From Truncheons To Tasers

A title like the above was too good to waste.

I had also considered “Step Away From The Crayons and Put The Reforming Legislation Down”

So look at us now, 15 years ago my protective equipment was a wooden stick and some floppy cuffs. I had a black gortex anorak with a police badge and a big hat. Boots were black Docs, everyone wore them. For public order I had riot kit and for football matches a yellow visi- tabard

Then came quikcuffs and a side handled baton with a blue NATO jumper covered in chequerboard pattern strips.

Then they gave me CS Spray and replaced that with PAVA

I got a stabbie as well.

If I went back on the streets today, I would have a metal ASP, quikcuffs, bright yellow stab vest, PAVA Spray, maybe a Taser and the kind of boots worn by members of the SAS with bullet proof soles. All this offensive kit is on the outside, on show wheras my old truncheon and cuffs were away out of sight but handy if I needed them.

Compare and contrast the following pictures

I think they tell a story about how far we have come in the last 15 years or so. The top picture has some sense of discipline and unity, the bottom picture has more in common with Reservoir Dogs or dawn patrol in Vietnam.

Some of this change has been good and necessary I think. We are more diverse now than we were. We are certainly better equipped in terms of personal safety. We have world class HR and Health and Safety. It is easier to be black, female and / or LGBT in the cops than it ever used to be. Canteen culture is alive and well but my canteen now serves lattes and baguettes rather than a brew with the the teabag still in it and a bacon butty.

On the other hand, we have lost a lot of the old walk and talk, know your beat culture. We are hemmed by targets, limited by risk assessment and challenged by accountability and well…..all the stuff you have heard whinged about here and elsewhere. The accountability is to who exactly? I keep getting told I have to be more accountable but nobody tells me who I am accountable to. Is it a committee of citizens? Maybe its my line supervision or maybe it’s society as a whole as represented by it’s elected representatives. Anyhow, if it’s you drop me an e-mail and tell me what you want, why you want it and how you came by the authority.

These are times of big society changing movements in the way we police. I see massive tranches of civilianisation, recurring pressure towards forming large regional units, very prescriptive ways of working set at a national level with little if any room for adopting local or idiosynchratic approaches. I also see cost efficiency / bang for bucks as the new Golden Calf. This fresh focus on Neighbourhoods and Citizen Focus seem to me to be an attempt to return us to that pre Z Cars style of working. Sadly experience tells us that another piece of commoditised research with another whizzy name and a high level training program will catch eyes at the Home Office and we will be marched up another hill before we even get near the summit of the current one. Also, I don’t know a current recruit who wants to walk their 30 or any appreciable part of it on a single beat. They must exist but the lights seem brighter just about everywhere else. Foot patrol used to be an unofficial punishment posting. There was a good reason for that.

Having gone truncheons to tasers in a generation, I also have to wonder what purpose the current Police Service has been built for. We are told that we need to engage more with the public and neighbourhoods. Unfortunately we now have a response wing that looks just like the old ARV used to except without the guns and the CBT / PCSO’s look like the response used to but with flak jackets. It looks like we have been built to violently confront and overcome people. I am not saying that is our mindset, but it is without doubt what we are equipped to do. Once people get over the quasi military kit, we are mostly approachable and pleasant people, it’s just that we dress like Imperial Stormtroopers.