. (Stated in The Culture of Control, 2001). Furthermore, a range of views were put forward on the role of PCCs from the consultation feedback and it was not all positive.

Concerns have been expressed that a PCC, as a single individual, may not be effective across a whole force area and find it difficult to engage with communities sufficiently. Moreover, there was concerns received about the checks and balances proposed in the consultation. Some members believed that the arrangements might prove overly bureaucratic or create confusing lines of accountability for chief constables and the public. Others felt that they were too weak, or sought more detail on how the Police and Crime Panels (PCPs) would provide a real challenge and scrutiny. Citied in Theresa, M 2010). Many also expressed concerns about the political nature of the role of the PCC and in particular the involvement of candidates supported by the main political parties. They believe this would risk cutting across the operational decisions made by chief constables and other police officers, and this would most definitely inject party politics, whereby police authorities did not. Additionally, there needs to be appropriate and respectable safeguards to be put in place regarding to circumstances under which a PCC could dismiss or suspend a chief constable.

These issues, if they were to ever occur, could create tension between PCCs and chief constables. The community will have a knock-on effect from this, as they would be the ones feeling the consequences. There would not be an adequate and efficient service provided to the community. That was the aim of PCCs and if it does not meet its own aims, it would fail dramatically. (Citied in Theresa, M 2010). It is fair to say police authorities and PCCs have issues to be concerned about but also have positive points.

Police authorities and the 1964 Police Act did structure the police force and it did aim at providing “an efficient and effective” police force. This is consistently shown by the constant need to improve and advance the services being provided to the public . The 1994 Police and Magistrates Act, Courts Act (PMCA) 1995, the Police Act 1996, and the Police Reform Act 2002, the Policing Pledge 2008, have all endorsed the tripartite arrangements and aimed to fundamentally ensure and provide an adequate, efficient and effective police force.

However, the demand for empowerment, localisation, decentralisation of power and community involvement perpetually grew stronger too and the police authorities did set priorities and standards nationally, and not locally. Research was undertaken in 2003 investigating the role of police authorities in public engagement. participants that were interviewed saw police authorities’ independence from the police force as very important. This was because of the risk of corruption or abuse of power. You’re paying  it’s your community, you live there, so you should have a say in how it’s policed. (Home Office 2003: 17). The community does desire to get involved in the decision making, however the lack of knowledge of police authorities and how you can get involved or the lack of liberation of empowerment and localisation should be questioned. (Citied in Home Office, 2003). The Coalition government 2012 decided to introduce PCCs. The ain of this reform was to to democratic accountability to the public and to “put power directly in the hands of the public”. (Home Affairs Committee, 2o1o:10). In this case, the input from the public is greater and have greater local empowerment.

However, PCC faces its problems too. It does face greater likelihood of policing corruption, a PCC, as a single individual, may not be effective across a whole force area and find it difficult to engage with communities sufficiently. 17 to 19 members are being replaced by one PCC. It is impossible imagine how one person can adequately represent the diverse demands of the vast range of communities and activities. In conclusion, the question still remains as to whether this reform was needed, the police authorities were not proving a poor service or doing a poor job.

Garland (2001) would suggest that the policy-making has become profoundly politicized and populist. The introduction of PCC was just a populist measure. However, the local communities may benefit from the empowerment and local prioritisation and if they do, PCCs have succeeded their aims.

References

1. Blair, L. (2011), ‘‘Speech in the House of Lords 27 April’’, HL Debs Session 2010-11, Vol 727, Col 137
2. Blunkett, David (2003) ‘Civil Renewal: A New Agenda’ , London: Home Office
3. Brogden, M (1982), “The Police: Autonomy and Consent”, London: Academic Press. Emsley, C (1996), “The English Police: a Political and Social History”, Harlow: Longman. •Flanagan, Sir Ronnie (Feb 2008) The Review of Policing: Final Report. London: Home Office •Garland, D (2001), “The Culture of Control. ” Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4. Home Affairs Committee, (2008). ‘‘Policing in the twenty-first century’’, Seventh Report, Session 2007/08, House of Commons Paper 364, TSO, London.
5. Joyce, P. (2011). Police reform: from police authorities to police and crime commissioners. Sage, London.
6. Loveday, B. (1994), “The Police and Magistrates Courts Act”. Policing 10(4), pp 221-233
7. Lustgarten, L. (1986), “The Governance of the Police”, London: Sweet & Maxwell.
8. The Coalition Manifesto: “Our Programme for Government” (May 2010)
9. Theresa, M (2010). “Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting police and the people”. Home Office
10. Home Affairs Committee (2010), ‘‘Policing: police and crime commissioners’’, Second Report, Sessions 2010/11, House of Commons Paper 511, TSO, London. Bibliography
11. David Cameron speech (19 July 2010) “Our Big Society Agenda”. London: Home Office Date accessed: 25 November 2012 http://www. conservatives. om/News/Speeches/2010/07/David_Cameron_Our_Big_Society_Agenda. aspx
12. Home Office (2003), “The role of police authorities in public engagement” Date Accessed: 3 December 2012 http://library. npia. police. uk/docs/hordsolr/rdsolr3703. pdf
13. Loader, I (2008). “The great victim of this get-tough hyperactivity is Labour”. The Guardian Date accessed: 28 November 2012 http://www. guardian. co. uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/19/justice. ukcrime
14. The Policing Pledge (2008). London: Home Office Date Accessed: 1 December 2012 http://www. met. police. uk/pledge/our_pledge_leaflet. pdf

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