Perceptions of Security and Reassurance at the ... - School of Law

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Consequently, securing and protecting human rights needs to be a major rationale for, andnecessary prerequisite of, contemporary policing which accords to normative and ethicalstandards, rather that being seen as something that gets in the way of and hinders the ‘real job’ ofprotecting the public. As Peter and Alan Beckley argue in their book, a culture where respect forhuman rights is a central and conscious factor in police activities is fundamental both to thepurpose of policing in promoting security and to its moral foundations. ‘Good policing’, they note,is ‘minimal policing – minimally intrusive and carefully controlled in its use of force’ (2001: 21).Whilst ultimately bound up with coercive power, policing relies upon considerable degrees ofvoluntary and ‘quasi-voluntary’ compliance on the part of citizens. Such consent is not purely selfinterestedor instrumental but also has a normative base, strongly linked to perceptions oflegitimacy. It is important because the coercive powers of policing personnel are themselveslimited and only used as an option of last resort. In this vein, some researchers, such as Tom Tyler(1990: Sunshine and Tyler, 2003) and colleagues in the US have highlighted the importance of‘procedural justice’ for both the legitimacy and effectiveness of policing. There is now a substantialbody of research demonstrating that experiences of procedural justice – being treated fairly, withrespect and dignity as well as the appropriate manner in which authority is exercised – cansignificantly affect perceptions of legitimacy and public confidence in the police as well as legalcompliance.Even, and maybe particularly, in a climate of financial stringencies such normative issues arefundamental. As Jan Berry acknowledges in her recent report on Reducing Bureaucracy in Policing: ‘Toreduce bureaucracy… there is a need to rebuild trust, make rules more flexible, and encourage aproportionate, common sense approach – one based on integrity, ethical standards andprofessional judgement’ (Berry 2009: 1). These indeed are challenges for the future of policing.With this in mind I look forward greatly to hearing what Peter has to say to us this evening. Hewill speak to the capacious title (which to be fair, I gave to him – not that it took much invention)of ‘The Future of Policing’.Peter, welcome to the University of Leeds and the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies. The floor isyours…ReferencesBerry, J. (2009) Reducing Bureaucracy in Policing, available at:http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/police/reducing-bureaucracy/reduce-bureaucracy-policeBittner, E. (1970) The Functions of the Police in Modern Society, Chevy Chase, MD: National Institute ofMental Health.Bittner, E. (1974) ‘Florence Nightingale in Pursuit of Willie Sutton: A Theory of the Police’ in H.Jacob (ed.) The Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 17-44Neyroud, P. and Beckley, A. (2001) Policing, Ethics and Human Rights, Cullompton: Willan.Sunshine, J. and Tyler, T. (2003) ‘The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping publicsupport for policing’, Law & Society Review, 37, 513-48.Tyler, T. (1990) Why People Obey the Law, New Haven: Yale.41
The Future of PolicingPeter Neyroud *I’m not going to try and speak about the entire ‘Future of Policing’, that would be quite beyondme, but I am going to try and focus on a number of strands. It is actually an interesting week to bestanding up to talk about the future of policing because actually, even if I had a larger case, Icouldn't drag with me all the documents that have come out this week alone. Nor indeed could Icompress, certainly not this year’s contributions to the debate because actually this I think used tobe a library, you would be about half full.I just thought I would start by doing a little bit of a trot around, just to get a bit of a flavour ofwhat’s to come. And obviously it’s a run up to an election and I’ve got – I was an attendee at IpsosMori’s Christmas event which always comes with a set of PowerPoint slides from Ben Page. Andthey were particularly talking about what things the public are concerned about, and notsurprisingly, crime, policing and justice are right up there, in the top 3 or 4. There was also anotherfascinating thing which in some ways contradicts Adam’s legitimacy argument - but I’ll come on tolegitimacy in a minute - which is that the most popular Prime Minister was also the least trustedPrime Minister. Tony Blair had the lowest scores for trust and the highest scores for popularity inrecent times. And there’s something there that is curiously contradictory.However, ‘a busy last few years’ would be my summary of policing. We have, if you only just goback to the bit before my agency [NPIA] came into being. We’ve had mergers, which is almost anextended debate and is code for ‘we’re not quite sure that the shape of policing in the UK is fit tomeet the challenges that are coming’; for which you could also read ‘we’re not quite sure that theshape of policing worldwide is fit to meet the challenges that are coming’. And I’ll try and developthe challenges that are coming.We’ve had so many police and criminal justice and crime bills that I’m not sure I could name themall, but one that has just passed into law is the Police and Crime Act 2009. And that has farreachingchanges, in particular - back to structure - it has a major change that talks about thepowers of the centre to determine that certain things are done in a given way across the country.Yesterday, we had a White Paper and we also had Jan Berry’s document during the course of thisweek. And in the last week or so we’ve also had… well probably a more important document in anodd sort of way, not to dismiss the White Paper that would be highly inappropriate for somebodyworking in a Government agency! I’m not going to dismiss the White Paper, largely because thereis a great deal about my agency, the NPIA, in the White Paper. But actually, in terms of the qualityof policing, Dennis O’Connor’s report on public order, as a read (and it’s a big read) I think is amore seminal document. It contains some fantastic analysis of the challenges of public orderpolicing and also some quite, one or two slightly odd statements. There’s an extraordinarystatement where it says that the British Police Service doesn’t answer to anyone but ‘the people’,which struck me as slightly odd. I didn’t know that I was the people’s police. It sounds likesomething out of North Korea, actually, and I’m not sure that’s the right constitutional positioneither.Then in that same week or so, we had the IPPR’s study of national policing, which actually wasalso a kind of review of 1997 onwards. I’m not sure I – and I don’t think Sir Norman Bettison dideither - agree with the analysis of the 1997 onwards because it seems to me there has been quite alot of progress. But the thing it finished off with is ‘structures’ again. It’s the structures of policingnationally in particular that, in their analysis, don’t seem to meet the challenges.* This is an edited transcription of a talk delivered on 3 rd December 2009.42
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