A comprehensive review of policing needs to be carried out to equip both senior officers and front line PCs with the powers they need for the 21st Century, according to the Chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
Sir Hugh Orde said the last time a fundamental overhaul had been carried out was nearly 50 years ago, when the demands on officers and the dynamic of society were very different.
Orde’s views were shared by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, who believed that current structures and procedures, set up in the wake of the 1962 Royal Commission, were not up to scratch for the modern era.
The Commission’s findings, which led to the Police Act 1964, form the foundation of current law enforcement. The legislation reduced the number of forces through amalgamation and created new Police Authorities among other far-reaching changes.
However, in an interview with the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme, Orde maintained that terrorism, new technology and social change meant that a new approach was needed.
He said: “Policing has moved on – with the international threat, the national threat and cyber crime, we are in a different place. We need an independent assessment.”
Orde said that leaders were making tough decisions about how to balance resources with “anti-social behaviour at one end, international terrorism at the other” on a regular basis.
He added: “I think it is important that we step back and look at this now rather than wait for some crisis that will drive change – it could be a multi-site terrorist attack.
“I would be more comfortable knowing that we have the best structure possible to deal with that threat because we’ve looked at it before the crisis, not on the back of it.”
Sir Ian Blair was also worried that the last review of policing was set up during an era that pre-dated even he threat posed by Irish Republican terrorism – and he pointed out that there had been vast technological and social changes since.
He believed that there needed to be “a situation in which policing is assessed again for the 21st Century”. Speaking at the PoliceOracle.com backed Future of Policing seminar in London, Blair added: “We have not had a review in a holistic way since 1962. Then the police did not have radios. There was no internet and no terrorism.
“The people that created the last Royal Commission took their recommendations to the Home Office. We have had three separate Home Office buildings since then.”
“I rest my case.”
Article courtesy of www.policeoracle.com
