COLUMN

A Force with a smile

R.K. RAGHAVAN

In London the Metropolitan Police, which celebrates its 175th anniversary this year, is a large and hallowed organisation that has set policing standards that are the envy of many modern law enforcement agencies.

RUNNING into the legendary Kiran Bedi at her impressive office in the United Nations headquarters just a few weeks ago, little did I realise that I was soon going to meet another distinguished policewoman. (Kiran is the head of the U.N. Civilian Police and has already made a mark in a difficult job.) This time it was at the New Scotland Yard, the home of the Metropolitan Police (Met) in London that I had the privilege of getting to know Deputy Assistant Commissioner Carole Howlett. Not weighed down by her exacting position as Chief of Staff to the Commissioner Sir John Stevens, she exudes charm and displays a striking air of confidence that will be the envy of many men. Gone are the days when male chauvinists thought policing and the female of the species were poles apart!

PETER MACDIARMID/REUTERS

Britain's Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens.

Carole is the face that the Met often projects through television and she fills the bill admirably well. Mind you, she has her job cut out, because, in spite of its good track record, the Met is under constant scrutiny by a savage media and also by the minorities who form a large chunk of the city's population. Starting her career in the West Yorkshire Police in 1976, she joined the Met nearly two decades ago. She has had both uniformed and plain-clothes assignments. Experienced in homicide investigations, her specialisation has been child protection, especially crimes on the Net. She seems to balance the needs of her demanding job and domestic obligations rather adroitly. This is commendable because she has to commute every day from Kent after tending to the three men in her life. Her husband, whom she met at a training programme, was also in the Met until he retired a few years ago. Apart from him, the two other men whom she has to take care of are her dogs! Obviously, her plate is full when she sets out each morning from her home to discharge her responsibilities to the community.

Carole receives me on a busy morning at her elegant New Scotland Yard office in Broadway. She seems relaxed in spite of the many engagements that await her during the day and even offers me a cup of coffee. Her informality encourages me to quiz her on a variety of issues that affect the Met, an organisation that has fascinated me right from my youth. Responding partly across the table and partly through e-mail, she handles my questions with great aplomb. Her enthusiastic deputy Ed Bateman, Chief Superintendent supplements with enormous information that I need to get a better perspective of the Met's activities. I am impressed with the warmth shown to a former policeman from a distant land!

The Met is a large and hallowed organisation that has set policing standards that are the envy of many modern law enforcement agencies. It celebrates its 175th anniversary this year. Beginning as a small outfit of about 1,000 men, it has now touched a strength of more than 30,000 men and women. In addition, it boasts a support staff of 13,000 who look after a variety of functions such as station reception, communication, technology, recruitment and training and handling the 999 emergency calls. There are also nearly 500 traffic wardens and 1,400 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs). Policing a city of more than seven million and a geographical stretch of 620 square miles, the Met, confronts each day a multitude of problems that only London can pose to police ingenuities. According to one account, about 150 languages are spoken here. Many of the linguistic groups know only a smattering of English. Sensitive to their needs, the Met now offers a special service to these citizens. Dialling 999 you can get connected to an operator who speaks your tongue. Incidentally, thanks to the huge army of Sri Lankan Tamils in London, there is a Tamil voice that is ever ready to help if some misfortune befalls you. This is something that the police forces in India, at least in our four metros, can emulate without much of an effort or expense.

A frequently asked question is why the Constable of the Met is often referred to as the `Bobbie'. This term is traceable to Sir Robert Peel (Bob) the Home Secretary in the 1820s who initiated the legislation that saw the founding of the Metropolitan Police. I am often amused also the way `Scotland Yard' is bandied about freely as if it stood for the entire U.K. Police. Actually it refers solely to the Met. It all started with the two men, Colonel Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne (later Sir Richard Mayne), who were given the early task of finding a home for the infant police organisation. They set up the office in a private building in Whitehall Place (close to Westminster) which had a premises in the backyard that functioned as a police station. The main building had reportedly belonged to the King of Scotland and it used to house the Scottish Ambassador before the days of the Union. There is another theory that the name was derived from one of the streets in the locality which took its name from a certain Mr. Scott who owned land here. When the headquarters was shifted to the Embankment in the 1890s, the Met building began to be called the New Scotland Yard. This appellation was carried to the present modern structure in Broadway that became home to the Met in 1967 and provided the large space which the London Police required in view of their burgeoning charter. Whatever be its origin, `Scotland Yard' evokes in many of us images of a sleek modern police force that has become the byword for professional policing marked by courtesy and integrity of the highest order. Who can resist having a second look at the smartly turned out policeman or policewoman who passes by you in the busy Piccadilly or Oxford Street.

MATT DUNHAM/REUTERS

Metropolitan Police Service officers at Horse Guards Parade in London on June 4 to mark the 175th anniversary of the organisation.

