7th August 2009
The Current Situation of Policing
Mark Hanson
In recent days and weeks there have been a number of important developments in regards to policing in the UK, and most especially in the area of the policing of legitimate protests.
The review commissioned by the Met gave its report, and a separate review was carried out by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Both were highly critical of the way that the G20 protests were policed.
There is a very personal tragedy in every case of wrongdoing, and this sense of grief is only heightened when the offenders are those charged with your protection.
The woman who was injured and detained at the climate camp in the City of London, who possibly suffered a miscarriage because of aggressive police tactics, is a tragic example of the way democratically active people in this country are treated as criminals.
The fault is not always with the police, however, and there are elements in society and at protests whose primary purpose is a fight, and it is right that the authorities seek to minimise their trouble-making.
Yet the serious situation has now arisen in which there is an increasing “them and us” attitude. This attitude is held by many at protests, both amongst protesters and amongst the police.
The knock-on effect of this is an alienation amongst those who are at the fringes of society. There has been a serious deterioration of trust in the police and in government.
This needs to be addressed, as down the line it will produce greater levels of crime and a reduction in the ability of the police to investigate, due to an increasingly belligerent public.
There are two opposing ways this can be addressed.
The first option is for further increases in powers and surveillance. A “surge” in governmental interference and intrusion. It is the option pursued for the past 30 years. It doesn’t work, but is self-perpetuating as alienation and opposition become the norm and agreement and co-operation are side-lined, and the people rebel more, bringing more authoritarian measures, repeating ad infinitum.
The second option is to restore the public’s trust in government, democracy and the police. The reports by the Met and the IPCC are welcomed, yet they are too closely linked to the police and the government to satisfy a public that have lost faith in both.
The suspicions of Ian Tomlinson’s family that the police callously ignored their grief for the purpose of covering up the truth, whether founded or not, are suspicions amongst not only the extremists, but more and more ordinary citizens.
I echo once again the call for a fully independent review of policing. Independent from the police and independent from the government. Only then can trust start to be repaired.
