12
Dec
2012
By Calvin at 14:47 GMT, 13 years ago
Several newspapers and TV news stations have today been covering the release of a report by Edward Boyd of Policy Exchange (supported by a YouGov poll) concerning a huge reduction in citizens’ arrests over the past decade. The report, which can be downloaded at this link, calls for the setting up of Citizen Police Academies to train the public on how to play their part in fighting crime. The report, entitled ‘Policing 2020 – What kind of police service do we want in 2020’, also proposes the creation of ‘Crime Prevention Officers’ to replace existing neighbourhood police officers, who would be responsible for crime prevention in their areas and held to account in monthly meetings with local commanders. These new CPOs would be expected to remain in the area for several years so they get to know the people and the problems.
Fellow retired police officers like me will no doubt groan when they read the report and listen to some of the content of the pre-publication conference speeches (link below) and will wonder why we have to carry on reinventing the wheel.
‘Citizen Police Academies’ existed in the 1980s in the Met Police and other police forces and I know this because I used to give talks at them. They didn’t have a fancy name; we simply called them ‘meetings’ and we ran them on a very regular basis to support our many Neighbourhood Watch volunteers. Oddly enough, the issues discussed included citizen’s arrest, self defence and crime prevention. The police reps were either the local ‘Home Beat’ Bobby or the ‘Crime Prevention Officer’, but then in the 1990s the Met introduced something called Inter-District transfer followed later by a tenure policy; both of which would guarantee moving coppers on every four or five years, so they wouldn’t get to know the local people and the long term problems!
The use of the role title ‘Crime Prevention Officer’ is most unfortunate, because surely Mr Boyd must know that this role title was given to a police officer or member of police staff who practised crime prevention techniques on a full time basis and is a role (at least in the Met) that has now ceased to be. The Crime Prevention Officer that Mr Boyd describes in his report is exactly what I used to do in the 1980s as a ‘Permanent Beat Officer’ in London when we practiced problem solving before we knew what it was.
It’s not all bad though, because Mr Boyd’s report does suggest going back to Sir Robert Peel’s policing principles, which puts crime prevention at the top of the list!
Anyway, for what it’s worth do please have a flick through the report
I shall now go and lie down
Related links: Pre-publication Conference http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/modevents/item/policing-2020
Express newspaper article:http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/364221/Call-for-citizen-police-academies
