Patterns of Policing and Policing Patten
by Paddy Hillyard & Mike Tomlinson
To enhance accountability further, the Commission proposed the establishment of two new offices, a commissioner for covert law enforcement and a Police Ombudsman. The former should have a remit including surveillance, informers, interception of communications, and undercover operations, and should be authorised to inspect the police and other agencies regarding the legality and appropriateness of cover operations. A complaints tribunal should also be established. Prior to the publication of the PCR, a Police Ombudsman was appointed under the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998.(20) The Ombudsman can investigate all complaints except those which refer 'to the direction and control of the police'(21) and may investigate even where no complaint has been received.(22) The office is currently advertising world-wide for its own team in independent investigators.
The PCR argued that the Ombudsman should also be responsible for compiling data on trends and patterns in complaints or against individual officers and to make recommendations based on this analysis. In addition, there was the controversial recommendation that the Ombudsman should have access to all past reports on the RUC. These include the Stalker, Stalker/Sampson, and Stevens reports which have been consistently denied to various judicial bodies and investigations.
The fourth principle in the PCR was that policing must be transparent and open. Here the report in the Freedom of Information Bill, which will herald in an even more restrictive stance in terms of police and other information.(23) While it recognised that it would be inappropriate to release all details of police operational techniques, the PCR recommended the publication of policing principles and any legal and ethical guidelines, including those covering covert policing. It argued that the presumption should be that everything should be available for public scrutiny unless it was in the public interest - not in the police interest - to hold it back.(24)
The PCR recommended important changes to the Special Branch, which currently forms one tenth of the regular force. Several serving and retired officers reported to the Commission that they considered it as a 'force within a force'. It was a common observation that sub-divisional commanders often knew little about the activities of the Special Branch in their areas. The Branch enjoyed priority status in terms of access to resources and it was able to run a training unit for ninety officers and 'even an aircraft' - a fact that the Commission commented upon twice! From this evidence it does not appear to have been reformed since the extensive criticisms made by Stalker, despite a government statement to the contrary.(25)
The PCR proposed that the Special Branch and the Crime Branch (CID) should be brought together under the command of a single Assistant Chief Constable and that district commanders should be fully consulted before security operations are undertaken in their areas.(26)
The final set of proposals covered the composition of the new force.(27) The PCR recommended that the approximate size of the police service over the next ten years should be 7,500 and that the Police Reserve should be phased out. If these targets are met, Northern Ireland will still have one officer for every 220 people compared with one officer per 422 in England and Wales. Generous retirement and severance packages should be offered to achieve the reduction. To make the police more representative, the PCR recommended that, for a ten year period, one Catholic should be appointed for every new Protestant appointee.
The PCR recommendations thus amount to a transformation in policing. The dominant Anglo-American model of policing as a specialised monopoly function of the state is downplayed and a dual system in which policing is a function of both the state and local communities is promoted. As Shearing puts it elsewhere, what is involved here is 'a network of intersecting regulatory mechanisms' in which policing becomes 'everybody's business'.(28)
The government, on this model, operates indirectly, seeking the participation
of non-state agencies, private organisations, and individuals, and devolves
responsibility for crime and security to them. It is what Garland has called
a 'responsibilisation strategy' which results, in part, from the sovereign
state no longer being able to satisfy the variety of popular demands for
security.(29) At the same time, the focus shifts from dealing with criminals
to an assessment of risk. Statistics on crime patterns and complaints become
a central element supporting actuarial-based methods of risk assessment
and crime management.(30) But notwithstanding the radical transformation
in the form of policing suggested in the PCR, there is both a limited and
substantive critique to be made. |
