Police need better leadership
THERE is a growing debate, locally and nationally, about the police, their resources, and what they can and cannot do.
I wonder if people cast their minds back some 20 years ago, if they remember a police superintendent Ray Malone, alias Robo cop?
Malone would reduce crime by 60 per cent within three months of taking command of a new division, with no additional resources or overtime.
Indeed, he would write a post dated letter of resignation to the chief constable stating that if he did not achieve this, he would resign.
At the height of Malone’s fame, and as the vultures were starting to appear, I was at an inter-agency meeting, and found myself sitting alongside a police chief superintendent.
Before the meeting started, we chatted, and I mentioned Malone, which lit the chief’s fuse.
Malone, he said, was a public disgrace, and within months he would be “stitched” up and got rid of. Why? I asked, and the chief said he could not be allowed to continue, as already questions were being asked as to why other commanders were not getting these results.
If allowed to continue, then all commanders would be expected to do the same, and the prison service would not be able to cope, and then police resources would be reduced in response to a much lower crime rate.
Some three months later Malone was forced out of the police, kicking and screaming that he had been “stitched” up. No politician came to his aid? The most successful police commander ever is William Bratton, who in the 90s was the commissioner of police for New York City, in the USA.
He turned the city around and got all agencies working in sync for the first time ever, and got a dramatic reduction in the level of crime.
His reward was to be sacked by the politicians who never said why, and he went on to work the same magic in other US cities.
It was mooted a few years ago to bring him over here to head up the metropolitan police, but the police chiefs and the home office got together to kill off any notion of that ever happening.
Here in Leicestershire, at a time when police resources were overflowing, and the chief constable was in the new year’s honours list for “services to community policing”; Fiona Pilkington killed herself and her daughter, being unable to cope with anti social behaviour, that the police could not be bothered to deal with.
Yes resources are important, but strong leadership, maximising the resources available by clear direction, and not allowing “mission drift” are more so.
Sadly, with a few exceptions, the police service has been lacking this for years, and prefers to play politics, than policing, that sustains and protects commanders, who simply are not up to the job.
The rank and file deserve to have a higher quality of leadership than has been available, and stop the culture of “safe hands” politicos who gave us the child abuse scandal, phone tapping, and Hillsborough cover up.
Unless these issues are addressed, then no amount of resources will deliver what is required!
Steve Vickers