A Last Policy - Policey - Blast

The Queen’s Peace in London

There is a key paradox at play in London politics, for those of us who are presenting policy ideas for the mayoral run. It underlines indeed why I think the Mayoralty should be abolished in the first place, and powers handed over to London Councils. The plain fact is this: what really tops the list of what Londoners want fixing about their city is tackling crime. And London’s Mayor can do very little about it.

It’s not that I am advocating giving the post even more powers. I believe that would be a disaster, and indeed actually further reduce public confidence in our law and order system. But I believe that the reason why we are where we are today lies in fault lines that only local communities on the one hand, and the next Home Secretary and his colleagues on the other, can cure.

As a Mayoral candidate, I will however take this one off opportunity to give airtime to those views expressed to me by serving officers which otherwise for professional reasons would remain muted, in the hope of provoking debate amongst those indeed able to fix what’s bust.

ON THE BEAT

Let’s start with the application of law and order. Street policing – simply put, allowing police to get out on the beat - is a concept that politicians across the board seem to recognise is a key essential, but for years precious little has been done to foster enough of it in practice. True, some do question its application. Street policing does have little impact on major crime, but it most certainly does have an effect on what we might call ‘quality of life’ crime. It also hinders crimes of opportunity. On top of these palliatives, it crucially generates public reassurance, and creates a constancy of contact with the general public that generates the trust and intelligence that helps solve crimes, and quicker.

Additionally, a detail that is often overlooked, street policing supports the constable’s non-confrontational role. In other words, members of the public can encounter policemen at times other than just when there’s a problem, face to face rather than eyeball to eyeball; and as a reserve at hand rather than a presence only felt as firefighting all the time. But thanks to a variety of problems, that crucial contact has been allowed to slip. It must be reinvigorated, and indeed started early – the man managers for instance could usefully allow probationers once again, duly accompanied, to go out on the beat.

It is not just a question of a blanket presence spread thinly. Street policing needs to be focused at key times, or targeted and based on garnered intelligence involving problem areas.

Such a presence is absolutely essential to community engagement, and the struggle for hearts and minds. It’s not rocket science to understand why members of the public feel a lack of confidence, indeed even fear, when it gets reported that London Police are only attending burglaries when the criminal is still in the house. In the past, police used to attend all burglaries, and all the reports were screened by CID.

So something has gone wrong. We can’t, as some are tempted to do, shift the blame onto the police auxiliaries – the PCSOs, or police community support officers. "Blunkett’s Bouncers", even if they fall far short in effect of a uniformed officer, still perform useful functions if they are used properly. In the first place, they do provide an extra set of eyes and ears, which of course is why they are used so much in central London where there are possible key terrorist targets. Secondly, they are a potential source and indeed basic training ground for future police officers. Additionally, they provide a relatively quickly established community bridge. But there are also many drawbacks. They are not a deployable force that can move in quite like the constables; there is a notable and often lamentable lack of training; there are the inflexible, union-style constraints, such as prevent their use in sudden night jobs that require a manpower surge; they lack personal protective kit, and training in its use. The Home Office likes them because, frankly, they are cheaper. The danger is that politicians rely on them as a replacement.

As for the use of ‘private security support’, that has massive drawbacks, not least when they are needed to conduct any search of suspects, or where the vetting and training of bail enforcement agents is concerned. It is ridiculously reminiscent of the shift to MOD security guards, when it got out that they were instructed on encountering the IRA to run away.

Most PCs are flexible in comparison. A sensible arrangement would be to extend the system of Specials, so it becomes not unlike the old RUC Reserve or Territorial Army. Currently, they seemingly suffer from poor training and are undervalued.

Strategically, there are shifts taking place towards forms of neighbourhood policing. But therein lies a key danger. We absolutely must avoid such changes resulting in removing resources from the response teams. Resources first and foremost should be directed at sworn officers, and the tendency must be avoided simply to use PCSOs in a false economy to plug gaps. The same holds true of sensible use of civilian support staff and private firms, also feared by some as an excuse to reduce sworn officers. These are personnel, let us recall, upon whom their managers cannot call in any manpower emergency to get out onto the street. That said, apparently some of the old flexibility and teamwork has also leaked away through developing gaps in the system: in the past, CID were apparently happy to collect their old warrants and go on patrol during down time.

It is perhaps worth remembering what the police are there for. The police priority is not just about nicking people. They exist first and foremost to save life and property. The priority of prisons meanwhile surely is also to keep criminals off the streets and to educate the redeemable.

