Report to the People
9th February 2004
Police Accountability
I
was pleasantly surprised last Thursday to see Tory MSPs electing to use a bit of
their chamber time to put forward for debate some real ideas on an important
issue.
Usually,
it’s fair to say, debates called by opposition parties generate more heat than
light. Some don’t even concern
Scottish Parliament matters. Others
are little more than an extended moan.
But
the Tories, to their credit, avoided both these easy options and tabled a motion
suggesting how the police could be made more accountable to the communities they
serve.
The
need for increased accountability is clear – we only have to look at the row
over the dispersal powers in the Antisocial Behaviour Bill to see that.
On
the one hand, we had communities driven to distraction by gangs of yobs, hanging
about drinking, vandalising, fighting, intimidating and all the rest.
Local police wanted to offer the besieged residents some help, but said
they didn’t have the power. On
the other hand, senior police officers told MSPs either that there wasn’t a
problem or, if there was, they had sufficient powers to deal with it.
To
help pass the feelings of communities and officers on the ground up through the
ranks, Thursday’s motion argued, Conveners of Police Boards should be directly
elected and localised crime statistics should be made available.
As
members of Police Authorities and Police Boards in Scotland are, by virtue of
the fact that they are all local Councillors, already elected by their
communities, I wonder if simply
changing how the chairman is elected
would make the board more responsive or accountable.
Then
again, would a figurehead – whose future hung solely on whether crime rose or
fell – be more determined to drive through improvements?
Or would they find it hard, when in charge of a force the size of
Strathclyde, to reflect adequately the views of communities as diverse as
Greenock and Oban?
Publishing
localised crime statistics is another interesting idea.
Such information would certainly help us target resources on areas which
have particular crime problems. And,
given that the fear of crime is as detrimental to our quality of life as crime
itself, properly collated local crime figures could reassure communities.
But,
someone will have to prepare and disseminate these reports.
And, like most people, I want to see the Police freed up to police, not
ham-strung with more red-tape.
These
solutions may not necessarily be right, but it is essential that such ideas are
seriously debated if we are to match the expectation of our communities with the
operational requirements of our police.
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