The final part of this mini-series looks at running the police as well as how to hold the police to account for their actions and/or misconduct.
The next set of themed posts – due in December – will look at the court system, legal profession and judiciary.
Next, a look at the standards of behaviour expected by police officers and staff.
The Current Situation
The College of Police published a revised Code of Ethics for everyone involved in policing – including civilian staff – in 2014 (English – pdf; Cymraeg – pdf).
It’s considered the gold standard for personal behaviour but is only a guide and isn’t used “as a disciplinary tool to punish poor behaviour”. It applies to all police forces in England and Wales.
The Code of Ethics is divided firstly into guiding principles – which generally match the Nolan Principles of Public Life – and secondly into several standards of professional behaviour. The standards of professional behaviour include, amongst other things:
- Using force only when it’s proportional, necessary and reasonable.
- Behaving in a manner on and off-duty that would not discredit the police (including the use of social media).
- Challenging, reporting and taking action against colleagues whose standards of behaviour falls short.
- Having appropriate authorisation for covert/undercover policing.
- Not using police powers to settle personal grievances.
- Keeping an open mind, not prejudging any person or situation and treating people according to their needs.
- Only giving lawful orders and recognising that a decision not to follow orders needs to be properly explained.
- Ensuring information is recorded/entered accurately, treated with confidence and only shared with other agencies when there’s a legitimate reason.
On paper, the Code of Ethics in its entirety is probably the true benchmark for standards of behaviour of police officers and staff that we ought to expect. Nevertheless, many people reading this may argue that some police officers and police forces don’t work to the spirit of the Code.
While the vast majority of police officers and staff will work within these guidelines, there are plenty of examples of police officers failing to do so (in Wales too) and – in the case of Sarah Everard – if it escalates unchecked it can lead to institutionalised prejudice, even murder.
I don’t think there’s any need to massively rewrite the Code of Ethics as it is. Everything points to there being a problem with enforcement and accountability rather than the rules themselves.
What are the options?
The Code of Ethics could become an enforceable Code of Conduct – This would continue to apply to all police officers, police support staff and volunteers. Instead of it being a set of guidelines it would be reworked as an enforceable set of standards of behaviour. Breaches would need to be formally investigated (much as other professionals like doctors, nurses and politicians) regardless of whether a complaint has been made or not. Self-reporting would be encouraged and, depending on the seriousness, could be looked on more favourably.
Mandatory body cameras – Most police forces have rolled out body cameras to be worn by frontline uniform officers when on duty (to varying degrees). The cameras are switched on to record their response to specific types of incidents. The problem is that while cameras will be a useful recording and training tool for frontline officers, they won’t pick up untoward behaviour in situations where they’re either not worn or worn but not in use (i.e. “patrol car/locker room banter”). There are also wider privacy concerns.
A statutory duty to report – Much as in child safeguarding, police officers and staff may be legally required (at present it’s expected but not enforceable) to report concerns about their colleagues’ behaviour which may breach the Code of Conduct no matter how small. The biggest obstacle would be the “Blue Wall” (the police don’t snitch on themselves), but whistleblowing systems could be strengthened.
A professional register of police officers, staff and volunteers – This would present operational problems (such as protecting the identity of undercover officers), but there may be ways around it such as only being able to access a register on request. The College of Policing maintains a list of dismissed officers who are not to be re-employed, but this doesn’t tell you very much about overall levels of misconduct in the police. A formal register could result in members being struck off.
Increasing recruitment of women police officers and officers from non-white backgrounds (Part VII) – An obvious one, but easier said than done. Around a third of serving police officers in Wales are women, while only around 2% of serving police officers are from non-white backgrounds. The short to medium-term aim ought to be to raise this to as close to 50%+ as possible for women and try to recruit as many police officers as is needed to match local demographics (i.e. up to 20-30% of police officers in Cardiff should be from non-white backgrounds).
