This week it has been reported that the Prime Minister is worried about consolidating the police forces because of its effect on devolution. The proposal is to reduce the existing thirty-nine English forces to as few as eight ‘super forces’, according to a report that is supposed to have been written by Lord Hogan Howe, the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, although not yet published.
His argument is that the “scale, complexity and sophistication” of modern gangs means that small forces are unable to deal with the level of crime that they face. The drafting in of two hundred extra policemen to Cleveland in August is seen as an example of the inability of small constabularies to cope.
This is a very 1960s argument, where big was assumed to be more efficient and cost-saving, but often it has not worked that way. Larger organisations require more bureaucracy and are sometimes less well adapted to local circumstances.
There is also the point that there are different types of policing. Some are fairly straightforward, routine patrolling, traffic, shoplifting and other minor crimes, while other areas are much more complex, such as gang crime or terrorism. These require different levels of sophistication. Simpler forms of policing are ones of priority rather than absolute necessity, but subject themselves well to local democracy. However, the more complex issues are essentially national, and may well involve Special Branch or MI5 that are broadly under central control.
