Cultural Considerations

mloi01

PolicingALiberal.pdf

Home >Law homework help >Criminal homework help >Cultural Considerations

Policing a liberal society

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

P O L I C I N G A L I B E R A L S O C I E T Y

John Blundell

Better policing can only come by devolving accountability and responsibility.

This, combined with decentralisation and privatisation where possible, will

create an environment where innovation flourishes and good practice is

copied. There are many lessons from the USA which could usefully be adopted

by the UK.

Introduction

• ‘The average PC now spends 75 per cent of each shift engaged in nonsense which has little to do with catching criminals or helping victims,’ says an anonymous police officer who writes a blog critical of the amount of time police waste on red tape.

• Only one in 58 police officers is out on patrol at any one time in some police force areas – that’s about four per town of 90,000 people – yet England and Wales has a record 143,000 officers.

• Only one in 40 in some forces is available to respond to 999 calls.

• In 2004/05, the Metropolitan Police spent £104.4 million on investigating robberies and house burglaries and almost as much – £101.9 million – on non-incident-related paperwork.

• A man cautioned for being ‘in possession of an egg with intent to throw’ and two children arrested for being in possession of a toy pistol are among trivial offences police officers have pursued in a bid to meet government targets for crime detection.

• London is now more dangerous than New York. In the British capital 32% say they have been victims of crime. In New York the figure is 23%. London is Europe’s most crime-ridden city.

This grim snapshot of law and disorder in Britain in 2007 leads to the inescapable conclusion that the police do not and cannot solve crime while they are bound up in centrally imposed procedures that remove them from the public they are employed to protect. The approach of trying to improve policing by imposing targets simply encourages the police to aim for soft touches. Any new approach needs to be based on the principles of responsibility and accountability. Hand-wringing will get us nowhere;

we urgently need to identify and implement the best methods for maintaining law and order in a free society.

The growth of crime

Crime in the UK is growing. From time to time there are downturns, but looking back over the past 50 years both crime and the fear of crime have rocketed. Any reduction in crime or the fear of crime in the last few decades has proven to be a short-term cycle within a long-term worsening trend, not a reversal of the trend itself. The undermining of individual responsibility by the welfare and education systems plays a part, but much of the blame rests squarely with the police’s approach to tackling wrongdoing. Law-breakers know there is a good chance of getting away with it. The public knows it too and has little confidence in the police.

So far, so depressing. But there are American models for improving crime rates that could inspire police policy in the UK and hope in its public. Key to these innovations is the fact that American forces are freer to try out new ideas, while the UK, in common with many other countries, operates national strategies that deny experimentation.

The control of the state over law enforcement is a relatively recent development. The London Metropolitan Police, the first modern force, was created in 1829, and the development of organised, publicly funded police forces was much slower in other countries (Davies, 2002, pp. 152 –153). As in many areas of public policy in Britain, there is still little clear consensus on how best to police a free society, or on the number of police we need. In the meantime, crime figures and opinion polls speak volumes. The most recent annual Home Office figures showed a 3% rise in crime based on interviews with members of the public and nearly two-thirds of people thought that crime had increased. Police-recorded crime, on the other hand,

ecaf_772.fm Page 4 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

iea

e c o n o m i c a f f a i r s d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 7 5

registered a 2% drop, making it clear that people do not always go to the police when they have been a victim of crime.

In a 2005 poll less than one in five British people rated the police positively on preventing or solving crime compared with nearly half of Americans.

The public’s fears are well-founded. In 2004 the number of violent crimes in this country topped a million for the first time

and they continue to rise – in 2006/07 they were 5% up on the previous year.

Robberies of personal or business property in England and Wales rocketed from 53,000 in 1992 to 121,000 by 2001/02. Of these robberies, 5,500 were committed using weapons (Dennis

et al.

, 2003), and five years later the number of armed burglaries had reached record levels.

The total number of crimes reported in 2002 was 5.8 million, compared with 1.7 million 30 years previously. All these figures challenge the Home Office’s assertion that the chance of being a crime victim is historically low.

Better policing

How do we best address citizens’ fears, bring crime down, restore confidence in the police and work towards a safer society consistent with liberal principles?

