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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Wasting police time

The Police Federation has lambasted the "target culture" of policing in England and Wales, and published a dossier of "ludicrous" cases it blames on the imposition of Home Office targets.

The BBC reports:
The cases include:
  • A man from Cheshire who was cautioned for being "found in possession of an egg with intent to throw"
  • A child in Kent who was arrested after removing a slice of cucumber from a sandwich and throwing it at another youngster
  • A West Midlands woman arrested on her wedding day for criminal damage after her foot slipped on her accelerator pedal and her vehicle damaged a car park barrier
  • A child from Kent who was arrested for throwing cream buns at a bus
  • A 70-year-old Cheshire pensioner who was arrested for criminal damage after cutting back a neighbour's conifer trees
  • An officer in the West Midlands who was told to caution a man for throwing a glass of water over his girlfriend
  • Two children from Manchester who were arrested for being in possession of a plastic toy pistol
A spokesman for the federation said such cases were a result of officers being "so busy chasing targets and securing ticks in boxes".

As a result, he said, officers were distancing themselves from "middle England".
It is encouraging that the Police Federation itself recognises that there is a problem.  Since the well-intentioned but sadly disastrous Macpherson Report, policing in this country has taken on a political tone with a wholesale drive towards political correctness which has only been exacerbated by the target culture which the Federation has described.  And so we have had the Prime Minister himself, and the TV presenter Anne Robinson investigated for allegedly racist remarks against the Welsh; a man in Oxford charged with making homophobic comments towards a horse; a shopkeeper in Herefordshire forced by the police under Section 5 of the Public Order Act to remove toy golliwogs from his shop window, and the investigation of then chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain Sir Iqbal Sacranie for comments made about homosexuality on a radio programme, to name just a few of the more outlandish incidents.

If this apparent change of mood is reflected in the actions of senior police officers, then we look forward to a refocusing of resources on serious crime rather than bureaucratic box-ticking and political posturing.  And if this means reduced interference from the Home Office then so much the better.

 

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