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Funding for the police is higher than ever before and most crime rates are actually down. But public confidence in the forces is down too, according to surveys, and it's the law-abiding who most often feel coppers are no longer on their side.
Helen Newlove, widow of the murdered Gary Newlove believes it's the police system of trying to hit "targets" that is to blame. She feels the police should have been there for the earlier problems in their neighbourhood (though she does not fault them for their response on the night of Gary's death).
Helen: "It's the system they have in place, it's all targeted and they need to be more of a public service, not run as a business. We need the police to be there for us."
For The One Show, Justin Rowlatt looked at a response to public dissatisfaction with the police. Four forces; Leicestershire, Surrey, Staffordshire and West Midlands are involved in a pilot scheme to try to raise public confidence, named "Common Sense Policing". It essentially means that police are no longer are compelled to make arrests for every crime they come across. Supporters believe it cuts red tape and frees the police up to tackle more important crimes.
But there are opposing voices. Criminologist Elaine Campbell told Justin that she is worried about the fairness of the scheme - that it gives the police on the streets too much discretionary power. That it allows the police "to be judge and jury on a street level basis".
What do you think? Should the "Common Sense Policing" scheme be rolled out across the country? Was policing better when officers had more discretionary powers? Add your comment.
Comments
At last, police force with common sense! Why has it taken so long? Lets get back to the days of the 'bobby on the beat' who administers justice as he sees it at the time. A clip round the ear is more effective than arresting a young 13 or 14 year old for something like shoplifting going to court to be told 'don't be a naughty boy' and don't do it again etc. etc.
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I work for Thames Valley police where if you even mention the phrase (Common Sense) you are treated with a red card. It appears to be an offence. They are target mad - shame.
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I am a serving police officer and would like to say this is nothing new. it was what we were doing many years ago, and we dealt with anti social behaviour as we saw fit. Not pandering to the fluffy cotton wool brigade who seem to formulate the new modern thinking.
Your criminologists comments are symptematic of todays society. You want us to adopt common sence policing but will not allow us to exercise the discresion in policing that we have used for many years.
One final point The government has systematically cut police budgets across the country and not increased them. My Force has been cut by £12 million
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I am in agreement with the common sense approach, why did Gary Newlove have to die, it should never have happened and my thoughts have been with his family since it happened.
I hope those responsible were punished for this crime, for which his loved ones will have no release.
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Dear oh dear oh dear. Say it isn't true, the BBC broadcasting government statistics as gospel? The government have changed crime accounting rules twice in the last 10 years but even a cursory glance shows crime has gone up 7% in the last 10 years. However violent crime has gone up a lot more in the last 10 years. Let's not forget this is 'recorded' crime and as many of the anonymous police bloggers (e.g. police inspector blog, PC David Copperfield (ex-anon)) have revealed the police try all sorts of Spanish practises to massage the reported figures (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7353698.stm) such as instead of arresting under Section 5 of the Public Order Act (a recorded crime) the police often arrest people for Drunk & Disorderly (an unrecorded crime). The police and the government have both accepted that the reductions in vehicle crime and burglary is down to improvements in security made by the public themselves. The British Crime Survey is no better - a 285 page survey that over samples rural areas (who experience less crime) and under samples minorities (who experience more crime).
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As someone who joined the police in 1963 and retired in 1995 I despair of all this nonsense.
Police work is basically very simple. It involves being omnipresent on the streets, responding promptly to calls and intervening when someone offends. Intervention might mean a verbal warning or arrest.
Don't blame the ordinary cops it's the modern day academic non streetwise senior officers who have hardly spent two minutes doing street policing and consequently don't understand it. However, the public and junior police officers want it and the yobs and the criminals don't like it so what exactly is the problem?
The problem now is reversing the trend from reactive policing to proactive. Most officers are now only schooled to respond to calls. If you are lucky enough to see a police officer (not a plastic cso) in the near future just watch their body language whether they are on foot or mobile. The message they send out is "I'm busy, don't approach me." They generally do not look around, take in their surroundings or the people around them. What good is that?
We were taught to take in everything, "give your eyes a treat" was the expression. We knew the locality and the people in that locality, good and bad. We would intervene quickly and nip problems in the bud. There was no such thing as prioritisation because, as we know from the Garry Newlove tragedy, small incidents can suddenly turn into very serious ones.
We always applied 'common sense' policing. Was it fair? Probably not. Was it corrupt? Occasionally yes. Was it safe to walk the streets? Yes it bloody well was.
The criminologist interviewed hasn't got the first clue about policing. She talked about police officers acting as judge and jury on the streets if 'common sense' policing is introduced. However we're only talking about minor offences so what's wrong with that? Apparently she's happy with the current system where the police and CPS, behind closed doors, act as Judge and Jury and caution people for Robbery and Rape. Do me a favour!
"Justice should not only be done it should be seen to done" said an ex Lord Chief Justice. Well it ain't. Everybody deserves one chance on minor offences. Verbal warning on the street or ONE caution (not multiple ones like now) or it's the magistrate in the morning. Difficult it ain't.
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'Common sense!' What's that got to do with the price of fish? Soon be time for my early retirement when I can get a nice bar in Spain. Plod on.