Across the Atlantic, where big-city police chiefs have more freedom, a number of highly effective police chiefs have emerged over the past 15 years. They have two things in common. Firstly, they are willing to question received ideas and expose myths about policing. Secondly, they are able to focus their entire effort on preventing crime rather than attempting to solve it long after the villains have taken off. And their results show that it is not necessary to recruit more officers in order to reduce crime.

These ideas are not new. They echo London Metropolitan Police founder Sir Robert Peel’s vision for police conduct, outlined in his famous Nine Principles of Policing. Peel believed that the police’s primary goal should be to ‘prevent crime and disorder’ and that the ‘test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it’.

It is also easy to manipulate police success rates. Reported crimes are a fraction of the actual total: this means that the denominator of the clear-up rate is artificially deflated. A 2004 survey showed that 38% of people do not report crimes, half of them because they believe the police will do nothing,

and a recent analysis of crime statistics suggested that 3 million crimes were omitted from official figures because of a cap on offences against the same person by the same perpetrator. For violent crimes, this figure goes up to 83%.

But, in any case, figures detailing crimes solved are no guide to effectiveness – rather the opposite, as the basis of a clear-up is failure to prevent a crime. The recent

trend for police to make arrests for trivial offences in order to meet detection targets also distorts our view of police prowess.

Exploding myths

Here are a number of key policing concepts that US big-city police chiefs have shown to be deeply flawed.

Myth 1: 999 policing is the best way to fight crime

This is perhaps the most surprising myth of all. The speedy response of emergency services to 999 calls can work well for road accidents or fires when firefighters or ambulance crews need to arrive quickly. In the case of the police its usefulness is questionable.

It’s easy to see why 999 became so attractive: when it was introduced, it used modern technology – radios and fast cars – in a bid to ‘keep up’ with criminals. The message to the public is that the police can be virtually omnipresent. The reality is that officers race from scene to scene, while the public feel frustrated at the lack of immediate results and their necessarily rushed dealings with officers. The average target response time is 12 minutes, so any wrongdoers are usually long gone.

When every local criminal knows the response times – and that more than half the time the police do not meet that target

– you might as well not bother. Emergency-response policing does nothing to

allay fear of crime.

One study reveals that less than 3% of reports of serious crime lead to arrest resulting from emergency response (Kelling and Coles, 1997). It is perhaps the worst modern example of reactive, ‘warrior’ approach policing that fails to prevent crime. Emergency response is crucial, but basing a force’s whole strategy on it, as now, is not a viable approach to law enforcement. It means officers have already lost the battle; all they are doing is picking up the pieces after a crime has taken place.

Another drawback is the overuse of 999. In 2004, 70% of all 999 calls were not emergencies. To respond to this, the Home Office is piloting a non-emergency hotline number – 101 – to alleviate the strain on their resources.

It helps the public get in touch with police or their local council over non-urgent community safety issues, such as vandalism, noise nuisance or anti-social behaviour. Scottish forces have adopted a prioritisation system for 999 calls in an attempt to improve their response time to real emergencies.

Myth 2: private burglar alarms save police time

In fact, responding to false private sector alarms is an enormous waste of police time. Once an alarm is

ecaf_772.fm Page 5 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

6 p o l i c i n g a l i b e r a l s o c i e t y

activated the call goes to a distant call centre. An operator there then phones the household and, if nobody responds with the correct password, officers are immediately called. Usually, the alarm will cause any burglars to flee before police arrive. Thus, the burglar alarm has done its job and the police time devoted to responding to the alarm is wasted.

Figures from Los Angeles provide a lesson in just how many police man-hours burglar alarms actually waste. As much as 15% of police patrol time is lost responding to false call-outs to alarms, and the chances of apprehending anyone are estimated at close to zero. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) responds to about 136,000 alarms a year and 90% of them are false.

To correct this, the force decided to ignore most private residential and business burglar alarms unless a third party – for example, a homeowner or neighbour – could verify that the alarm was valid.

Thames Valley officers have adopted a similar policy, based on guidelines drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers. If the force receives three false alarms from the same source in a year, it will not respond to further calls until the system is upgraded. It now also refuses to send out officers to investigate house alarms unless someone is on the scene to indicate that a crime is being committed.

Myth 3: police cars on random patrol are a valuable deterrent

Urban areas are often sprawling, and for years police authorities have argued that cars are the best way to cover the most ground, make arrests and provide a viable, visible deterrent. A US experiment, however, proves the opposite. As far back as 1972, the Kansas City, Missouri, police department gave one area of the city the standard amount of car presence, and doubled – sometimes even tripled – it in another, while the third had almost none. The results sent shock waves through police and criminological circles: the crime levels in the three areas remained almost identical (see Sparrow

et al.

, 1990). Random police patrols do nothing to make the streets safer, reassure the public, gather information or improve trust between community and the authorities. Rather, cars are cocoons – they prevent the police from interacting with the public.

Myth 4: hiring more police reduces crime

Most people accept in good faith that hiring more officers results in a safer public environment. If there were no police, then crime would go up. Above a certain number, however, the overall impact on crime is negligible (Skolnick and Bayley, 1986). As Skolnick and Bayley explain, ‘Variations in crime and clearance rates are best predicted by social conditions such as income, unemployment,

population, income distribution, and social heterogeneity. We have learned that you can’t simply throw money at law enforcement and expect proportionate results’.

Alcohol consumption also plays a part: the five countries to top the table for the highest levels of crime in Europe – Ireland, Britain, Estonia, Holland and Denmark – all have a hard-drinking culture.

Yet hiring more and more police officers has become the enduring quick fix of law enforcement. Politicians endorse it to court public favour; they are seen to be committed to the ‘war on crime’. In turn, senior police and their officers can be guaranteed to line up behind any demands for extra resources. The need, however, is for better strategies for approaching crime (Sparrow

et al.

, 1990, p. 14).

Myth 5: the police fight crime

Both the police and the public cherish this assumption. Thanks to popular culture from

Dick Tracy

Dirty Harry

NYPD Blue

, police forces enjoy a public perception that is as far from reality as Clint Eastwood is from PC Plod. Few police officers have the chance to make high-profile arrests or get into shoot-outs. Officers rarely encounter directly the crimes that scare us most, notably murder and rape (Skolnick and Bayley, 1986, p. 4). Most importantly, arrest is rarely the result of Sherlock Holmes-style deduction, with policemen working forward from a set of clues to a suspect, the identity of whom is always a surprise. In 99% of cases police make an arrest when a friend or relative tells them who committed the crime.

They then work backwards, usually to a known villain. Most police work is routine or involves administering emergency assistance.

The idea that police are engaged in a war against criminals allows the public somehow to relieve itself of its own duty in preventing criminal activity. It also enables police officers to adopt an ‘us versus the bad guys’ approach to their job which in turn sees the ordinary citizen as removed from the process, or even as slowing them down.

This attitude can be traced back to O. W. Wilson, the pre-eminent police theorist of the twentieth century. Wilson and his peers believed that policing should shift its focus from prevention to criminal apprehension. They were responsible for moving policing away from its earlier, community-driven vision, adopting a more militaristic approach. A consequence of this so-called ‘reform’ model was that police officers had less and less contact with the public and forces became more bureaucratic (Kelling and Coles, 1997).

Wilson’s ‘scientific’ approach to police work gained popularity all over the world. Rapid response became more and more important until it was the standard practice. Clear divisions of rank and command became the norm. Street officers were

ecaf_772.fm Page 6 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

iea

e c o n o m i c a f f a i r s d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 7 7

seen as being similar to line workers in a factory. They were trusted with the simple, residual work, and could be changed or moved around to another part of the ‘factory’ whenever it suited command.

Parallels can be drawn with the work of Frederick Taylor and his scientific models of management in industry. Just as many in industry have turned their backs on Taylor in recent decades, so we shall see below that the more successful police forces are now turning away from Wilson.

Successful ways of preventing crime

Despite the long-standing influence of Wilson’s ideas, and some criminologists’ assertion that crime is a social problem and therefore unassailable by officers, there has been real and practical progress made in policing in recent years in the USA. Chiefs and commissioners have dramatically reduced crime rates and, as a result, reinvigorated cities and rebuilt the public’s trust in their officers. Not surprisingly, their methods owed little to ‘scientific’ policing or criminological trends.

Getting out and about

Ed Davis achieved a 70% drop in crime in the late 1990s as head of the Lowell, Massachusetts, Police Department thanks to three major initiatives.

