Care and control: The future of British policing

Abstract

The paper focuses on the interplay of care and control functions within the British police. There are several areas of police activity, such as child sexual abuse investigations, sexual assault, and the handling of the mentally ill, where there is already an operational mixture of care and control functions. Recently, the police have emphasised the service and care nature of their work. Indeed, there are good operational and ethical reasons to do so. However, the government's priority, expressed through such documents as the White Paper on police reform, the report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, and the Sheehy Report, appears to be one of enhancing the police's control functions. An emphasis on a combination of care and control would, however, result in greater benefits than a focus predominantly on control alone. The paper highlights the obstacles that the police service must overcome to realise that combination.KEY WORDS: Police, care and control, service ethic, operational matrix of care and control.

The Measurement of Police Force Efficiency: An Assessment of U.K. Home Office Policy

“…Since the 1960s and the introduction of efficiency measurement techniques of police forces, successive U.K. governments have tried to ensure that public funds were used in an “economic, efficient and effective” manner. This initial experiment in measuring the performance of police forces during the 1960s and 1970s led to many revisions, from input‐output operations management techniques to scorecards, and to the Spottiswoode (2000) report (for a discussion of early performance reforms see, for example, Drake and Simper 2001; Stephens 1994; Sullivan 1998). 1 The Spottiswoode report advocated the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) because this allows an interaction between inputs and outputs in the policing function, thereby bypassing many of the failings in the initial 1960–1970s performance measurement program (which was mainly output based).…”

The economics of managerialism and the drive for efficiency in policing

“…3 Furthermore, as the crime rate appeared to rise with the economic cycle, contrary to many economic theories, commentators began to question police effectiveness. Stephens (1994), for example, has identified the growing cost of, and increasing levels of crime, coupled with the declining public standing of the police force (associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, and the miners' strike in 1984/1985, for example) as a major impetuous in the re-evaluation of police functions.…”

“…These factors led to an inspection and review of the police, firstly under the Conservative government which included national agencies such as Her Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and the Audit Commission, and the introduction of various public charters including the Citizen's Charter and the Victim's Charter (for a discussion see Stephens, 1994 andSullivan, 1998). The comprehensive review of the service resulted in several publications which promoted renewed interest in the efficiency of the police and included: Audit Commission (1990);Home Office (1993);Police Research Group (1993) and the Sheehy (1993) report which led to recommendations included in The Police and Magistrates' Courts' Act 1994.…”

The police role in the management of child protection services

“…On the part of the police, we find the increasing incorporation of 'caring' functions into the 'care and control' combination of policing as described by Stephens (1994). In addition to 'service' functions in everyday policing, he notes the caring functions of police in relation to specific groups, women who are victims of assault, cases of child sexual abuse, mentally ill persons and juvenile offenders.…”