There are two main problems that the Met faces at any time. One is the delicate crime situation in this huge metropolis that goes out of hand at periodic intervals. A spurt in crime is the signal for widespread alarm and a brutal press quickly and successfully spreads panic. I am appalled that even the venerable London Times now devotes a lot of space to crime reporting. The other problem is the need for extreme police sensitivity to the feelings of ethnic minorities within the force and those in the citizenry who are quick to react adversely to even the hint of a neglect or discrimination. The two issues are not totally unrelated as was borne out by the unfortunate slaying of a black youth Stephen Lawrence in April 1993 by a set of white hoodlums. The delay in apprehending the offenders and the acquittal subsequently in court of those arraigned triggered a major controversy leading to an inquiry by Sir William Macpherson, a former High Court Judge. The Macpherson report's severe indictment that racism was "institutionalised" in the Met caused a stir (Frontline, May 10, 2003 and January 31, 2004). To this day, the black community is unconvinced that the police in the U.K, especially the Met, have done anything drastic to shed their alleged bias. While this may be totally unfair to the police, it is difficult to undo the damage caused by one major incident. Like the Gujarat police, the Met carries this heavy baggage grudgingly.

TO put the record straight, however, one must list a series of steps that it has initiated to allay minority misgivings. A conscious recruitment exercise has seen the rise in numbers of the minority - `Visible Ethnic Minorities' (VEM) is the quaint official terminology that the Met employs - in the force. VEM (who include non-black groups as well) now account for 6.6 per cent in the entire Met. Last year, 15 per cent of them came in as new recruits. (Women accounted for nearly one third of last year's inductees.) There is a long way to go to reach the targeted 25.9 per cent over the next five years. Race sensitivisation is now built into recruit training. This was indeed called for among other factors in the context of an embarrassing BBC scoop (`Secret Policeman') in October 2003 that unearthed stark racism at a police training school in Cheshire. This shocked the whole nation and led to an acceleration of efforts to combat the evil. Meanwhile, there are speculative reports (including the one carried by The Guardian dated June 15, 2004) that the country's Commission for Race Equality has indicted 14 police forces, including the Met, for tardy equality plans and even violation of equality laws. The Commission is also said to believe that tests for detecting racist officers were aimed more at the minorities in the forces rather than white officers. Naturally the Met is concerned and has initiated a series of damage control measures

According to official statistics released last week, overall crime dropped by 2 per cent during 2003. (About one million offences are reported annually.) Murder detection rate went up to 97 per cent. Motor vehicle crime (that is., thefts of and from vehicles) and robbery declined respectively by 14 per cent and 12 per cent. Most significant was the fall of residential burglary by 9 per cent, a trend that is seen in many other countries as well because of enhanced security features of modern buildings and the strengthening of protection of homes with the help of private security guards. Interestingly, mobile telephone theft remains high at about 10,000 a month! Two thirds of the victims are in the age group of 13-16. This analysis receives support from the gruesome murder recently of a black teenager at a London school by fellow-students. First reports indicated that the motive was to rob him of his mobile phone. This is a happening that should set policemen in India thinking because of the boom in the sale of such phones and their increasing use by the youth. The police in London, among other precautions, advise against open display of such phones while walking on the streets or leaving them in unattended cars.

There is one factor that has received police attention while fine-tuning strategies against crime. The fairly liberal immigration policy of the U.K. government has seen the arrival of a variety of ethnic groups. Some of the latter do not exactly have the highest regard for the law of the land that has played host to them. This apathy to law is compounded by the substantial illegal influx that poses a major problem to law enforcement. The crime scene in London has to be viewed against this backdrop. There is a feeling that illegal East European immigrants have contributed to a lot of crime, especially the kind that transcends international borders such as trafficking in women and children. U.K.'s hi-tech crime investigation unit speaks of substantial computer crime that is traceable to this group. Interestingly, the Met believes that South Asian gangs are also quite active in London. A special squad has been formed to meet this challenge.

As one who visits London periodically I can vouch for the fact that a visitor feels safer here than in many other world cities. This is attributable at least partly to the highly visible police presence. This has been made possible to some extent by the round-the-clock uniformed patrolling by the PCSOs empowered under the Police Reform Act 2002.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Carole Howlett.

They are an auxiliary to the police and come from a wide spectrum of avocations such as security guards and museum wards. PCSOs undergo an intensive three-week training before assigned to police stations. They are put on a variety of chores such as patrolling, routine enquiries and presence on ceremonial occasions. They do not have arrest powers but can detain an individual on suspicion for about 20 minutes until the police arrive.

If desired, they can opt for flexible working hours and are paid up to £ 22000 a year. This experiment has generally enhanced an all-round feeling of safety. Police forces the world over have tried this anti-crime tactic in some form or the other in order to supplement their overstretched regular ranks. I wonder however how many have been as well structured or have won as high a community approval as in London.

THE Met seems generally in good fettle. Officers like Carole Howlett appear satisfied at their own contribution to enhancing community safety. But they may not be able to rest on their oars, because in the 21st century, terrorism and porous borders that permit easy criminal traffic have made policing much more complex than before. In spite of all that has happened since 9/11 and the fact that the U.K.'s decision to enter the arena in Iraq has greatly annoyed Muslim feelings, if London has remained peaceful and invulnerable to a terrorist attack, it is undoubtedly because of the high dedication and state of preparedness displayed by the Met. This is something that should attract the attention of police chiefs in other parts of the globe who are constantly looking for effective strategies to fight terrorism.

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