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Post by yellowperil on Aug 21, 2021 14:33:20 GMT
Centralising power over policing in one individual is the problem. The problem is that the individual has no real power. I'd give them operational control. ... and call them chief constables? |
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Post by Merseymike on Aug 21, 2021 14:42:44 GMT
Centralising power over policing in one individual is the problem. The problem is that the individual has no real power. I'd give them operational control. Definitely not. American style political police is the last thing needed. They simply don't have the experience or ability to do what is a professional policing role. Politics adds nothing to policing. The police authorities worked because it was not possible for any party to have a majority and we didn't have anything to lose by criticising. The chairs sometimes got too close to the chief con, but there were 16 other members and the chairs party never held more than 5 of those numbers. So party politics wasn't dominant. I was an independent and the Labour chair was desperate to get rid of me because I asked too many questions and wouldn't toe the party line - that's why we were there. |
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peterl
Green
Congratulations President Trump
Posts: 8,468 
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Post by peterl on Aug 21, 2021 15:27:01 GMT
I would go back to police authorities and make it a three-way split. One third publicly elected. One third independent appointed members of the public - no serving police or holders of other public offices (excluding maybe parish councillors). One third representatives of bodies having to do with policing e.g. council, magistrates, CPS, probation etc, this would also include the chief constable as a non-voting member. That should make for an effective balance of representation and expertise. Greater influence on setting priorities but not operational control.
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Post by yellowperil on Aug 21, 2021 16:03:12 GMT
The problem is that the individual has no real power. I'd give them operational control. Definitely not. American style political police is the last thing needed. They simply don't have the experience or ability to do what is a professional policing role. Politics adds nothing to policing. The police authorities worked because it was not possible for any party to have a majority and we didn't have anything to lose by criticising. The chairs sometimes got too close to the chief con, but there were 16 other members and the chairs party never held more than 5 of those numbers. So party politics wasn't dominant. I was an independent and the Labour chair was desperate to get rid of me because I asked too many questions and wouldn't toe the party line - that's why we were there. Broadly I like that but I think we have to accept police authorities weren't working all that well- if they had been more successful nobody would have got away with "reform". I suspect there weren't enough people doing a Mike and asking those awkward questions. Getting rid of all the "others" was hardly going to improve things, though. I was never directly involved with the police authority for Kent, but we also had a police liaison committee at Borough level which I was on, and the chair of the Police Authority usually attended that. I thought she was good at that and was surprised at how bad she was when she became the PCC instead, I think she needed the support of others around her, and there were some (politically motivated?) hatchet jobs on her which were very effective. |
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Post by Merseymike on Aug 21, 2021 17:08:24 GMT
Definitely not. American style political police is the last thing needed. They simply don't have the experience or ability to do what is a professional policing role. Politics adds nothing to policing. The police authorities worked because it was not possible for any party to have a majority and we didn't have anything to lose by criticising. The chairs sometimes got too close to the chief con, but there were 16 other members and the chairs party never held more than 5 of those numbers. So party politics wasn't dominant. I was an independent and the Labour chair was desperate to get rid of me because I asked too many questions and wouldn't toe the party line - that's why we were there. Broadly I like that but I think we have to accept police authorities weren't working all that well- if they had been more successful nobody would have got away with "reform". I suspect there weren't enough people doing a Mike and asking those awkward questions. Getting rid of all the "others" was hardly going to improve things, though. I was never directly involved with the police authority for Kent, but we also had a police liaison committee at Borough level which I was on, and the chair of the Police Authority usually attended that. I thought she was good at that and was surprised at how bad she was when she became the PCC instead, I think she needed the support of others around her, and there were some (politically motivated?) hatchet jobs on her which were very effective. I think the authorities did well enough but our powers were limited too. Ultimately if government wanted to ignore us, they could. Also they wanted a much more public single-individual approach whereas the authorities were quite deliberately not like that. Much of the best things we did were deliberately not in the public eye. The PCC's conversely were all about public statements and gimmicks. We used to have regular consultation events - that all stopped with the PCC approach. I think the independent members were the ones who asked the questions - sometimes party politics just got in the way. There was a LibDem councillor who actually was very effective but again sometimes was too partisan. Though I did vote for him in the first PCC election when he ran as an independent. |
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maxque
Non-Aligned
Posts: 9,299
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Post by maxque on Aug 21, 2021 21:08:37 GMT
Definitely not. American style political police is the last thing needed. They simply don't have the experience or ability to do what is a professional policing role. Politics adds nothing to policing. The police authorities worked because it was not possible for any party to have a majority and we didn't have anything to lose by criticising. The chairs sometimes got too close to the chief con, but there were 16 other members and the chairs party never held more than 5 of those numbers. So party politics wasn't dominant. I was an independent and the Labour chair was desperate to get rid of me because I asked too many questions and wouldn't toe the party line - that's why we were there. Broadly I like that but I think we have to accept police authorities weren't working all that well- if they had been more successful nobody would have got away with "reform". I suspect there weren't enough people doing a Mike and asking those awkward questions. Getting rid of all the "others" was hardly going to improve things, though. I was never directly involved with the police authority for Kent, but we also had a police liaison committee at Borough level which I was on, and the chair of the Police Authority usually attended that. I thought she was good at that and was surprised at how bad she was when she became the PCC instead, I think she needed the support of others around her, and there were some (politically motivated?) hatchet jobs on her which were very effective. Reform happened because the Conservatives wanted a way to give more income to some Conservative supporters. |
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Foggy
Non-Aligned
Yn Ennill Yma
Posts: 6,135
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Post by Foggy on Aug 22, 2021 2:52:43 GMT
Weren't you the deputy principal of a FE college or something similar? Something like that. GMT meant sleeping with the students, I think. Well, it's a relief to know such practices were only happening for five months of the year and not during British Summer Time, in that case. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Aug 22, 2021 18:06:56 GMT
What is this stuff about moral turpitude? Have we wound the clock back to 1905? No, the point is that Harold Wilson drove a coach and horses through the criminal law in 1967. So we can't just ban felons now, because felony has been abolished. And really the system of declaring just about anything spent for certain purposes based on time elapsed does not achieve the same thing. I'd much rather turn the clock back to about 1964. But as an alternative I was suggesting importing a useful common law concept from another common law jurisdiction. |
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neilm
Non-Aligned
Posts: 25,023
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Post by neilm on Aug 22, 2021 18:23:00 GMT
What is this stuff about moral turpitude? Have we wound the clock back to 1905? No, the point is that Harold Wilson drove a coach and horses through the criminal law in 1967. So we can't just ban felons now, because felony has been abolished. And really the system of declaring just about anything spent for certain purposes based on time elapsed does not achieve the same thing. I'd much rather turn the clock back to about 1964. But as an alternative I was suggesting importing a useful common law concept from another common law jurisdiction. Christ alive, the Americans are a puritanical bunch. |
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Post by london(ex)tory on Sept 23, 2021 22:18:33 GMT
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Post by andrew111 on Sept 27, 2021 15:47:02 GMT
No, the point is that Harold Wilson drove a coach and horses through the criminal law in 1967. So we can't just ban felons now, because felony has been abolished. And really the system of declaring just about anything spent for certain purposes based on time elapsed does not achieve the same thing. I'd much rather turn the clock back to about 1964. But as an alternative I was suggesting importing a useful common law concept from another common law jurisdiction. Christ alive, the Americans are a puritanical bunch. Turpitude is a great word though! (but not sufficiently well defined to be useful in law imo) |
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