It follows that officers need to be allowed to carry this out in practice. When we talk about zero-tolerance style policing, we are not discussing (as some incorrectly believe) intolerant policing. It means not putting up with the intolerable. Giuliani’s measures in New York and Ray Mallon’s in Middlesborough have shown that ignoring petty crime does nobody any favours in the long run. By the same token, we have to remember that the police are not social workers in uniform, and they need support from other departments.

PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS

Much of what I have just written will be obvious on reflection and largely uncontroversial. So what could be done?

Let’s start with the diagnosis. Many of the problems arose from a decade or more ago, when an avalanche of paperwork descended from on high, intended so that the police were seen to be responsive to complaints levelled (in a few cases, perhaps legitimately) from some ethnic communities. However, the Home Office solution was not appropriate. Instead of fulfilling its intent to foster better relations, it added burdens. It was the same old Socialist solution: address a problem by tighter management and control from the centre, and add the bureaucracy to match.

The result is that today an average arrest leads to 3 ½ hours of paperwork. Despite subsequent attempts to fix this, the level has always been on the increase. The priority has shifted to collecting stats rather than catching criminals; to filling out forms than being out talking to the community. More paperwork and red tape means there is less incentive to be genuinely productive.

Crucial in all this is how the new system has ended the use of discretion by officers. The system no longer trusts policemen, which reflects in turn as to how the public does too.

It has also led to the retargeting of manpower on soft crimes (such as driving offences), carried out by otherwise law abiding people, in order to boost statistics and demonstrate false productivity. This is fine if it teaches you and I to switch off our mobile phone when at the wheel (which in many cases a flashing blue light and being pulled over and spoken to would achieve), but it also means a crucial loss of public support.

One small solution that an officer has suggested involves extending the retirement age. It should be possible to allow officers to stay on in roles as processing officers at stations, or to use these more as the in-house file sorters.

It may also be an option to rejig the pay structure, so frontline policemen are encouraged and rewarded over the non-uniformed desk pilots. This is a crucial element: the civilian side of the station should be more about freeing policemen from their paperwork and e mails rather than adding to them. Support staff should do just that: support the frontline beat police, as the back up part of a team with the beat officers at the top of the inverted pyramid, not operating a world apart and adding to their grief. There should be a simple cost-benefit office test constantly at play: what does the paperwork or activity add to the policeman’s ability to genuinely operate effectively and efficiently?

MIND SETS

Such improvements would also see an end to the targetocracy. Priorities should furthermore be set locally, very locally, with local policing plans framed within a big picture set by the Chief Constable. It would mean an end to the CPS and call centre targets also.

Let’s underline a key point again. Police officers should be entrusted with the use of their discretion, subject obviously to due line manager oversight. This change should be drummed into middle management as a new practice. The service needs to be less meeting-driven. Civilian staff should be encouraged to try out accompanying constables on jobs, so they get to see the reality and interact with them in the office accordingly.

Such reforms are hugely important as thousands of demoralised police are leaving the Force. There are major reported levels of stress. The solution is a bonfire of paperwork.

There also needs to be an end to so-called "affirmative action" – so-called positive discrimination in recruiting police. This is a blot on everybody, and it should be replaced with some targeted advertising but also true equality in selection; selection through merit, not quotas. There have been quite astonishing claims from senior police officers that such quotas have led to the recruitment of dyslexics, disabled, and those whose religious beliefs (or selective interpretation of them) stop them doing their job. This also means an end to diversity courses and community awareness, unless an officer is referred to them as disciplinary matter. They are widely seen as a waste of time and money: decent policemen don’t need it, and all policemen should have learnt it to pass basic training. In at least one known case, diversity training has even been given teaching preference over first aid training, which is outrageous.

Due training in technology, on the other hand, is something which apparently very much is needed; and in many cases for the middle managers, courses in man management skills and control of budgets would also be of major benefit. Another training improvement involves the mutual recognition of training between forces (and where relevant, where training has come from outside the police force, such as from similar army courses). It is bizarre that at present, officers cannot transfer to another force and retain their skills. It therefore seems that there needs to be a level of common standards of training, which are nationally recognised, and a better system of recognising who merits or needs training, particularly in IT where there is reportedly a notable skills gap.

