3.1 Flashcards
The police: philosophy
Philosophy:
According to Peel:
• The basic mission of the police is to prevent crime and disorder.
• The police’s ability to perform their duties depends on the public’s cooperation and approval.
• The use of physical force is a last resort.
• The police’s duty is to impartially serve the law.
• The police are the public and the public are the police. The police are just citizens in uniform, paid to do full-time what all citizens must do, that is, uphold the law.
- In Peel’s philosophy, the police are the servants of the public and the law. Policing relies on the consent of the public and this is to be achieved by upholding the law with the minimal use of force.
- Peel’s principles are embedded in the Police Code of Ethics, which stresses that the police are public servants who need to maintain the respect and support of the public in order to perform their duty.
The police: aims and objectives and funding
Aims and objectives:
According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the aims of the police are to:
• keep the peace and maintain order
• protect life and property
• prevent, detect and investigate crime
• bring offenders to justice.
The police seek to achieve these aims using the 5 aims. They have specific legal powers to stop, question, search, arrest, detain in a police station and interview a member of the public in relation to a crime. Most of these powers are given under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
Funding:
In 2018/19, the total police budget was £12.3 billion. This comes from three sources:
• about two-thirds comes from central government
• most of the rest comes from local council tax
• a small amount comes from charging for services such as policing football matches.
- The police’s funding has fallen in recent years. For example, between 2010 and 2018, it fell by 19%.
- this led to a fall of 20,000 in police numbers during the same period. By 2019, there were
122,000 police officers in England and Wales.
The police: working practices
National + local reach:
In the UK today there are:
• 39 regional police forces in England and four in Wales, e.g. the Metropolitan Police, South Wales Police.
• One police force for Scotland and one for Northern Ireland.
There are also specialist police organisations with UK-wide reach, such as the National Crime Agency, the British Transport Police and the Border Force.
Types of criminality and offender:
- police deal with virtually all types of offence and offender, although some specialist law enforcement agencies do deal with certain kinds of crime and criminal. e.g., HM Revenue and Customs deals with tax evasion and tax fraud
Police duties:
- Most police have general duties, including patrolling a particular area or ‘beat’, working with the local community, responding to the public’s calls for assistance (both routine and emergency), securing crime scenes, gathering evidence from witnesses and apprehending
- Specialist policing units handle various duties, including detectives in CID, fraud and drugs squads, and Special Branch. Additional units in many forces include covert operations, surveillance, traffic, mounted police, air support, river police, underwater search teams, and dog handlers
- National specialists, like the National Crime Agency’s CEOP and the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism command (SO15), also exist.
- British police are mostly unarmed, adhering to the principle that force is a last resort
- Special Constables are unpaid volunteers with full police powers, while Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) have limited powers focused on anti-social behaviour
- Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are elected officials who set policing priorities and budgets, ensuring accountability and effective policing.
The crown prosecution service
Aims and objectives:
- set up in 1986 under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985
- took over the prosecuting role from the police because there was a risk of bias in allowing the police to both investigate and prosecute cases
- police still prosecute some very minor offences, but the CPS prosecutes all serious or complex cases.
The CPS’s role involves the following:
• It advises the police in their investigations about lines of inquiry and the evidence needed to build a case.
• It independently assesses the evidence submitted to it by the police and keeps cases under continuous review.
• It decides whether to prosecute and if so, what charges should be brought.
• It prepares the prosecution case and presents it in court, using its own lawyers and self-employed specialists.
• It assists, informs and supports victims and prosecution witnesses.
The crown prosecution service: philosophy and values
Philosophy and values:
The CPS says that the values that underpin its work are:
• independence and fairness - prosecuting without bias and always seeking to deliver justice
• honesty and openness
• treating everyone with respect
• behaving professionally and striving for excellence
• equality and inclusion - to inspire greater confidence in the CPS from victims and witnesses.
The crown prosecution funding
- Most of the CPS’s income comes from the government, with a budget of around half a billion pounds per year. In addition, the CPS recovers some of its costs when the courts award costs against defendants, and it also recovers assets confiscated from criminals.
- However, the CPS has suffered significant funding cuts. In 2018, the then head of the CPS, Alison Saunders, reported that its budget had fallen by 25% and that it had lost a third of its staff. This has led to concerns that it is unable to perform its role
The crown prosecution service working practice
- Types of criminality and offender Except for some very minor offences, the CPS deals with the full range of offences and criminals. It takes responsibility for all serious cases.
- National and local reach The CPS is a national body throughout England and Wales, with 14 regional area teams prosecuting cases locally.
- Each one is headed by a Chief Crown Prosecutor and works closely with local police forces and other criminal justice partners. CPS Direct is a
‘virtual’ 15th area, providing charging decisions to police nationwide, 24/7, 365 days a year. - The head of the CPS is the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). Max Hill was appointed as DPP in 2018.
