Dealing with riots

The controversies that have surfaced after the London riots are likely to leave a lasting impact on policing in the United Kingdom.

We haven't talked the language of zero tolerance enough, but the message is getting through.

- British Prime Minister David Cameron to Sunday Telegraph, August 14, 2011.

I want police officers to hear this message loud and clear: as long as you act within reason and the law, I will never damn you if you do.

- U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May on August 16, 2011.

IN its long history of more than 150 years, I do not think the Metropolitan Police Service (Met) of London has experienced the kind of turbulence it is now going through. The London riots have been more or less contained. The violence that had spread beyond the city has also been doused. So far so good. What one currently sees as the aftermath of the unfortunate happenings is dismaying. A number of controversies have surfaced as a sequel to the disorder, and these are likely to have a lasting impact on policing in the whole country.

First, there was until recently a distinct empathy between politicians and the police in the United Kingdom, far more ethical and professional than that in India. This was a relationship based on mutual respect. There are signs during the past few days that this is slowly yielding place to discord, mistrust and shades of acrimony at the senior levels.

Avoiding an open attack on the police, the government (David Cameron and Theresa May) has aired views in public suggesting that the police top brass had perhaps mishandled the riots. This has been followed by an equally controversial debate on the fundamentals of policing, especially, on what tactics the police should use in times of the kind of chaos that was seen in London and other major cities recently.

Perceptions of the average politician seem to be at variance with those of the professional policeman. There is a definite conflict between the two sides over the right police mechanics to be employed for various occasions. A third controversy is the widely reported preference of the Conservative leadership for a United States policeman to head the Met, which has now to do with an acting chief, Tim Godwin, who filled the breach after the premature exit of Sir Paul Stephenson in July, following the Rupert Murdoch controversy involving editorial complicity at his News of the World tabloid with hacking of telephones by reporters hunting for information. There were allegations of unsatisfactory investigation into this affair by the Met, and charges of corruption on the part of a few Met officers, who were possibly peddling information on a regular basis to various journalists.

The growing disconnect between the government and the police arising from all this may have a profound impact on the quality of policing in a country that had always stood out for clinically professional and honest policing, where the citizen always respected the beat constable. The latter is the rank from which all police leaders will have to rise to the top rank (Chief Constable, equivalent to our Director General of Police) in the U.K. Police, unlike in India, where an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, who starts at the middle rung of the hierarchy, holds the monopoly for heading both State and Central forces.

Central to recent happenings is the near unanimity in the U.K. that the police did not exactly distinguish themselves while tackling the riots. Television images brought out vividly the strange response of the police in standing by and watching as anti-social elements were going on the rampage, first in London, and later in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol. The hoodlums freely indulged in looting and arson, unchecked by the guardians of law.

What particularly incensed the public were the killing in London of a motorist who was found dead in his car and the mowing down of three youths of Asian origin in Birmingham by a vehicle driven by a hoodlum, who could not stand the defiance of these three men and many other members of the local community putting up a human barricade to protect their commercial establishments. There is nothing to indicate that the police connived with the looters, as it happens in many countries. It is also not unusual for the British police to be extremely circumspect and take every precaution not to provoke a mob demonstrating in public. The strategy adopted on such occasions is known as kettling, which confines a misbehaving crowd to a specific locality, so that such conduct is effectively localised and not allowed to fan into other neighbourhoods.

However controversial this tactic might be, it had worked well in the past. But the public were horrified that the police chose to adopt the same method during the recent mob attacks, without quickly disabling the hundreds of criminals who indulged in wanton acts of robbery and arson. Those who went on the rampage were not the typical political demonstrators trying to convey a point to the establishment, and against whom kettling was undoubtedly a reasonably effective weapon. These were downright criminals motivated by mercenary considerations, and who wanted to help themselves to freebies such as clothing, footwear, jewellery, high class liquor and electronic gadgets at the expense of shopkeepers who were modest in means.

The police seemed to have overlooked the inescapable distinction between those fighting for a political and social cause and those whose only objective was to make a quick buck by resorting to downright illegal acts. This is now the debate: Did the police misread the situation? Were they guilty of soft policing?

While the Prime Minister and Home Secretary (the equivalent of our Home Minister) have grave reservations about the police performance, top policemen deny that they had failed, and that the politicians were simply passing the buck to cover up their own failures. The debate will never be won. This is because it is a grey area between the policy formulation role of political executives and the tactical field function of policemen.

The latter can claim that they had no free hand to handle an explosive situation and that all their powers existed only on paper. The police believe that a politician had an escape route through taking the position that his authority stopped with laying down the policy, and it was for the police to execute it swiftly and imaginatively. While the legal position is the same in India, we have surrendered ourselves to a situation, wherein there is hardly a distinction between government and the police.

As I write this column, I see a member of the Union government claiming on national television that the decision to arrest social activist Anna Hazare, a few days ago, was purely that of the Delhi Police, and the government had no say in the matter. This I thought hardly carried conviction even among the fiercest supporters of the establishment. The U.K. Police are also possibly reaching this position, one that is compounded by the conservative determination to have elected commissioners to oversee the police in each of the 40-odd police forces, on the plea that such a move would make the police more accountable to the community. It is an entirely different matter that many senior policemen do not agree with such a proposition. They fear greater politicisation of policing. The experiment, to be introduced a year from now, will be watched by many of us in India with great interest.

A third controversy is the deification of Bill Bratton, the former New York and Los Angeles Police Commissioner, with whom the loosely used concept of zero tolerance policing is associated. Bratton brought down crime successfully in New York City in the late 1990s and later handled the notorious criminal gangs in Los Angeles. He is an iconic figure in the U.S, and David Cameron has never concealed his admiration for him. Possibly the relationship has become stronger lately, with Cameron believing that a radical solution was demanded by the obvious decline in policing standards in London.

There have been rumours that the Prime Minister would like to see Bratton taking over the stewardship of the Met. If this was carried through, it would have been an unusual step of installing a foreigner in a pivotal U.K. government position.

As I pen this column, there is no report that Bratton has in fact applied for the position at the Met, you will have to formally file your application if you are to be considered for the position and this clears the air for local contenders. Whatever is the position, it is abundantly clear that those in the reckoning are only a second choice of the Prime Minister. This is not exactly a morale-raising fact for those in the ranks of the police forces in the country. It could take a long time to restore confidence between the political executive and the police brass in the country.

There are lessons to be learnt here for the Indian Police. Both the public and the political executive would measure police effectiveness on the basis of quick responses. Any sloth and an unwillingness to use force to quell disorder will evoke critical comments and penal action against field officers. There is also the need to constantly review tactics so that new ideas are generated.

The response to Maoist terror is one example of the Indian Police still grappling with the problem and, in the process, losing valuable manpower. Fundamental to these is the popular expectation of honest and apolitical policing that will stick to professionalism rather than go by political expediency.