When I first started writing about politics it was already likely that Britain would soon have a woman prime minister. Margaret Thatcher had become leader of the Conservatives in 1975, and on the Labour side Barbara Castle and Shirley Williams had been talked about as potential national leaders too.
Yet it was inconceivable back then that the nation’s top police officer might ever be a woman. Cressida Dick is the first to be the boss of Scotland Yard, and her historic appointment is the most dramatic evidence so far of a transformational change in the sociology and direction of British policing.
There still are not enough women officers, but the direction of travel towards a force that looks like the community it serves is beyond doubt. In 1977 just 7% of officers were female. Today the figure is 29%, and is certain to grow. Dick is part of something much larger than herself, in a way that Thatcher was not.
The first female chief constable was only appointed in 1995, Pauline Clare in Lancashire; today there are seven female chiefs. Today, too, the head of the National Police Chiefs Council is a woman, Sara Thornton (who was also on the shortlist for the Met post); the head of the National Crime Agency is a woman, Lynne Owens; the home secretary is a woman, Amber Rudd; and the prime minister, who as a former home secretary takes a hands-on interest, is a woman. Contrast that level of executive equality with the appalling record of the senior judiciary.
This process is not an accident. The way society sees the job of policing has changed. There is plenty of argument about why it has happened, and what it represents. Equality laws have obviously played a part, as has a political willingness to tackle the problems of policing. But the optimistic interpretation goes a lot further.
In the 1970s research in Kansas City suggested not just that there weren’t enough women in the police, but that women might actually make better officers than men. Female recruits tended to have better educational qualifications, and thus to be better at understanding orders, writing reports and presenting evidence. They were also better at questioning suspects and getting confessions.
They got into fewer fights than male officers. They used less violence in doing their job. They discharged firearms less often. They smashed up fewer police vehicles in car chases. There were significantly fewer complaints against them by the public. They led healthier lives and thus called in sick less often. So they cost the police less money in damages and other settlements.
But there isn’t much doubt either that the rise of women in the police has coincided with, and in significant ways has also been a response to, the crisis of legitimacy that occurred in 1980s Britain when the force was entirely dominated by men. Those problems included violence; training and culture; abuse of powers and accountability (including the handling of complaints). These have been the leitmotifs of police reform for more than a generation.
It is tempting to argue that women have been given more power in the police largely in order to help clear up the mess. That is a very real prospect for Dick. She takes over at a time of acute budget crisis. The Met is facing steep cuts in spending, as well as pressure on recruitment and retention because of London living costs. All this is happening against the background of continued politicisation of London’s policing, a generational ongoing terrorist threat, and criticism that police are struggling to keep abreast of changing patterns of crime.
Sceptics will also doubt the woman who was the operational commander at the time of the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005. Although a jury in the health and safety prosecution that followed added a rider to its guilty verdict that “no culpability attaches to commander Dick”, she unquestionably begins her tenure with many opponents.
Yet Dick has powerful supporters across the spectrum and an enviable reputation. Her role, early in her career in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence murder, marked her down for high command. Former colleagues admire the way she handled herself throughout the Menezes furore as proving her steadiness in a crisis.
Dick is also a firm believer in community policing as the bedrock of consent. One senior police source told me this week that Dick was simply the most impressive officer they had ever met.
Politically, Dick returns to Scotland Yard with a stronger hand than her two immediate predecessors. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and Rudd have had none of the public turf wars over her appointment that marked those between Boris Johnson and Jacqui Smith over Paul Stephenson’s appointment in 2008, or between Johnson and Theresa May over Bernard Hogan-Howe in 2011. Downing Street’s view is that Dick is well qualified in all aspects of policing, and that she has the toughness to deal with the squalls and crises that will come her way.
In the postwar era there have been three reforming Met commissioners: Robert Mark, Peter Imbert and Ian Blair. Each was followed by commissioners who preferred the old crime-fighting view of the job, or failed to transcend it. In some cases these consolidators were felt to have fostered a culture of bullying and misogyny, forcing senior women out of key jobs.
Now the Met has a fourth reformer, and one who could also be a role model for a very different approach to policing.
