Civitas

First, the apparent recent ‘fall’ in the crime rate has largely been the result of excluding certain categories of crime from the computation. Second, what is at issue here is not overall crime rate, which may well have fallen recently due to extra-security measures taken by house-holders and car-owners, but the rate of violent crimes, largely committed in public places, which have gone through the roof in recent years.

Two valuable pieces of circumstantial evidence supporting the charge that recent changes in police practice have contributed to increased violent crime have recently appeared in the press. They take the form of personal testimony from senior policemen.

The first piece of circumstantial evidence comes from Sir Keith Povey, the outgoing Chief Inspector of Constabulary. It appears in a recent interview he gave weeks before retirement, reported in the Times last Monday.

Sir Keith here denies the need or desirability of police patrolling in pairs rather than singly, which they have routinely taken to doing in recent times, both on foot and in cars. Sir Keith said: ‘There is far too much double-crewing… whether on patrol or in vehicles. When you think officers have got sprays, side-handled batons,-- they don’t need to be in pairs most of the time’.

Sir Keith’s opinion receives endorsement from a second senior policeman, now retired, in a letter in today’s Times. The author of the letter is David Helm, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Operations of London’s Metropolitan Police, from 1974 to 1980.

As well as agreeing with Sir Keith on their being no need for joint patrolling, Mr Helm draws attention to a second recently adopted police practice he claims to be no less counter-productive. This is their recent change of accoutrement when on foot patrol that sees them garbed in brilliant yellow jackets festooned with two-way radios on which they incessantly chat with each other.

Mr Helm explains why this new apparel is counter-productive. ‘In my day we were given a pair of white gauntlets only when we were directing traffic. I have followed suspects using the cover of trees and lamp posts and arrested them, which could not be done in a yellow jacket.’

Mr Helm goes on to make the following interesting suggestion: ‘If the PC’s took off the jackets and patrolled singly, so that they could see what was going on and talk to the public instead of chattering to each other, I think we might have a better service.’

The Home Office might care to consider running some local experiments to test whether changing police practice in the suggested ways has any curbing effect on local violent crime rates. Sadly, I fear, the only response the Home Office is likely to make to such a commonsensical suggestion is to invite anyone making it to be on their bikes.