Firstly, he decentralised his police force, opening small and highly visible police shops on city main streets, rather than having one massive and imposing police building. Secondly, he gave his officers control over their own ‘turf ’: officers were regularly assigned to the same areas and were expected to take responsibility for them. This is in stark contrast to many British police forces that rotate officers from area to area, depriving them of any chance of building rapport with local citizens or even understanding the layout of the streets. Davis took officers out of their cars and put them on the streets on foot and on cycles – solo. He reports that the amount of low-grade but vital intelligence coming into his department exploded. Finally, he committed his officers to being preventive rather than reactive. Lowell’s officers were taught not only to see crime but also the conditions that allow it to flourish.

He explains:

‘Problem solving is the process we teach line-level police officers to engage in when adopting the community policing policy. It teaches them to be observant of crime but also to look for those conditions that lead to criminal activity. Disorder is their main focus. Graffiti, obstreperous youth, abandoned cars, family dysfunction all fall into this category. We teach our officers to employ the SARA method that is familiar to many professions, especially social service agencies. Scanning, Analysis,

Responding and Assessing the response are the methods that our police use in determining the best way to deal with the issues that confront them. It is a very powerful model that gets the officers out of the mindset of arrest and prosecution. Prevention is key to this process. It also empowers officers to use city services, for instance, giving them official blessing to go across boundaries that existed before.’

Devil in the detail

William Bratton is head of the Los Angeles Police Department. He previously came to international renown as the commissioner of the New York Police Department (NYPD), where, during his 27-month tenure, felony went down by almost 40% and murder by 50%. Bratton, along with former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, is largely credited with restoring New York’s reputation as a top-class world city. Bratton taught his officers to home-in on the little things, from ‘squeegee merchants’ to fare evasion, from vandalism to graffiti, believing that it was these petty, so-called victimless crimes which encouraged larger crime in the long run. This radical policy was variously known as ‘Broken Windows’, ‘Zero Tolerance’ and ‘Community Policing’. Bratton also dismantled the old-boys’-club approach to promotion and instead rewarded hard work, talent and creativity (Bratton with Knobler, 1998).

His CompStat system was an equally famous innovation. Bratton held twice-weekly meetings with precinct commanders and other key staff built around computer-collected crime statistics. These meetings became instrumental in New York’s transformation. Many high-ranking officials had never previously been called on to discuss or defend in public their records and their tactics. The flip side was that these same commanders and their officers were being allowed to follow their own discretion and professional instincts. Police commanders were being trusted with more and more responsibility for their areas, and they were expected to produce results – both in terms of crime prevention on the streets and strategies that could be shared with peers (ibid., pp. 223 – 229). This management model, which also included the assignment of permanent turfs or beats, is similar in concept to giving property rights in the private sector and then expecting a return.

No nonsense

The first black police chief in Charleston, South Carolina, Reuben M. Greenberg, became a media regular thanks to his straightforward, down-to-earth approach to crime and punishment. Greenberg relied on simple principles such as consistent police presence, respect for the community, and a preventive approach to criminal activity. His tactics helped turn around the city.

ecaf_772.fm Page 7 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

8 p o l i c i n g a l i b e r a l s o c i e t y

Greenberg did not believe that arrest is the key to lowering crime rates. For example, by simply reducing motorcycle parking and cleaning up a diner favoured by bikers in Charleston, he was able to remove the threat of a Hell’s Angels gang moving in. Greenberg succeeded in defusing a potential criminal situation without verbal confrontation or physical violence (Greenberg, 1989, pp. 106 –107).

Graduate opportunities

When, 15 years ago, Chief T. Bowman of Arlington, Texas, announced that every officer had to have a full four-year university degree, critics told him that women and ethnic minorities would be hard hit. Interestingly, Chief Bowman is black and has a PhD. He stuck to his guns, even encouraging Master’s degrees. Now, with women making up more than 17% of its officers, Arlington is above the national average of 12% of female officers. The police department’s sworn staff is more than 30% ethnic- minority, making it one of the most integrated departments in the USA.

Hand-in-hand with this went an emphasis on moving decision-making downwards and giving officers effective decentralised ‘property rights’. Bowman broke his department into four separate geographical areas, giving teams 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year responsibility for their allocated area. Lower-ranked but highly qualified officers are making decisions normally made higher up, and he is attracting a calibre of young graduates who would be unlikely to join a department with lower educational standards. Indeed, national agencies regularly raid his department for staff. While crime fell in Arlington (by 4% in 2002), it rose in neighbouring Dallas (up 1% in 2002) and soared in Fort Worth (increasing 11% in the same year).

