Forty years ago, the BBC broadcast a documentary series titled Police. In the most influential episode, the pioneering director Roger Graef, who sadly died this month, filmed three bullying male detectives interviewing a distressed rape victim in Reading police station. The footage caused a sensation. The furore led directly to tighter rape questioning guidelines.
Four decades on, not enough has changed in British policing. A month ago, Dame Cressida Dick resigned after the revelation that 14 Metropolitan police officers had been sharing misogynistic and racist messages for at least two years. Since Sarah Everard’s murder a year ago, trust in the police has fallen to record low levels; a majority now lack confidence in them to deal with crime in their local area. A high court ruling on Friday against the Met over its efforts to cancel a vigil for Ms Everard shows the yawning sensibility gap between the force and the public.
Last week, two new reports underscored the unprecedented seriousness of this crisis. The first, the result of a comprehensive review chaired by Sir Michael Barber for the independent Police Foundation, warned that policing in Britain is at a crossroads. In what amounts to a red alert for public order, it said that, without urgent change, the principle of policing by consent that has defined this country’s policing for decades risks being destroyed. The Barber team published 56 interconnected recommendations for reform, not just to police culture, but also to training, skills and organisational structure.
Two days later, the chief inspector of constabulary for England and Wales echoed several of the same things. After a decade in post, Sir Tom Winsor ended his final review by saying there remain major shortcomings in British policing, that problems must not be underestimated, and that they are not confined to London. He told the 43 forces of England and Wales that they must operate as a unified network to become fitter for purpose. He warned that the current recruitment of 20,000 new officers risks hiring too many of the same kind of people who have done such reputational damage to the service.
The reports are complementary. Both grasp the urgency for change. Both stress the neglected primacy of crime prevention. Both see neighbourhood policing, abjectly downgraded in many areas, as the bedrock of public confidence. Both say more spending and better training are essential. Both call for a change in police governance. Both stress the revolution in online crime. Sir Tom’s warning that children are now in greater danger in their bedrooms than in the streets is chilling.
Yet very little in the two reports is categorically new. Britain’s modern policing system has faced repeated calls for reform, most powerfully after the 1981 riots and the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence. The issues have often been variations on the same themes: mistreatment of women, racism, police culture, unnecessary violence, complaints handling, structures and accountability. Although there have been periods of reform and progress, they have not been maintained and have sometimes even gone into reverse, as at present.
A bigger and more lasting reform is therefore needed. But it is hard to see the Home Office, with its shattered departmental reputation and its obsession with immigration control, being capable of delivering it. It is inconceivable that the home secretary, Priti Patel, is capable of leading such a process either. Pending the election of a different government, the onus rests on the rising generation of police chiefs, College of Policing managers and local community leaders to do what they can to prepare the ground. The urgency, though, is beyond doubt. The stakes, as the Police Foundation report confirms, could hardly be higher.
