Future of policing Flashcards
In what ways can police show democratic accountability?
Participatory - police should be held to account by public
Representative - elected democratically such as PCCs
What is changing/proposed changes for PCCs?
- More/ refining powers - examples: Responsibility for fire and rescue services, Legal duty to collaborate with heads of other emergency services, Power to create up free schools for ‘troubled children’
What are the three suggested alternatives to PCCs by the Stevens Commission (2013)
- Indirectly elected policing boards
- An elected chair of indirectly elected policing boards
- Directly elected policing boards.
What is the arguments for and against devolving further to Wales?
- Enhanced accountability? Currently funded by Wales, decisions made by England, hard to determine who is accountable
- Better response to local needs? Better at meeting needs of the local community, and what wales needs
- Single Police Force?
But… Difficult to change ‘habitus’ of police officers - lower ranks get confused with what their doing and struggle to change in practice
Give examples of the technological advances in policing….
- Drones - For surveillance during riots, or reconnaissance in cross-border operations.
- Body-worn cameras – ‘Independent witness’
- Biometrics - can identify repeat offenders?
- Online reporting
What are the problems with technological advances in policing?
- Problems of data storage and analysis - HUGE amounts of data
- Intrusive - caught on camera even if not done anything wrong - CCTV problems
Terrorism: what is the police response and Innes (2015) 3 wicked problems with policing terrorism?
- Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 - Seizing passports from suspects; temporary exclusion orders; data retention
- Post-Paris calls for more extensive arming
- Focus on preventing radicalisation
- Innes (2015) identifies 3 ‘wicked problems’: 1) Tension between tactical and strategic response (short vs long term - although hard to do both)
2) Policing speech activity that is troublesome but not illegal
3) Policing can erode integration and cohesion within communities - create suspect communities and poor community relations puts off informers
What 3 problems do police face with cybercrime?
- ‘Cross-jurisdictional nightmare’ (Scotland Yard, Computer Crime Unit)
- Lack of police training - always one step behind
- Underreporting - may not know you have been a victim, not big enough to report, large companies may not due to bad publicity
What was ‘Operation Yewtree’?
- started in 2012
- Historical sex offences
- Predominantly regarding Jimmy Savile, but also others
- Only after a couple of weeks: 400 lines of enquiry, 200 potential victims (end 2012)
- 19 arrests, six convictions (end 2015) - all working for the BBC
How have the historical sex offences effected policing?
- Huge media impact: Extremely ‘newsworthy’ – particular due to BBC involvement
- Enormous impact on police resources
- Operation has been criticised as a ‘witch-hunt’, and unfair due to ‘unlimited’ time on bail before prosecution - those wrongly accused lives have been ruined
- Continuing..Unlikely to be closed in near future (Operation Hydrant)
What did the Police Exchange right wing think-tank find out public expectations of policing predications for 2020…
(methodology, 4 findings, and a final point)
- Methodology: Interviews with serving police and staff, government advisors, academics, Home Office officials. Survey of serving officers.
- Findings: 1. Growing demands on policing at all levels, driven by the accelerating pace of technological change e.g. need to keep up with social media accounts
2. Demand for more transparency and accountability e.g. actual time knowledge
3. Growing bespoke consumer demand
4. Evidence-based policing (although contradicts last point) - Legitimacy is also V. important as police need legitimacy from the public in order to have enough control to be able to police
How has policing been affected by austerity?
- 20% reduction in funding for police 2010-2015 (HM Treasury, 2010)
- Prioritising ‘front-line’ policing; cuts to back-room functions and estates, and recruitment freezes
What are the problems/ways police have dealt with austerity?
- Only a short-term solution
- Millie (in Brown, 2014) calls for need to ‘slim-down’ police tasks
- Innes (in Brown, 2014) notes ‘de-specialisation’ of police tasks - less units more multi-tasking
- Problem of populist politics and demand for more bobbies on the beat, over an ‘intelligent debate concerning nature of policing task’ (Millie, 2014: 60)
How can neighbourhood policing be adapted to fit a modern, technological society in times of austerity?
Risks visibility – does concept of ‘visibility’ need to be reformed? (Barker and Crawford 2013)
e.g. can become visible by not just bobbies on the beat, but online youtube videos showing what they are doing, etc
What is the Cambridge Crime Harm Index?
What is it used for?
What is an advantage?
What is a problem?
- Recognition that all crimes are not equal, need more info about each
- Hence, Crime is measured based on the harm caused, not numbers of crimes
- Harm is measured based on sentence length e.g. shoplifting is measured as less harmful than assault
Used for: identify and target hotspots where most harm occurs
Findings from field experiment: more cost-effective
But: does sentence length = harm?
Moves resources away from law and disorder which does have an impact on everyday life
