More bobbies on the beat? who polices them

Date: N/K

Every age is tempted by the idea that in the good old days bobbies on the beat were the sure sign of a safe society. But as the first police force (The Met) was only established in 1829, it's a useless argument: is anyone proposing that chaos somehow ruled before then? In my mind what we should be looking at is how accountable the police are to us?

Take teachers, firefighters, nurses and any public sector worker and how much scrutiny we have over their lives- including what they can do at work. It becomes clear that the Police are among the few public services who escape this public scrutiny. Who polices the police?

I have very little faith in the Police complaints procedure because the Police are seen to be above the law. In the police shooting of unarmed civilian Harry Stanley (who was carrying a table leg in a plastic bag, that looked like a gun, as they do), the involved officers were threatened with disciplinary action.

They got all armed units in London to go on strike. That is, until the action was dropped: the police as a law unto themselves. And I'm supposed to somehow feel that having this mentality on every street corner is a step forward?

Even if we had more police on the beat, how can they be held accountable to the LGBT Communities? If the police really were accountable to us, wouldn't they prevent the homophobic attacks on Dukes Mound, rather just allow us to report them? Which again requires our faith in the Police actually doing something for us.

The biggest increase in council tax this year was Police funding while cash for core social services remains too low. The priorities are wrong: putting more police on the beat neglects deepingrained problems in our city including a low wages culture and the social cost of drug addiction. Both these problems are cheaper to counter than the cost of the police.

The UK has more police than France (despite France's bigger geographical area), yet the prison population is higher here than in any western European country, while our spending on social services is lower.

Instead of the moral panic, how about something really radical and investing time and money in wellpaid and meaningful jobs, health and education for a change?

These are my own opinions and not necessarily the opinions of the Green Party.