The failures of modern policing

‘The police now make no attempt to secure willing cooperation with the public, nor their approval, as Robert Peel set out in the force’s founding principles. They have forgotten ‘that the police are the public and the public are the police’’

I have become increasingly disillusioned with the police in this country; they are needlessly aggressive, travelling around in heavily armoured convoys, and are too utterly disdainful of the people they should serve. The lockdown has revealed the worst aspects of certain forces, and now I wonder whether their dangerous absence is the lesser evil compared to their occasional conduct on the streets.

The police now make no attempt to secure willing cooperation with the public, nor their approval, as Robert Peel set out in the force’s founding principles. They have forgotten ‘that the police are the public and the public are the police’.

The United States, of course, has the dubious honour of being one of the only western countries with a worse police force than our own; one that thinks that visible shows of force make them look effective. Like our own police, American officers view themselves not as members of the public but almost as a paramilitary organisation, separate from ‘civilians’ and above the law. When you realise this, it is not surprising that George Floyd was killed in the despicable manner that he was.

The police increasingly view the public as its enemy, not as its master, and in so doing breaks every principle that Sir Robert Peel laid down in 1829 when he created the most modern police force of his time. The officers of Peel’s day went into Victorian-era London, a place which is likely far more dangerous than anywhere in the western world today, with only a glorified stick and a rattle. If that is all it took to stamp out disorder, why then does the modern police force find it necessary to bedeck itself in battle armour and haul around vast arsenals of military-grade weapons? Most of this ridiculous posturing is counterproductive to their role and only seems to encourage brutality.

If matters are to be improved, the police must be brought back into line with how they were originally intended to operate. Officers should be upstanding members of the community, committed to justice above all and utterly impartial to the social and political goings-on around them.