PCC Elections as a ‘Failed Experiment’: What Lessons can be Learned?

Abstract

The low turnout of the 2012 police and crime commissioner (PCC) elections have led to questions surrounding their legitimacy and have even led to the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg describing the elections—elections his party helped to introduce—as a ‘failed experiment’. Despite this, the election of a majority Conservative government in May 2015 appears to offer some longevity to the role of police and crime commissioners and cements next year's PCC elections in the political diary. Concerns in the immediate aftermath of the elections focused upon the costs of the elections. In this article I offer some suggestions as to what lessons could be learned from this experiment and, through exploring the attitudes of voters, political parties and the media, suggest that we can learn four lessons: (1) that spoilt ballots cannot be ignored; that (2) political parties and (3) the media's attitudes toward elections are important in encouraging people to vote; and (4) that high numbers of independent candidates cannot simply be welcomed at times of elections.

Police and Crime Commissioners: new agents of crime and justice policy transfer?

“…Although unease was expressed with regard to the demographic profiles of the successful candidates (the majority of the first PCC cohort were white males), their elite political or crimerelated professional backgrounds (many had previously been elected politicians, Police Authority members, police officers or magistrates) and the high number of spoilt ballots (2.8%), it was the low turnout that hit the headlines (Berman et al 2012, Strickland 2013. With turnout averaging just 14.7% for valid votes across all 41 police areas it was the lowest recorded level of participation at a peacetime non-local government election in the UK with one polling station in Newport, Gwent, visited by no voters at all (Kirkland 2015). The second cycle of PCC elections were held on 5 May 2016 in 40 police force areas.…”