Such training could be a useful boon for how stations are run. One criticism levelled is that internally there is a culture of management, but not leadership. This has not been helped by past recruitment procedures, and it has in some cases reportedly created an us-and-them divide. Critics agree that there is a place for recruiting some skilled managers from outside the system, and also a place for the recruitment of graduates; but talent is more important. Perhaps it is more appropriate to recruit (and pay accordingly) those with life experience and relevant skills, and to better recognise and use those already in the Force who have those skills.

On the issue of transfer, it could be easier for personnel to request transfer between Forces. If an employee’s partner makes a career move that takes him or her outside or into London, it seems only logical that a police transfer should be a ready option. There is, indeed, the difficulty that might arise from a personnel drain as Home Counties police seek the benefits of a Met rating, but this relates more to the relative pay scales of police forces in the South East being resolved.

Health and Safety is another issue that absolutely needs to be addressed. Once again, the Mayor of London can do absolutely nothing about it. But then, frankly so neither can the Home Secretary. That will require a massive effort by bold ministers, to halt the slide towards a compensation society, potentially through such measures as banning "did you fall off a ladder" adverts, ending blank cheques for lawyers, limiting injury claims, contesting every ludicrous claim rather than cutting losses in advance, using press outrage to garner popular support, pursuing false claimants, reeling back the ridiculous elements of human rights law, revoking the excesses of our Strasbourg and similar obligations, being prepared to instruct managers and crown lawyers to be aggressive in reaffirming the common sense interpretation, and so on. Good luck to them. They’ll need guts and time to pursue this, but it needs to be done.

RESOURCES

So how should the money that funds the Met, and indeed other Forces, be spent? Policing should relate to the area according to its need. There is no one size fits all solution. Different areas face different problems; consequently, they have different priorities and possibly different answers. So this then is an appeal to localise.

Certainly, senior officers should prioritise on delivering frontline services, not providing new furniture or office decorations for senior ranks.

On a different note, it has been suggested that there should be an awareness by senior management that level 2 (cross-county border) crimes have been falling through the gap since the establishment of SOCA, and if true this also needs targeting. Awareness is also essential that if the Serious Crime Force is set up, a turf war with SOCA has to be avoided, as well as any performance gap that might follow if senior officers proved themselves reluctant to lose their experienced officers to this new body. It has also been suggested that there is a need to integrate SOCA better into cooperative structures with other Police Services, since there is presently an operational divide.

It would also help if police IT systems were compatible with those of other elements of the criminal justice system. An improvement would further be if one computer system produced all the forms. On the flip side, producing such IT should not be used as an excuse to cut numbers (as happened under Roy Jenkins with the switch to vehicles and radios). Nor should it be allowed to turn into yet another government IT binge of waste. But even a process of downloading blackberry-style material from the patrol car to the office computer, as part of a handover of the responsibility for processing the prisoner and taking the case further, could be a positive move.

The Home Office would also benefit from a rethink of its PR millions. It should cut out its propaganda-style crime adverts and those which have dubious impact, by which I include such examples as the public gold spent by government on smoking in public, and the dire advert on benefit fraud. If adverts are to be retained, they should focus on areas that can a real and quantifiable impact and ideally deal with real and even topical cases.

This fits into the broader issue of education, in particular in schools. Rather than the misperceived and malcontextualised ‘hug a hoody’ concept, we need to foster an agenda of respect: an awareness of personal responsibility and of consequence. Once again, no Mayor can achieve that. There are fantastic voluntary groups that have been making local impacts, though, which local government could better support.

PUNISHMENT

Crime requires not merely detection, but also punishment. It might help if (and this will not win me friends in some patches) all identical crimes were treated equally. I do not believe in such a thing as a "hate crime". A crime is a crime is a crime; the person on the receiving end doesn’t deserve it; and if the punishment is not enough, then the tariff that is meted out to the criminal should be increased across the board. One victim is not less special than another.

The courts are also publicly seen as failing in their duties. There absolutely must be, for instance, a strict enforcement of Penalty Notices for Disorder (PNDs) when issued, with the additional fine added on and paid in full if they are not. Too often they are just ignored and left unenforced, which makes a mockery of their deterrent value, and of their use on the street. There may be some worth in it being put on the PNC ID for, say, 3 years, as the lack of any record otherwise means the criminal can go under the radar even when they have been repeatedly producing key warning signs, such as involvement in shoplifting. Another failure is the massive logjam that bedevils the courts, and there is a whole series of recommendations that could be made to accelerate court times that we won’t go into here. Suffice it to say that public confidence is dented every time it transpires a murder or rape is committed by someone on bail. Such tasks once again lie not to the Mayor, but for the national government.