Applying these lessons to the UK

These four examples have a number of common characteristics:

1. They show leaders who trusted the professionalism of their officers, giving them more and more discretion as to how they handled crime in their area.

2. The officers were expected to foster better relations with the community and move away from the idea that they were the ones tackling crime and that citizens were merely potential victims.

3. Crucially, all these forces, not just Bratton’s, were committed to ‘zero-tolerance’ policing. Police were trained to prevent and address all crime in their areas, not merely serious offences. This is the opposite of, say, the London approach to policing, where major crime is the focus and smaller crime is expected

to sort itself out (Dennis

et al.

, 2003, pp. 7, 16). The US experience teaches that ‘sweating the small stuff ’ seriously impacts on the big issues.

What these officers and their men accomplished is not a distant pipe-dream. Our own police, both in the capital and elsewhere, can learn from and take advantage of their successes, and they can begin now by introducing the following simple measures.

Increase the police presence sensed by the public

This does not have to mean hiring more officers. It could just as easily mean relying less on squad cars and putting officers in regular contact with the people, either on foot or on bikes. Officers should be given the chance to work in areas for longer periods of time, establishing a solid rapport with the local community. This type of police presence is far more immediate, personal and helpful. It is also a far greater deterrent to crime than anything else.

The author’s own experience in Westminster shows how detached many Metropolitan Police officers are from the areas they patrol. When one day he asked two policemen on his local beat whether there were any demonstrations planned around Parliament that day, one of them replied: ‘Dunno, mate, we’re from Catford.’

Foot patrols raise officer morale (Skolnick and Bayley, 1986, p. 216). Davis in particular recognised the importance of this and, early in his command, made the Chief of Patrol his official number two, sending a signal to his whole force that patrol is a route to the top and not some chore you do for three years before moving on to more prestigious work. Indeed, many officers prefer the beat to being in a squad car or inside, saying it allows them to feel better about their jobs while feeling closer to the community.

Officers must patrol alone wherever possible

A US study has proved that solo car patrols are no more dangerous than working in pairs, possibly because police are more inclined to take risks when partnered. Police departments that have adopted this measure have improved their response time to officers who need assistance (ibid., p. 101). In many areas in the UK, however, dangers to police are negligible, even if there is anti-social and low-grade criminal behaviour.

Foot and bike officers can be sent on solo patrols too. The immediate benefit is that these officers, without the temptation of a fellow officer to talk to, now talk to the public. In central London officers are often seen walking in pairs, or standing in groups deep in conversation. This gives rise to three problems: they are looking at each other, not at their surroundings; they are not interacting with the

ecaf_772.fm Page 8 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

iea

e c o n o m i c a f f a i r s d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 7 9

public; and the effective police presence is halved (at best). In London, concerned local residents, who have seen crime rocket in their areas, have turned to private security guards who work alone and interact with the public.

34, 35

Solo patrols establish communication and trust, and the public not only feels more comfortable with a consistent and visible police presence, but also is more inclined to share information and tips that can lead to crime prevention and arrests.

Eliminate as much paperwork and court time as possible

Home Office figures show that officers spend only about 14% of their time on the street and since 2004 police have had to fill in a foot-long, 40-question form every time they stop and question someone.

If all we did was double that 14% and put officers who now patrol in pairs out on the streets solo, we would achieve an instant a four-fold increase in police presence. But who would do the paperwork? Why not civilians? This is a solution attempted by some US police departments. It is controversial because many officers fear that volunteer or lower- paid civilian assistance may eventually lead to lower police salaries. But it has proven extremely effective. In Houston, Texas, civilians help with police admin work by taking on smaller tasks such as traffic accident follow-up reports, freeing up officers’ time. Also key to this idea’s success is that many of these civilians are insiders in their community, and can be valuable sources of information and liaison (ibid., pp. 217 – 220). Many police report a higher level of job satisfaction since they can focus on the parts of the job they thought they were signing up to do. This policy allows officers to be officers – an idea surely behind the recent recruitment drive for special/volunteer constables in the Metropolitan Police. Indeed, such has been the success of Sir Ian Blair’s initiative that, after proper checks and training, some 500 volunteers reopened 17 previously closed London police stations. And this quickly growing phenomenon of volunteer civilians helping carry the load is not limited to London or to manning desks. Volunteer accountants have also reportedly been recruited to help the Fraud Squad.

