Non-Peelers

Nowhere in Sir Robert Peel’s nine principles for the effective and ethical conduct of the police does it state that the police should try to alter the public’s perception of crime and disorder. In one’s old-fashioned and thoroughly outdated head, one could be forgiven for believing that such an attempt ought not to be within the remit of any institution of the state. But one would reckon without the progress of the modern world, wherein such nineteenth-century concerns have no place. One hears, for instance, that Essex Police have initiated a “Proactive Essex Police Youth Strategy (Pepys)”, a programme of media-training for young criminals which “would help to tackle ‘misperceptions’ among adults about young people and anti-social behaviour” and “improve the public’s perception” thereof [1].
.....One can imagine that the chief-constables and commissioners of this land read the Peelian principles aloud to one another over drinks, and snigger at their quaint, old-world charm.

.....“Listen to this, Clive. It says here that The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.”

.....“Heh.”
…..“And I can’t find the word ‘proactive’ anywhere.”
…..“What about ‘strategic partnership’?”
…..“Not a trace.”
…..“My God! One can’t run an efficient, twenty-first-century police force without using the words ‘proactive’ or ‘strategic partnership’. Surely he stresses the importance of acronyms?”
…..“Sadly not. Just bangs on about the basic mission of the police’s being the prevention of crime and disorder, and how we’re not meant to usurp the powers of the judiciary.”
…..“Heh-heh. Another brandy?”
…..“It’d be a crime not to.”

[1] Ben Leapman, “Police give teenage tearaways lessons in handling the media”, The Sunday Telegraph, 19th November 2006.