Public disorder, particularly repeat activity, also needs to be clamped down on. Drunkenness is no excuse for viciousness. Bottling and scarring attacks should be treated while sentencing as assaults while sober, to deter thugs from losing self-control and blaming it on anyone but themselves.

Overall, courts need to have the convictions of their convictions. Perhaps a useful start would be to restore the lead from the CPS back to the police on whether to push prosecutions (a change that was originally made on costs).

Meanwhile, more prisons are needed to house more offenders for their full terms. If they were run so that they were cheaper than London Five Star hotels, this would be a good start (though in their defence we recognise that customers don’t tend to make a break from the Ritz, at least before the checkout bill is due). As for more radical suggestions, since first time offenders provide a better chance of saving, perhaps resources should be targeted more heavily on trying to rehabilitate these? Conditions within the prisons themselves should be as mutable as the tariff. The level of luxury should match how cooperative and well-behaved the prisoner is. One key missed opportunity lies in overriding the straitjackets that come from modern interpretations of "fundamental rights" and hyper-liberal prison reformers with mindsets still locked in the age of debtors’ cells of straw and slop buckets. So, if you slash someone while inside, you should also lose your telly rights; a dirty protest gets you a mop; and if you riot, you live with your leaky roof for a while. Neither a CD player in your cell nor being housed in a prison near your home should be an automatic right.

Since the state now has a captive audience, as well as opportunities for education and work skills, society should also be able to demand of the prisoner a commitment to change. By this in part, I mean there should be forced drug rehabilitation. It should be a precondition of early release that the individual is ‘clean’. Serious drug use while in prison should equally result in loss of privileges, and loss of time off. It may seem harsh, but if it means no longer being hooked and stealing in order to get high when release finally comes, then it is doing everyone a favour in the long term.

The system also needs to tighten up the way it carries out the confiscation of profits of crime. The system has been abused, despite Herculean efforts by officers. What can be withdrawn from supposedly seized accounts needs to be revisited. It seems logical that no money at all should be allowed out of ‘black’ accounts for legal support, so that criminals aren’t able to squirrel money away or spend their illicit gains on hiring the best silks available to let them off. Meanwhile, legal aid seriously needs to be capped.

We also need a public debate on the nature of punishment, on what is acceptable and on the definition of what as a society we are prepared to accept as due justice. Should repeat burglars, for instance, be marked out by the removal of any council house priority or privileges? Is there a place for public humiliation as a deterrent in the criminal justice system? Would painting the front door of prolific burglars, say, a very visible pink and yellow discourage or encourage local thefts and fencing? What about the impact of carrying out community service menial labour in a tawdry and ‘uncool’ set of overalls, or even a modern version of the stocks such as a see-through plastic high street sin-bin? In an era of style over substance, could image be used as a deterrent?

Given the breakdown of old criminal codes and the loss of what existed of a "It’s a fair cop" attitude of old-style criminals, not least with the dominant role in certain areas of foreign criminal gangs, is it also time to reintroduce the option for judges to have in reserve capital punishment for the murder of police officers (and their auxiliaries) and prison wardens? Rejecting these concepts out of hand as ‘past era’, ‘barbaric’, or simply ‘impossible as we have signed up to Human Rights legislation’ is missing a key point. We are moving into a new form of society strictures, and perhaps at some point the types of punishment need to adapt too. At the very least, we need an open and free debate, even if it is to ultimately reject them on balance.

DRUGS

A revolution is surely needed in the way we approach the crisis in drugs. I have written previously on this issue at ConservativeHome. Rather than repeat everything in depth, in summary I believe that there may, repeat may, be benefit in changing our approach entirely. We need a massive debate here too, involving science rather than passion. What would be the impact of relaxing our regulations on soft drugs, so that they become a state monopoly? Quality and strength ("dosage" if you like) could then be secured. You could require attendance at an educational centre before registering. Profits could be ploughed into a reinvigorated war on Class A drugs, combining special cold-turkey retreats and more detox programmes, with a zero tolerance campaign that might include the death penalty for the lead traffickers.

Certainly, high society and some of the newspaper editors need to get their priorities straight. Hard drugs are not respectable.

The reality of these substances is that they are commodities whose trade supports South American insurgents, funds Afghan terror and instability, and creates in this country useless state dependents whose incapacity trashes the lives of their own children. It’s no use expecting farmers in third world pits to do something that reduces their own standard of living if we are afraid to seriously tackle the end users amongst us.