Roberta, Malaga.
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I think if there was more police on the streets they would be a deterent and there would be less trouble on the streets they wont catch criminals in the police station filling in forms
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The police are not compelled to make arrests for every offence they come across - in my experience the opposite is true.
They do everything they can not to do anything and it is only when a tragedy occurs and the media get interested that they get off their backsides.
A recent article about an "initiative" on knife crime was headlined
"Knife-carrying down in 'hotspots' "
An alternative could have been - "knife-carrying reduced when police bother to do their job."
Jethro
Cheshire
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I feel sorry for todays plolice, they can be called out to a everyday inccedent and find there being faced with a gun or knife.
Someone should take the polititions out of their greenhouses and make them live in somewhere like hackney, and live on the money the d.h.s.s give you to live on. In my day police could thump you round the ear, parents brought kids up to respect their elders not how to rob, rape or kill them. Its good they ld more are trying to make them work by dropping their benefit, but there is no work at the moment. Bring back national service, then they can all learn to respect themselves as well as others. And build more houses. One day this generation will be running the country. God help us....
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As far as I can make out the ONLY thing our police are good at is closing roads. If I could have my working life over again I'd take the easy option and become a police officer. If only police were really dedicated and hardworking in the way TV drama would have us believe.
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I have utterly lost respect for the police my localpolice station Clacton-On-Sea seems like a British Forces bases in Iraq the Police hole themselves up in station and wait until a call comes in then they charge out of their nick in cars going like bats of hell and instead of just a car they send van with a huge mob inside itching for good rumble, then after charge back to the nick, do you ever see a good old fashion high profile Bobby looking bored walking around the town---------Answer NO God where has common sense in good fashion policing gone, they tell us it is about cost and all that rubbish but basically I rekon the police have coped out of their role of plainly policing
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this product is a threat to epaleptic, asmatick and cancer people such as myself. even people who dont have problems are in danger therthermore what if crimanels get there hands on them well all be in big troubel
i think the are a waste of my tax and sould not be used not even as a last resors
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The greatest threat to our public services has come from government itself, since 1997.
Tony Blair's targets and 'modernisation' programme meant that all of the services to the public were differently organised to the detriment, leading to more and more bureaucrats monitoring more and more statistics.
The police suffered badly from this, meaning that they became target driven on certain types of crime, while other crimes were vitually ignored.
Added to that the red tape and political correctness finished the job, tying the hands of many police up and down the land.
The police were reduced to being a re-active police force, instead of the pro-active police force that Sir Robert Peel created, instead of being out walking the beat and actively deterring crime on our streets, they were reduced to pen pushers, spending more time doing reports than actually policing, which is why we have such lawlessness nowadays.
With discretionary powers of just giving warnings etc. removed, they became overstretched to breaking point.
Whether this was the intended effect it is hard to say, but it was certainly a very bad idea.
Jane - Lincolnshire
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Things won't change on the Policing front until our 'Wunderful' Nu Labor 'Gibbermunt' is kicked out of office.
It is totally and utterly seduced by 'Targets' and 'Performance Indicators'. These have their uses, but indiscriminate use ends up with more time being spent collecting statistics that nobody gives a toss about.
I say this as a retired Police Civilian. I have seen just what a bureucratic mess and a waste of time all this is. Various Labour Ministers have agreed with this point and have 'promised' to 'look into it' - but has anything change. No of course not, if anything the Form filling and bureucratic obsessions have got worse over the past 10 or so years. Only a change in Government, attitude and policing philosophy will get rid of this stupidity.
"Once Governments set Targets, People become Victims" - and that is oh so true under the 'Fantasy Island' politics of New Labor.
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Helen Newlove is absolutely correct. The police are more concerned with hitting targets than tackling crime.
It is the reason that being in possession of a class A drug now gets you a penalty notive with just a fine.
It is the reason why they, the police, are making no in-roads into stopping binge drinking among young people. Youing people, in particular those under age, rarely, if ever get prosecuted. It is much easier for the police to go for the licensee and be sure of reaching their targets.
The police should return to enforcing the law in a professional manner, not simply writing out penalty notice's in order to satisfy the Home Office.
If we want reductions in crime lets get real and tackle it in a proper manner.
JOE O'RIORDAN
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Let's get back to basics.....Drop the targets, the form filling and the bureaucracy. Remove the data gatherers whose role is to manipulate the statistics that are produced by this wasted police time. Empower the police to be on the streets, interacting with the public. Then perhaps we will see a true reduction in crime and civil disorder.
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Common sense! My son was recently burgled. His house was trashed and his 3 year old daughter's room vandalised. We called the police immediately and continued trying to get attention for the following 3 hours. We were eventually told all police were deployed in town chasing drinkers and should go to the station some time the following day. The following morning I saw two police motorcyclists, on separate bikes issuing a ticket to an elderly woman, whose even more elderly and frail passenger required a stick to walk the few yards into a clinic. The driver had parked her car on one of 5 empty, out of six disabled car spaces, allocated for the clinic. All the nearby streets were packed with cars, yet it took 2 coppers to confront the woman and cite her because she didn't, for whatever reason, actually have a disabled sticker. Where is the common sense in that?
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