Policing in the moral maze
by Melanie Phillips:
How should the police be held to account without becoming politicised?
BBC Radio’s Moral Maze resumed this week for its summer series, and for the first show my fellow panellists and I discussed the police.
Around the country, the police appear to be staggering from one furore to another — from wearing rainbow helmets and “taking the knee” to failing to stop the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations; from the false “sex-ring” allegations against a clutch of MPs to posing for “selfies” with the bodies of murdered women; and for perceived inconsistencies in the “Partygate” investigations.
Meanwhile, the new Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Andy Cooke, has predicted that the cost of living crisis will trigger an increase in crime and advised officers to “use their discretion” when people are caught shop-lifting.
Police officers in Scotland have asked for guidance on how to enforce new hate crime legislation after being ‘inundated’ with complaints about posts on social media. At its conference last week, the Police Federation of England and Wales was given a list of horror stories about misogyny in “every single force”. This week the National Police Chiefs Council declared itself “ashamed” about racism in law enforcement.
So where should policing priorities lie? How should we reconcile the need to hold the police to account with the need to stop them becoming politicised?
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