Open one-stop cop shops

Police and retailers are keen to set up short-term jails in shopping centres and sporting venues to deal with thieves, anti-social behaviour or football hooligans. Discussions are already under way on building a mini-prison inside Selfridges department store in London’s Oxford Street. These units would be manned by police and used to process those suspected of high-volume crimes such as shoplifting without having to travel to a police station. They

would enable officers to get back on the streets more quickly after making an arrest.

Such a move shows a refreshing commitment to police decentralisation and re-establishing a visible police presence.

Admit failure

Police officers in Britain have to acknowledge fully the failure of their past crime-reduction strategies. Dealing with serious crime in the fragile hope that smaller crime would drop naturally has not worked (Dennis

et al.

, 2003, pp. 7 – 8). Conversely, the results of so-called zero-tolerance policing speak for themselves. Aggressive begging, graffiti and verbal abuse are not serious crimes but they upset the public and have been proven to lead to higher levels of overall crime. When people see the little things being allowed to slide, it is a natural progression to more serious and violent wrongdoing. It undermines trust in the social structure that maintains order (Wilson and Kelling, 1983).

Adopting true zero tolerance will require more than mere lip-service to ideas of ‘community policing’.

Conclusion: major institutional change

Crime may be inevitable but it can be dramatically reduced. Altering the approach of the British police and their political masters is a long-term commitment, but the precedent is there. In London the Metropolitan Police has taken some positive steps and the appointment of Paul F. Evans, former Chief of the Boston Police Department, to head the Home Office’s Police Standards Unit was a good sign.

His strategies in Boston helped cut violent crime by 34%, murder by 68% and burglary by 40%.

Heads of police authorities must stop pushing the more-money-and-more-officers agenda. Britain can be a much safer place to live with the resources available to its police now. What works is insightful leadership, a willingness to trust the officer on the street while holding commanders accountable, and a commitment to involving the community in preventing and detecting crime. It is all about incentives, property rights and personal accountability.

Change will come about only sporadically unless there is major institutional change. Policing may always take place in a ‘second-best’ environment as far as liberal economists are concerned. So to develop effective policing strategies we have to develop the structures that, as far as possible, use market-type incentives. Most liberal economists share the view that services that have to be provided by the state should be provided by the lowest level of public authority possible. In the case of policing that should be district or city councils or unitary authorities under our current local government

ecaf_772.fm Page 9 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

10 p o l i c i n g a l i b e r a l s o c i e t y

structures. If structures that provide even smaller areas of meaningful local government can be developed, so much the better.

Local authorities should have responsibility for raising their own finance for the police, for setting the pay and conditions of their police service (including pension benefits) and for developing their own policing strategies. In such an environment innovation will be copied more effectively and the local electorate will understand exactly who is responsible for policing and cast their votes accordingly. Parish councils could have the option of levying supplementary policing charges in return for extra policing – or have the option of providing their own additional arrangements. There will be straightforward competitive comparison of crime reduction strategies, costs and success rates between similar and adjacent areas. Of course, there may be some forms of crime for which regional and national police forces are necessary – for example, kidnapping and terrorism. Just as there are hypermarkets and corner shops, we need different kinds of police forces to deal with different kinds of crime. There should also be co-operation between neighbouring forces – in a competitive environment, where failure is punished and success rewarded, co-operation pays.

Private policing should be a major part of the solution too. Private firms are already providing a significant proportion of security services. The benefits of policing can often be confined within the boundaries of particular estates or areas that are privately owned or controlled by housing associations. Gated communities could negotiate with local authorities to provide some or all of their own policing, in return for a reduction in local taxes. Indeed, at the end of 2004, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors reported a ‘mushrooming’ in the use of private security firms to police everything from wealthy areas and gated communities to council and social housing.

And in June 2005, the private security industry estimated that 50 neighbourhoods in London and the South-East were employing private patrols and that the number was growing.