The crown prosecution: test
Decisions to prosecute
At the heart of the CPS’s working practices is the Code for Crown Prosecutors. The Code sets out two tests that prosecutors must apply in deciding whether to prosecute a case:
1. the evidential test
2. the public interest test.
Evidential test
- Prosecutors must first be satisfied that there is enough evidence for a realistic prospect of convicting the suspect
- In particular, they must decide that the evidence is admissible (allowable in court, e.g. not hearsay), reliable and credible (believable). If not, it fails the evidential test and the prosecution must not go ahead.
The public interest test
- Prosecutors must next decide whether the prosecution is in the public interest. To do so, they must consider the following seven questions. Not every question may be relevant in a particular case.
1. How serious is the offence?
2. What is the suspect’s level of culpability (blame)?
3. What harm has the victim suffered?
4. The suspect’s age and maturity
5. What is the impact of the offence on the community?
6. Is prosecution a proportionate response to the offence?
7. Do information sources require protecting, e.g. in relation to other investigations?
Threshold test
- Even if there is not enough evidence currently available for an immediate prosecution, a suspect may still be charged under certain circumstances. In these cases, the CPS must apply the Threshold Test:
• There must be reasonable grounds to believe that the suspect is guilty and that enough further evidence can be obtained later to secure a conviction.
• The offence is serious enough to justify immediate charging and it would be too risky to allow bail. Any decision to charge must be kept under review.
The judiciary + philosophy
- The judiciary consists of all the judges in the country’s courts. There are over 3,000 court judges
Philosophy:
- The philosophy of the judiciary is summed up in six principles in the Guide to Judicial Conduct
(2016). These lay down the standards for judges’ ethical conduct
The six principles are:
1. judicial independence: judges should be independent and free from government interference in their decisions. This enables them to uphold the rule of law and safeguard the rights of citizens against the power of the government.
2. impartiality: not showing favour to one side or the other
3. integrity: being honest and with strong moral principles
4. propriety: upholding society’s accepted standards of behaviour and morals
5. ensuring equal treatment to everyone who comes before the courts
6. competence: the knowledge and ability to do the job
On appointment, judges swear two oaths:
• the oath of allegiance (loyalty) to the Queen, her heirs and successors
• the judicial oath to ‘do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will’ - in other words, to treat people equally, with impartiality and according to the law.
The judiciary aims and objectives
- The basic role of the judiciary is to interpret and apply the law to the cases that come before it in the courts.
• In Crown Court the judge must manage the trial, ensuring fairness to all parties, explaining the legal issues and procedures to members of the jury, summing up the evidence, and passing sentence if the defendant is found guilty.
• In the appeal courts (the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court), judges make rulings on the appeals that come before them from lower courts in the hierarchy. This may involve creating precedents through the principle of judicial precedent which then bind the future decisions of the lower courts.
- The pay of the judiciary is based on the advice of an independent body, the Senior Salaries Review Body, which makes recommendations to the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor on how much judges should be paid (along with the pay of others such as MPs and senior civil servants). e.g., in 2018 the most senior judge, the Lord Chief Justice, received £257,000, while district judges (the lowest rank of the judiciary) earned £110,000.
- although judges are well paid by most people’s standards, some senior lawyers can earn far more than judges e.g., some experienced barristers working in commercial law earn in excess of £1m (although lawyers working in the criminal courts generally earn much less than this). This may be a disincentive for some people to become judges.
The judiciary Working practices
- The position of judges reflects the importance of maintaining their independence so that they can uphold the rule of law and defend the rights of citizens. For this reason:
• they have security of tenure: they cannot be removed from office except by a petition to the Queen passed by both Houses of Parliament (this has only ever happened once, in 1830, to remove a corrupt judge)
• their salary is guaranteed - The judiciary is organised in a clear hierarchy.
- They can be divided into superior judges, who sit in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court, and inferior judges, who sit in Crown Court (and sometimes also in magistrates’ courts).
Types of criminality and offender:
- Judges deal with all types of offence and offender, except for the least serious cases, which are usually dealt with by magistrates, or by cautions and fixed-penalty notices issued by the police.
Attempted escapes:
- Prisoners who have made escape attempts are placed on an ‘escape list’ and must be handcuffed and wear bright yellow clothing when being moved (nicknamed ‘banana suits’), must change cells frequently and have their clothes and some of their personal property removed from their cell before being locked in for the night
National and local reach:
- At the most senior level, the Supreme Court has nationwide jurisdiction and settles points of law of national importance. - Judges working in the lower (inferior) courts such as the 90 or so Crown Court venues around the country handle local cases.
