Have you been attending heated meetings in packed halls, listening to passionate speeches about the demise of police authorities and the introduction of police and crime commissioners? No? Me either. When it comes to the election of the new police commissioners, I’m not sure what Labour is opposing or more importantly defending. Any objective assessment of police authority oversight would conclude that is has not been an effective way of holding the police to account.
So why should we support PCCs? First, if done well an increase in democratic control and accountability for policing can drive better results. In many cities in the USA, mayors have oversight of the police and crime levels have been transformed. Take a look at cities like New York and Boston. PCCs will have the power to fire chief constables and this is an essential part in making democratic control and accountability real. Second, the election of PCCs is just the first part of the democratic process. PCCs will have to stay in touch with the concerns of the electorate over time. This constant feedback will force PCCs to stay in touch with the people they serve. It is arguable that New Labour came to understand the destructive effects of antisocial behaviour all too late and stronger links to voters in the most affected areas would bring issues like this to the fore, earlier. Third it connects voters with an issue that they care about hugely. PCCs have an advantage over the US mayoral model because they have a sole focus on crime so the conversation between voters and PCCs will be very clear and direct.
However, done badly this policy could have a detrimental impact and that is where Labour has an important role, locally and nationally. One risk is that crime reduction becomes a numbers game. In 2006 Lucy Stone from IPPR wrote An Unjust and Intolerable Burden which showed that crime affects the poorest most and their ability to respond to crime made the impact even higher. We have to ensure that the priorities of PCCs are not skewed away from poorer communities. To counter this, we should mandate PCCs to produce sub-force crime plans which focus on the most affected areas. A second associated risk is that popular policies might crowd out issues of equal importance but where there are fewer votes. Domestic violence and harassment of minorities are good examples. PCCs should therefore be obliged to produce crime plans which address the full spectrum of crime in ensure those with the least power are included in crime planning.
It will be important to get the national accountability mechanisms right for PCCs. The home secretary should be required to produce an annual ‘state of the nation’ report to parliament ranking the performance of PCCs. This would introduce welcome competitive pressure.
Labour needs to be in the right place on this policy because it is the poorest who suffer most from crime. We need the best candidates, with the best support to show how effective Labour can be on this issue. This could be a great shop window for the party going into the next election and it would ensure people in our poorest communities and those with the least power have real control.
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Almost agreed with most of the above.
I got this reply from a potential Labour candidate:
“through persuasion, dialogue and negotiation. The commissioner has no powers over local authorities”.
I asked how will Labour PCC’s work with Local Authorities controlled by another party.
“The commissionaire has no powers over local authorities” part is the problem in that most issues which have created the so called need for PCC’s to be introduced should be being resolved by Councils and their partners, as part of their Community Safety Strategy commitments.
While the police are ‘partners’ a lot of things related to broken window syndrome, clearing graffit etc. which is what the communities are crying out for to be dealt with, along with provision to prevent, should be being done before we have reached the police stage.
If a PCC can not, because they do not have the powers to, instruct a Local Authority to deal with a potential problem area before for it becomes a hot spot and no powers, once the hot spot has been dealt with, to stop it becoming a problem area again, then there is very little point in having them.
Yvette Cooper did a piece yesterday about while PCC’s are the wrong thing at the wrong time ‘we’ should make the best of a bad job but left the impression that should ‘we’ return to Government ‘we’ will scrap them but that is the same kind of politics as Ms May who, instead of identifying what was wrong, decided to scrap the job lot, she felt was wrong and dream up her on scheme.
Ms May failed to recognise who is responsible for the majority of things related to broken window syndrome continuing, in the same way Labour chose to ignore the failures going on in our communities by doing things which included falsely claiming that crime was falling when it wasn’t but reported crime was.
It’s only when our Community Safety Strategies are fulfilled by local authorities and their partners in ANY of our communities that we will see any accountability and until it happens all PCC’s will be is another scapegoat, providing more distance between Government and it’s responsibilities, while ensuring local authorities can just plod on as they have ever since the introduction of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act.