Title: Can politics and policing work together? - BBC News
Headings: Can politics and policing work together?
Can politics and policing work together?
Content: Can politics and policing work together? - BBC News
Can politics and policing work together? Mark Easton
Home editor
@BBCMarkEaston
on Twitter
Published
15 February 2012
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The home secretary is shaking up police structures
The point of police and crime commissioners, we are told, is to increase the democratic accountability of the 41 police forces in England and Wales outside London. Ministers felt police authorities were not sufficiently responsive to the demands of an anxious citizenry. Chief constables needed someone with electoral clout to connect them to the people, to keep them honest. Elections will be held in November and the first potential candidates are emerging. The concern, however, is that this American-inspired model of police accountability may not translate easily into English or Welsh. The principles enshrined by the father of our modern police force, Sir Robert Peel, are to be found in the General Instructions given to the first Metropolitan Police officers in 1829. Number five of nine states that it is the duty of officers "to seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing".