Democracy experts are divided on Lord Stevens’ proposals to reform police accountability

Last week the report of the Independent Police Commission, led by the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Stevens and commissioned by the Labour Party, was published. Its recommendations included the abolition of the post of Police and Crime Commissioner – introduced in 2012 to establish a new form of democratic oversight of the police – and the replacement of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. In this post we ask experts in democracy and police accountability to respond to the proposals and consider the implications of further reform

Policing the police in the United Kingdom

In the three jurisdictions of the United Kingdom, the specialized mechanisms for dealing with complaints against the police do not conform to one single model, and they have varying degrees of external involvement and oversight. This article examines various models for police complaints and reviews the three systems operating in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. It concludes that the success of the system in Northern Ireland (the civilian control model) highlights the inadequacies of the other systems, and presents persuasive reasons for extending this model to other parts of the United Kingdom

Policing the Police: an analysis of practitioner views of the IOPC’s Learning the Lessons Magazine

The ‘Learning the Lessons’ magazine, published by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), has been in circulation since 2007; in March 2018 the magazine was given a new format by the new Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who had started operations in January 2018. The magazine is promoted as being useful for police practitioners, community groups, and those with an interest in policing; and aims to highlight learning from mistakes in policing with the purpose of avoiding errors in future. This research aims to understand, (1) how the magazine is used by practitioners within policing, (2) explore distribution and access of the magazine and (3) explore practitioner views of the magazine and the IOPC’s role in producing this magazine. This research involved interviewing 17 participants in three police services in England and Wales, with participants drawn from Professional Standards Departments (PSD), Learning and Development teams (L&D), and the IOPC. This research will utilise a qualitative approach to gather data. The analysis of the data highlighted that the overall use of the magazine was sporadic and was not distributed widely by the police. Instead, relying on officers to distribute the magazine to the relevant departments. However, those that did engage with the magazine did find the learning within it to be relevant to policing

An evaluation of the systems for handling police complaints in Thailand

This thesis, based on empirical evidence and documentary analysis, critically evaluates the systems under the regulatory oversight of the Royal Thai Police (RTP), the Office of the Ombudsman, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in respect of the handling of police complaints. Comparisons will be drawn from the system under the control of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in England and Wales in order to provide alternative perspectives to the Thai police complaints system. This thesis proposes a civilian control model of a police complaints system as a key reform measure to instill public confidence in the handling of complaints in Thailand. Additional measures ranging from sufficient power and resources, complainants’ involvement, securing transparency and maintaining police faith in the system are also recommended to enhance the proposed system

‘Honour’ abuse, violence, and forced marriage in the UK. Police cases (incidents and charges) and specialised training: 2018 and 2019.

This report marks the 15th anniversary of the tragic and avoidable death of Banaz Mahmod. A young woman living in London, Banaz was the victim of Britain’s most notorious so-called ‘honour’ killing. The police handling of her case was fraught with incompetence, oversight, error, and lack of cultural awareness. Numerous times, in the months leading up to her murder, Banaz reported her abuse to the police, even warning them that she would be murdered. She went as far as writing down the names of her killers. 1 An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) after her death found that two police forces had failed Banaz. This report presents the number of ‘honour’ based abuse and violence (HBA/V), including forced marriage cases, recorded by 38 police forces across the UK, and their engagement in specialised training, for 2018 and 2019

Arming the Police in Britain: a Human Rights Analysis

In 2010 Derrick Bird shot and killed 12 people, as well as injuring a further 11, in Cumbria. A legitimate question that arose after the tragedy was whether the outcome would have been different if the British police had been armed? This paper explores whether human rights law requires, or at least justifies, the UK authorities to arm the police in the pursuit of public protection? Derrick Bird was licensed to possess his firearms. Is a more proportionate response amendments to the existing weapons certification process? These are some of the questions which this article seeks to address

Operational risk, omissions and liability in policing

Recent decades have seen the sensitisation of UK society towards harm and policing ‘failures’ become increasingly significant. This paper is intended to stimulate thought and debate by analysing some consequences of these developments. It reviews literature in relation to risk-taking in UK operational policing, identifying increased criminal and disciplinary liability, particularly in respect of alleged omissions. Hindsight is found to be a potentially powerful influence. The article concludes that it is unlikely that public culture will be changed readily. However, police and other bodies should be able to reach a common approach towards operational risk, omissions and hindsight