Fighting Crime (Public Engagement)

I welcome this debate and the acknowledgement contained within it that, despite all the Government's initiatives, all their legislative hyperactivity and all their rhetoric, the very people who are an essential part in the fight against crime—the public—have been left out of the loop. In his nine points of policing, Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the modern police service, said:"““Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.””" Those words are as relevant now as they were then. We all have a responsibility to reduce crime, by seeking to abide by the law, reporting crime, supporting the police and taking action where appropriate. The relationship that Peel outlined—the relationship between the public and the arms of the state intended to protect them—is based on mutual trust and confidence. Yet those bonds are being increasingly tested and strained by a Government intent on intervening when that is not needed, getting in the way of the relationship between the public and the police. The perverse reality now is that people are actively discouraged from intervening to stop crime taking place. People fear that getting involved might result in getting a record. The policy approach of increasing encroachment by the state, through ID cards, increased surveillance and DNA, mobile and e-mail databases, trusts us all so much that it treats us all as potential suspects. That breakdown in the relationship has been highlighted by the Government's own advisers. Louise Casey was right when she said that the majority of people do not think that crime has fallen, that people"““do not believe the official statistics on crime””" and that"““the public see the Criminal Justice System as a distant, sealed-off entity, unaccountable and unanswerable to them or to Government.””" That is a pretty devastating critique of 11 years of this Government's failed attempts to engage the public in the fight against crime. It is telling that confidence in the police is down from 72 per cent. in 2003 to 57 per cent. in 2008, but should we be surprised when the Government have reduced the discretion of the police and their ability simply to get on with the job? The police cannot be on the public's side if the Government are not on their side. The micro-management of police officers by the long arm of central Government is the biggest drain on police time, officer morale and public confidence. Police officers do not sign up to spend more of their time on paperwork than out on patrol. They do not sign up to spend half a day processing a single arrest and they certainly do not sign up to be"““a slave to doctrine and straitjacketed by process,””" in Sir Ronnie Flanagan's words. That is leaving aside the Government's culture of centrally driven targets, in which performance indicators on bringing crimes to justice have skewed police priorities on volume crime, antagonising the public and preventing officers from using their discretion to deal with local needs and priorities. We are talking about a regime that proved so successful that chief constables started abandoning it because it was meaningless. On top of that, we have a performance regime of mind-boggling complexity and dubious effectiveness, in the Home Office's police performance assessment framework, which requires the police to carry out 23 baseline assessments and to record and report on 32 statutory performance indicators. That regime led one police force to undergo 15 different inspections in one year. As Louise Casey rightly notes:"““the public do not want their local police service to be chasing centrally driven targets, preparing for and responding to assessments and worrying about monitoring at the expense of time and resources that could better be devoted to local issues and to the quality of service.””" Against that backdrop, one can begin to understand why the former head of the Police Federation and the Government's new police bureaucracy tsar, Jan Berry, has commented:"““We have lost the morality of successful policing.””" To be fair to the Minister, I welcome the Government's acknowledgements of those fundamental mistakes, as embodied in the policing Green Paper. The problem is that their proposals for change simply do not go far enough. If they are really serious about giving greater control back to the police, why will they not scrap statutory charging and give the police the ability to charge suspects for all summary and most triable either-way offences? If they really want to reduce the stifling burden of paperwork, why will they not add to the list the paperwork relating to stop and search? That would allow officers to radio in the details and free up more than 1 million police hours each year. And if the Government really believe that their new public service agreement targets are not about central direction, as the Minister has claimed, why do they make it explicit that police services should not bother with shoplifting, despite the direct relationship between acquisitive crime and drug-taking? The Government are now seeking to dress up the much vaunted police pledge as a new way to support community working. Putting aside the fact that the pledge is full of re-announcements and existing police practice, it is interesting to note that neighbourhood police teams will"““spend at least 80 per cent. of their time visibly working in your neighbourhood, tackling your priorities.””" However, the point of neighbourhood teams was that their scope was supposed to be ring-fenced—they were supposed to be retained within their designated areas, and to be protected from abstraction to other areas, in order to strengthen engagement with the public. Yet this supposed pledge of better local service seems to be delivering the reverse. Will the Minister tell us whether giving a green light to community police officers to spend one fifth of their time outside the communities that they are supposed to be ring-fenced within, and which they are supposed to be protecting, represents a watering down of the commitment to neighbourhood policing? To promote greater public trust, confidence and engagement, the public need to be assured that the information being given to them is reliable. Despite all the Government's continued assertions that the crime rate has gone down, the problem is that no one believes them. That point was accepted even by that arch-Tory, Cherie Blair Booth, in her street weapons commission. The Government's principal measure of crime is the British crime survey, yet, as the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's college, London, points out, the BCS fails to measure far more crime than it actually accounts for. At present, it does not include offences against those under the age of 16; murder and homicide are omitted; it does not measure rape and sexual assaults against women; and it underestimates incidences of domestic violence. Crimes against businesses are not included, nor does it measure white-collar, corporate or environmental crimes, all of which can have a devastating impact on thousands of people at the same time. As for the BCS's treatment of antisocial behaviour, the Government have sought to count what appear to be seven seemingly random measures of behaviour, leading the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies to note that"““it is hardly surprising that anti-social behaviour means whatever the government says it means. This has undoubtedly given ministers enormous scope to target whatever problem they consider to be of interest at any given point in time. Whether such a subjective and amorphous category provides the basis for robust, informed and evidence-based policy is a very different question””." Even when we talk about reported crime, the Government dent people's confidence by mis-classifying it. The recent revelation that the crime figures for serious violence had been understated by 13 forces fundamentally undermines the public's belief in the information that they are being given. If those most serious offences, which have such a great impact on perceptions of public safety, have been understated for as long as 10 years, it is hardly surprising that people should question what they are being told. If we cannot even count a problem, how can we combat it? It is telling that, according to Louise Casey, the least trusted source on national statistics on crime is the Prime Minister, closely followed by the Home Office. We welcome Ms Casey's honesty, and her backing for the Conservative proposal for public trust and confidence to be strengthened by collating crime statistics on an independent basis. I believe that we may need to go further and examine the potential for a single definitive measure for each crime rather than the often contradictory picture of British crime survey figures, as well as reported crime figures, which confuse the public. For some crimes, reported crime numbers may be more appropriate; for others, survey data may be more definitive. Irrespective of that, it is clear that official crime statistics should be at arm's length from the Home Office, so that the public know that the figures have not been chosen to suit the spin. What of direct public action to prevent crime or to arrest offenders? According to Louise Casey, 75 per cent. of the public say that they are prepared to take an active role in tackling crime, yet only four out 10 say that they would intervene to challenge antisocial behaviour—fewer than in any comparable European country, with six out of 10 people being prepared to do so in Germany. One barrier to such direct action is people's belief that if they get involved and challenge unacceptable behaviour by seeking to enforce their ability to conduct a citizen's arrest, they fear that they will be the ones on the receiving end. Rather than being supported by police and prosecutors, such people might end up with a criminal record. As Louise Casey stated in her report:"““There was a strong view from members of the public during the review that they would no longer intervene if they saw a crime taking place, for fear that they would either be attacked by the perpetrators or be arrested themselves by the police.””" It is our duty to help, not hinder active citizens. That is why it is right to scrap Whitehall targets that encourage the police to pick on soft targets; why we should amend the police guidelines so that officers back those who use reasonable force to maintain the Queen's peace; and why the code for Crown prosecutors should be amended to make it clear that it is not in the public interest to prosecute those who perform a citizen's arrest in good faith. If people take appropriate action to protect their communities, they should be praised, not prosecuted.