Police bible for 21st century
CROSSING THE LINE: LESSONS FROM A LIFE ON DUTY ★★★★
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.99
FORMER Metropolitan Police chief John Sutherland exposes the challenges faced by officers on the frontline in the most comprehensive insight into policing I have read, each page changing my views on the role of a law enforcement service.
As a London borough commander, his 25-year service saw him witness the horrors of violent crime, while a managerial role gave him an understanding of the causes of crime. In a series of essays, well researched and crafted with the deftness of an exceptionally fine writer, the scourges of drink, drugs, domestic violence, knife crime, sexual offences, extremism and mental health are discussed. An understanding of the burdens placed on police by mental health issues is all the more resonant for Sutherland who suffered a nervous breakdown and retired on health grounds in 2018. Here, Sutherland has gone beyond the police cordon to see the effects of violence; he has investigated the
deprived backgrounds of perpetrators; he has seen the devastation a crime can bring to families; and now Sutherland has come up with compelling ideas for fighting crime.
He calls for a Royal Commission on drugs. He wants an honest, evidence-based conversation about “the mess” in which the country finds itself and the cost to the health service, the criminal justice system and the human cost.
On knife crime, he identifies how domestic violence is at the root of so many ills. One knife killing of a teenager had a single appalling common denominator: every one of the 11 suspects had been raised in violent homes.
Sutherland says Britain needs a long-term plan that “addresses fully the shattering harm done to both immediate victims and survivors and to the children growing up in the places where it’s happening”.
But if ever a book deserved to be updated before it’s even published, this is it. It was penned before the outbreak of Covid-19 which poses the biggest threat to civilisation in the 21st century and will bring the most onerous challenges for the already stretched thin blue line.
This virus will claim more
British lives in three months than all recorded homicides since 1980.The estimated £60billion a year criminals cost the UK pales compared to the pandemic’s impacts on the economy.
Policing by consent is the foundation of law and order yet constables can now apprehend people for visiting grandchildren. Lockdown has seen an upsurge of violence in the home.The catastrophic impact on the economy will mean more austerity and will compound mental health problems.
Our police service needs a new template for the post-Covid-19 years – and John Sutherland is just the person to write it.