Alternatively, local authorities could provide grants to housing associations or private estate owners who provide their own policing (see Johnston, 2004). And better development of property rights would enable yet-to-be-envisaged private solutions to policing. Governments will need to rid themselves of the conceit that they can impose the best methods of doing things.

Governments will have to accept ‘postcode policing’. Policing methods will be better in some areas than in others. But constructive innovation and competitive pressure will ensure that the best ideas prevail and those that fail will be consigned to the dustbin, a far cry from the current situation. Only radical reform of policing will ensure that the

police return to their proper role – that of effectively preventing crime.

1. ‘A Policeman’s Lot is a Waste of Time’,

Daily Telegraph

, 20 July 2007.

2. ‘Just One in 58 Police is Patrolling the Streets’,

Sunday Telegraph

, 17 March 2007. 3. ‘Only One in 40 Officers Free to Answer Calls’,

Daily Telegraph

, 30 March 2007. 4. Ben Leapman,

Daily Telegraph

, 22 January 2006, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ news/2006/01/22/npolice22.xml.

5. ‘Police “Pressured to Make Silly Arrests just to Meet Targets” ’,

The Times

, 15 May 2007. 6. ‘Britain Near the Top of European Crime League, UN

Study Says’,

The Times

, 6 February 2007. 7. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/31bfef8c-361a-11dc-ad42-

0000779fd2ac.html. 8. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/

index.asp?PID=605. 9. Bob Roberts, ‘Lawless UK’, www.mirror.co.uk,

22 July 2004. 10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6906554.stm. 11. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/

article2186579.ece. 12. This example of Peel’s Nine Principles was taken from

www.safe-nz.org.nz/Articles/peels.htm. An astonishing and growing number of police department sites around the world now feature Peel’s Nine Principles prominently.

13. Hugh Dougherty, ‘Third of Crime Not Reported’,

Evening Standard

, 29 April 2004. 14. http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/CivitasReviewJun07.pdf. 15. See ‘Emergency Response Time Below Average’,

www.walthamforestguardian.co.uk, 23 February 2004. 16. http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/topstories/

display.var.709208.0.police_response_times_target_ missed.php.

17. Ed Davis, former Superintendent of Police in Lowell, Massachusetts, in a speech to the Institute of Economic Affairs, 6 November 2001 (hereinafter, the Davis speech). By 1999 Lowell had experienced the biggest decrease in crime of any large-sized US city during the 1990s.

18. http://www.101.gov.uk/index.html. 19. Ian Johnston, ‘Police Plan to Put Most 999 Calls “On

Hold” ’, http://news.scotsman.com, 11 January 2004. 20. Mariel Garza, ‘Alarm Plan: Police May Quit Reacting’,

www.dailynews.com, 13 December 2002. 21. http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news_info/freedom/

policies_procedures/alarms.htm. 22. The authors base this argument on the work of Clark

and Heal (1979) and Morris and Heal (1981). 23. ‘Britain Tops Crime League for Break-ins and Assaults’,

Daily Telegraph

, 6 February 2007. 24. Davis speech. 25. Ibid., pp. 77, 80. 26. For a full discussion of ‘Taylorism’ and the new

challenge of market process management, see Cowen and Parker (1997) and Parker and Stacey (1994).

27. Information about Davis’s success in cutting crime can be found at http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type= news&ID=107.

28. Davis speech. 29. Davis e-mail to the author, January 2004. 30. This text is also an excellent account of how politics (in

this case, Bratton’s difficult relationship with Rudolph Giuliani) can derail police progress.

31. Arlington Police Department figures as at 16 August 2007, Public Information Request.

32. Based on a personal visit by the author to the Arlington, Texas, Police Department in January 2003, for which he thanks Chief T. Bowman.

