Introduction to Police Work

Colin Rogers, Rhobert Lewis, Colin Rogers, Rhobert Lewis

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134039340
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Criminología

Policing is in a profound period of change, the result of recent government reform, a renewed drive for professionalism as well as the need to adapt to a rapidly changing society. This book provides a highly readable and up to date introduction to the work of the police, exploring what this currently involved and the directions it may be going in. It is designed for student police officers starting their probation and training, students studying public or uniformed service courses in colleges, students taking undergraduate courses in policing and criminal justice, and anybody else who wants to know about policing today.

The book describes all the key elements of policing work. The first two parts look at how the police functions as an organization, with chapters devoted to important new areas of crime reduction partnerships and forensic support in investigation and enforcement. The third section covers key aspects of practical police work, with coverage of such challenging areas as anti-social behaviour and terrorism. The book contains a wide range of practical tasks and activities, and links are made throughout to the new Initial Police Learning and Development Programme and National Occupational Standards in Policing.

PART 1

THE POLICE FRAMEWORK

Chapter 1

The Police Organisation

This chapter supports the following National Occupational Standards which describe the performance and competence required of a probationer officer.

Unit No.	Unit title
1A1	Use police actions in a fair and justified way.
1A2	Communicate effectively with members of communities.
1A4	Foster people’s equality, diversity and rights.
1B9	Provide initial support to individuals affected by offending or anti-social behaviour and assess their needs for further support.
2A1	Gather and submit information that has the potential to support policing objectives.
2C2	Prepare for, and participate in, planned policing operations.
2G2	Conduct investigations.
4C1	Develop your own knowledge and practice.
4G2	Ensure your own actions reduce risks to health and safety.

1.1 A brief history of the police service

The origins of the modern police service in Britain lie in the 18th century where anxieties about the capacity and ability of existing watch forces to cope with crime and disorder became widespread. First, local town watchmen were unable to deal competently with crime in increasingly densely-populated conurbations where anonymity was easily achieved. Second, large numbers of demobilised troops roamed following the end of a succession of overseas wars, causing crime waves in many towns and cities. Third, there was genuine concern at the capacity of existing authorities to control major disturbances of public order without the use of the army.

The response to these pressures and anxieties was delayed by both indecision and concerns over cost, but after many parish and private initiatives the Metropolitan Police was formed in 1829 by the then Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel. From the beginning, the police constables were given uniforms which were obviously non-military. They wore top hats and long-tailed blue coats and they carried a wooden baton. A detective force was created within the Metropolitan force in 1842. Arguments for and against a national police force were eventually resolved and the numerous police forces that were created outside London quickly moved from Home Office to local control. The County and Borough Police Act 1856 required all English and Welsh counties to create police forces under the control of the county magistrates, and an external system of inspection was set up. A similar Act, but applying to Scotland, was passed in 1857. Initially, central government provided 25 per cent of the core costs of police forces but this contribution was later increased to 50 per cent. Most police constables were drawn from the semi-skilled or unskilled working classes, although chief constables were frequently ex-military officers. Pay was low, but it was regular work and (unusually for Victorian Britain) retired officers were eligible for a small pension.

These changes led to the current tripartite organisation of policing in the UK between the police forces, the police authorities and (in England and Wales) the Home Office. Three principles were also established, which remain important today.

The first is that since the police are paid from public funds, officers are financially independent and less likely to be corrupted. This principle of independence is carried over to the present, and any links between the police service and the commercial world continue to be scrutinised so that operational decisions are not compromised by such associations. Second, police officers themselves are servants of the Crown, meaning that they serve the law and not their employer (the Police Authority). This also means that the operational decisions of chief constables are not dictated by the Police Authority. Third, police officers have discretion concerning the action they take (or do not take) in response to an offence, although their actions must be fair and reasonable.

Although the justification for police forces was that they were needed to combat crime, they soon assumed responsibility for a variety of duties including missing persons and traffic. From 1890, forces were encouraged to provide mutual aid in serious and large scale disturbances in public order, a practice well honed by the time of the miners’ strike in the 1980s. Nevertheless, military intervention was sometimes regarded as essential, as in the South Wales coal strike of 1910–11 when soldiers also helped with maintaining order. Irish terrorism prompted the formation of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch in 1884.

Both the First (1914–18) and Second (1939–45) World Wars greatly widened the responsibility of the police forces at a time when their resources were sorely stretched because so many officers had volunteered or been conscripted into military service. A police strike in 1918 led to an investigation headed by Lord Desborough which concluded that a national police force should be resisted, that policing was the responsibility of local authorities, and that police pay needed to be increased. Eventually, the freedom of police officers to strike was removed.

Policing after 1945 remained organised in the ‘beat system’, whereby officers were allocated some areas or even individual streets to patrol. In one of the biggest reforms in British policing since Peel, the 1962 Royal Commission on Policing reduced the number of police forces and introduced new technology into police work. In 1967 the Home Office encouraged ‘unit beat policing’ whereby officers, now armed with personal radios, were moved from foot patrols to car patrols. A series of corruption scandals, miscarriages of justice and allegations that suspect terrorists had been mistreated during interrogation proved damaging to the reputation of the police service everywhere leading to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984.

The way that the police service deals and consults with communities which suffer high crime was examined by Lord Scarman after the 1981 riots in several English cities. It became evident that the attitudes of many in the police service and the degree to which the police consulted and communicated with local communities (particularly minority-ethnic populations) was grossly inadequate. In 1993, the black teenager Stephen Lawrence was stabbed in London in a racist attack. The resulting Macpherson Inquiry highlighted the endemic failure of the Metropolitan Police (and by inference, all police forces) in providing a professional service to minority ethnic populations. This report was the starting-point for much of the diversity framework within which the police service works today (see Chapter 6).

1.2 The criminal justice sector and the police service

The police service in the UK is part of the criminal justice sector that includes many agencies including the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), HM Prison Service, HM Court Services, the Probation Service and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Crimes are dealt with at two levels, with less serious offences being tried at a Magistrates’ Court and more serious or complex offences being tried at a Crown Court. The police service is the largest and most expensive part of the criminal justice sector yet the sector as a whole only runs properly if the different components work together. Cooperation between the agencies in the criminal justice sector operates at a strategic level (as when the CPS and the police service work together to reduce the time it takes for a case to reach court), and at local level (for example, when police constables work with probation officers who are monitoring sex offenders who have been released from jail). The working together of agencies was further catalysed when, in 2004, a Single Sector Skills Council and Standard Setting Body, named ‘Skills for Justice’, was established which applies across the whole criminal justice sector.

Police officers have very different powers of arrest from most other professionals involved in criminal justice (see Chapter 14), but the legal right to use physical force is constrained in exactly the same way as it is for members of the public. The use of legal force explains the historical origin of the term police force. The restrictions on the use of force provide an example of the kind of legislative framework under which police officers work and which the reader will encounter in later chapters. The use of such force must be:

• Legal (e.g. in pursuance of self-defence or in the defen...