Current Issues - 2008

May 2008

Only One Police Service - PoliceBeat Editorial

Despite the statistical evidence that crime in Northern Ireland is reducing there is equally clear evidence that public fear of crime is rising. This is a paradox but shocking murders in Belfast, rapes by teenagers and regular racist attacks on immigrants and their families all fuel discontent as to how well the PSNI is performing.

The recent, very public exchange between the Chief Constable and the Sinn Fein president crystallised both the sensitivity of a police service to allegations of half-hearted efforts to combat crime, particularly in West Belfast, and Sinn Fein’s own obvious difficulty of reversing the consequences of forty years of a carefully nurtured policy of outright community hostility to the police.

The need for dialogue between the police service and public representatives and community leaders must be fully understood as essential to achieving progress rather than to allocating blame. By joining the Policing Board Sinn Fein has no choice but to show faith in the PSNI as the only legitimate police service and to turn its back on any other crude and illegal form of law enforcement. Enforcing the law by breaking the law is not only incompatible with being in government but would undermine the effectiveness and respect of the PSNI. Sadly loyalist paramilitaries have yet to accept that time has moved on and seem determined to cling to authority over local communities through rough punishments of anti-social behaviour.

Improving the level of public confidence requires sustained, whole-hearted commitment from all parties. The PSNI can be effective only to the extent that it is allowed to engage with the community. This is a two-way commitment which requires sufficient co-operation from the community that not only ensures intelligence flows to the police service but that resulting evidence is capable of securing convictions before the courts. In return the police have to have the resources to be visible within the community and in sufficient strength so that people are confident that calls for assistance will be answered speedily and that witnesses will be free from intimidation.

The Police Service accepts without difficulty that it is held to account by the Policing Board. The service sees the value of drawing up local policing plans in conjunction with the District Policing Partnership Boards. But all this goodwill, accounting rigour and co-operation is likely to work only imperfectly until so many of our young people – in both communities - are succeeded by a new generation not steeped in hostility towards the police or any other figure of authority. For the problems of anti-social behaviour bequeathed by the troubles are not confined to the police; they are manifested daily in our schools, pubs, on public transport and at sporting events. The question of how to deal with this wider malaise is becoming one for every sector of society to address and not just left to the police.