No doubt there are also improvements that could be made on issues of law enforcement here. The blogger ‘PragueTory’, for example, has constructively suggested that those caught handling drugs should automatically be prosecuted unless they finger the source. Certainly, it may be worth revisiting the tariff system in a punitive way to open up the drugs route, and finger more of the serious middle men.

AS MAYOR

Now perhaps we can see why appointing even a hard talking mayor won’t sort out London’s streets. What does lie within his powers? What do I pledge to do, while waiting for London Regional Government to be abolished in favour of a community of councils, and for the real problem solvers to set their solutions in train?

I pledge to use that short time to help inform. With respect to the MPA (Metropolitan Police Authority), I will immediately issue an invitation to the key police bloggers and waste whistleblowers – once we can find them! – to come on board a round table exercise. Statuary rules prevent me from being able to appoint any to the MPA, but that doesn’t mean to say that I can’t request their input at all phases of MPA activity, with their genuinely grassroots and frontline comments to be circulated to other MPA members. The same holds true with receiving delegations from the Police Federation.

I believe that though a body such as the MPA has a part to play, the London Councils are better placed than any regional governor to play that part. I will cooperate extremely closely with its leader, and put across his views while I still occupy the chair. I also believe, however, that accountability is better served through activity at the level of Borough Commanders and through links with the local communities, perhaps even with some input in issues of sacking or demoting staff who are not up to the job. These are obviously once again matters for the Secretary of State at the Home Office to resolve. But I myself am prepared during my short tenure to speak out against any more police station closures being forced on the Met due to savings imposed by Central Government, and to stand up for the principle of crime prevention being better than any cure.

I might also add that I don’t personally believe in elected sheriffs, having seen far too many American movies where the local head of the law explains how ‘he’d like to help the hero, but there are elections round the corner’. Whatever police reforms do follow, the service has to remain itself free of politics, and not become a political football whose partiality can impact on the confidence felt in it from any particular communities. But that doesn’t mean to say that London Councils as a body can’t hold senior police officers to account just as MPs can hold civil servants. The key to policing is that officers remain impartial and operate as the servant of crown, maintaining their sworn oath before the Queen. It needs to be operationally independent but accountable.

Parliament Square falls under the Mayor’s remit, and I have already said that I want this to revert to Westminster Council to run (though it might be useful if a police delegate from SO17 sat on it too). My own personal opinion, as it happens, is that Brian Haw deserves a peerage. I don’t agree with his viewpoint, but he would prove a better choice of "People’s Peer" that the other so-called ones (notwithstanding the minor fact that the concept was originally a broadsheet’s April Fool joke a decade ago). But the square is now getting trashed by people without care and consideration who screech personal abuse at ordinary members of the public as they pass. A fine balance between decorum and democracy could be reached if camping were banned, and protest is allowed so long as an able-bodied person is able to remain standing, with no megaphones, and with placards so long as they don’t touch the ground. If you don’t like standing holding a placard for more than a couple of hours, feel free to come back another day. Of course, reasonable security considerations must be paramount.

One innovation that the head of London Governance - Mayor or head of London Councils - can carry out involves celebration and commemoration. The Sun’s annual Police Bravery Awards deserve wider imitation. In Washington DC there is a high-profile national police week I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing, including candlelight vigils for fallen officers, and a prominent street parade with bagpipes, drill uniforms, and guest Mounties. This might not suit the tenor of our capital, but surely some event could be put together annually based on the Police Memorial that lies on the cusp of Horseguards?

MORE THAN A VOTE TO FIX

However we identify and catalogue the clamps and ligatures that restrict effective policing in London, the fact remains that these restraints can only be unleashed by two groups of people: community groups acting locally with people they know and by whom they are trusted; and by the very highest echelons of national government addressing massive failings that have built up over years of failure.

London’s crime problem is one of the biggest issues facing the city, and it is bigger than anything that can be solved by its mayor. Indeed, it is bigger even than just the Home Secretary. Its roots lie in antisocial dysfunctional elements of society; a shortage of role models; the corruption of respect; the incentive to re-offend; disjointed agencies; soft punishment; a cocky criminal element; a burdened constabulary; a seemingly warped legal system; the sense of management of decline rather than reversing it; frightened or wayward managers; disillusioned staff; and an incredulous and alienated public.

These failings need massive action. But don’t expect the fact that you have an expensive regional government to achieve it. We need a reformation of our broken society instead.