The Public Safety Foundation
The Public Safety Foundation’s Founder, Rory Geoghegan, writes for The Telegraph:
Britain can’t go on like this. Politicians, whether elected Police and Crime Commissioners or the government in Westminster, all have a vital role to play in fixing the issues, but policing must also own up to the challenges.
Police chiefs have a huge opportunity to improve their forces, but they must be prepared to stand up to social justice activists and a dominant orthodoxy that tells them that crime is like the weather – something to be reported, rather than changed.
They need to improve the quality of recruitment, training, uniform, vehicles, kit, buildings and technology. They must demand better across the board and do better for a beleaguered front line. They must declare war on the mediocrity that holds policing back, makes the job much harder than it should be, and causes some of the best to flee policing in growing numbers.
Despite everything that seems to be going awry in Britain, there remains a special relationship between the British public and the idea, if not always the reality, of a police constable. The relationship is severely strained, there can be no denying that. But there is still time for it to be rebuilt.
It will require hard work that focuses on driving out the incompetent and the corrupt – and rallying the professional, hard-working and the dedicated. Whatever else we may think about policing, we should not lose sympathy for the good cops. They are among the best of us.”