33. Ty Klassen, ‘Beat Cops in West Broadway’, www. westbroadway.mb.ca, August/September 2003.

34. Harriet Sergeant, ‘The Police Have Failed Us – So We’ve Hired a 6ft 6in Security Guard’, www.telegraph.co.uk, 5 April 2004. The author’s experience of police foot patrols in Westminster endorses this. They are often

ecaf_772.fm Page 10 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/22/npolice22.xml

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/31bfef8c-361a-11dc-ad42-0000779fd2ac.html

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=605

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6906554.stm

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2186579.ece

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/CivitasReviewJun07.pdf

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.709208.0.police_response_times_target_missed.php

http://www.101.gov.uk/index.html

http://news.scotsman.com

http://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news_info/freedom/policies_procedures/alarms.htm

http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=news&ID=107

www.mirror.co.uk

www.safe-nz.org.nz/Articles/peels.htm

www.walthamforestguardian.co.uk

www.dailynews.com

www.westbroadway.mb.ca

www.telegraph.co.uk

iea

e c o n o m i c a f f a i r s d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 7 11

seen heads down, leaning towards each other, talking about issues such as pensions and pay, holidays and partners, or their superiors.

35. ‘I’m a NIMBY, Protect Me’,

The Times

, 29 May 2007 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/ article1850921.ece).

36. ‘Just One in 58 Police is Patrolling the Streets’,

Sunday Telegraph

, 17 March 2007. 37. ‘Volunteer Spirit Gives Blue Lamps a Chance to Glow

Again’,

Daily Telegraph

, 29 November 2004. See http:// www.metpolicecareers.co.uk/default.asp?action= article&ID=35.

38. ‘Police Want Tesco Jails’,

The Times

, 1 August 2007. 39. This now-famous article helped popularise the idea of

zero tolerance, or what is sometimes called ‘Broken Window’ policing. It is based on the idea that a single broken window in a neighbourhood can invite further crime problems by creating an air of social uncertainty and enforcing an idea of few active authorities.

40. ‘Police Forces Face Shake-up’, http://news.bbc.co.uk, 9 September 2003.

41. ‘Private Security Firms Join Battle on the Streets’,

Daily Telegraph

, 2 December 2004. 42. ‘Growth in Private Police Forces’, 3 June 2005 (http://

www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-19063721-details/ Growth+in+%27private+police+forces%27/ article.do;jsessionid=MPPFGxvbhBldBy2d43q2zt6cmBXJ 55Q5jRGwBPvFG2xyWzpytn3l!71957603!1407319226! 7001!-1).

References

Bratton, W. with P. Knobler (1998)

Turnaround

, New York: Random House.

Clark, R. V. G. and K. H. Heal (1979) ‘Police Effectiveness in Dealing with Crime: Some Current British Research’,

Police Journal

, January, pp. 24 – 41. Cowen, T. and D. Parker (1997)

Markets in the Firm

, Hobart Paper 134, London: Institute of Economic Affairs.

Davies, S. (2002) ‘The Private Provision of Police in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, in D. T. Beito, P. Gordon and A. Tabarrok (eds.)

The Voluntary City

, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Dennis, N., G. Erdos, D. Robinson and G. L. Kelling (2003)

The Failure of Britain’s Police

, London: Civitas. Greenberg, R. (1989)

Let’s Take Back Our Streets!

, Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books.

Johnston, P. (2004) ‘Additions to the Bill’,

, 41, Summer, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, pp. 7 – 9.

Kelling, G. L. and C. M. Coles (1997)

Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in our Communities

, New York: Touchstone.

Morris, P. and K. Heal (1981)

Crime Control and the Police: A Review of Research

, Home Office Research Study No. 67, London: HMSO.

Parker, D. and R. Stacey (1994)

Chaos, Management and Economics

, Hobart Paper 125, London: Institute of Economic Affairs.

Skolnick, J. H. and D. H. Bayley (1986)

The New Blue Line: Police Innovation in Six American Cities

, New York: The Free Press.

Sparrow, M. K., M. H. Moore and D. M. Kennedy (1990)

Beyond 9/11: A New Era for Policing

, New York: Basic Books.

Wilson, J. Q. and G. L. Kelling (1983) ‘The Police and Neighbourhood Safety’,

The Atlantic

, March, pp. 29 – 38.

John Blundell

is Director General and Ralph Harris Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs ( [email protected]).

ecaf_772.fm Page 11 Monday, November 12, 2007 5:40 PM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1850921.ece

http://www.metpolicecareers.co.uk/default.asp?action=article&ID=35

http://news.bbc.co.uk

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-19063721-details/Growth+in+%27private+police+forces%27/article.do;jsessionid=MPPFGxvbhBldBy2d43q2zt6cmBXJ55Q5jRGwBPvFG2xyWzpytn3l!71957603!1407319226!7001!-1