Police Met with controversy

Alex Jennings become a stream. Rowley has warned that in the coming weeks and months, two or three Met Police officers per week are expected to appear in court on criminal charges, including cases of violence against women and girls. Evidently, the Met will look worse before it can get be er, but Rowley will hope the public can see him confronting the issues and finally purging his force of its toxic culture, in contrast to his predecessor Cressida Dick’s claim that there was only the occasional “bad’un” in the force. performing officers, overhauling the current system which many say sets the bar for expulsion too high.

Content warning: This article contains references to sexual violence.

“The police are the public, and the public are the police.” When Sir Robert Peel, the founder of modern policing, said this in 1829, he envisioned a civil force which derived its legitimacy and effectiveness through public support rather than physical duress. Yet the idea of ‘policing by consent’ now seems more futile than ever given the deep sense of disgrace and inadequacy which surrounds British policing today.

With recorded crime in England and Wales at a 20-year high and public confidence in the local police forces continuing to decline, it’s no surprise that seven police forces in England were placed in special measures by the watchdog last year. Clearly, policing needs significant reform to reverse collapsing trust, and it must surely start with the largest and most prominent failing force: the Metropolitan Police.

Commissioner Mark Rowley pledges to fight “toxic culture” within force Labour on asylum seekers : “Nothing is happening”

Are Structural

There are structural changes which could help the Met’s performance as well, with some arguing a return to neighbourhood policing is the most effective way to cut crime and restore public trust. Until 2018, all 32 London boroughs had a chief superintendent in charge of local policing, but many boroughs have since been merged under single police command units. If the Met returned to a more localised strategy, with more decision-making at a local level and a crackdown on the most common crimes such as burglaries, antisocial behaviour and fraud, the force’s standing could soon be put on the road to recovery.

Deputy Politics Editor

After coming under immense pressure, the Home Office have now revealed that 440 of the 4,600 child migrants housed in government hotels have vanished since July 2021. This, terrifyingly, puts each asylum seeking child at around a 10% chance of disappearance. In spite of efforts to locate the children, 200 apparently remain missing.

So, where are they all going? The Government have been tentative to discuss the possibility of these children being absorbed into organised crime, despite significant data that suggests this is the reality. The Observer published a report in late January which concluded: “Most of the children disappear into county lines”. Such findings are becoming harder to ignore for the Home Office, who originally claimed kidnapping claims were “not true”, but have now begun to name people-smugglers as a chief cause of the disappearances.

MP for Hove, Peter Kyle, challenged Jenrick on his commitment to the wellbeing of child migrants. Kyle pointed to 96 such children who had been accommodated in a hotel in his own constituency, and said, having visited the hotel, “To suggest that these are specialist facilities is ignorant.”

Kyle went on to say, “The uncomfortable truth for us is if one child who is related to one of us in this room went missing, the world would stop. But in the community I represent, a child has gone missing. Then five went missing. Then a dozen went missing. Then 50 went missing. And currently, today, 76 are missing, and nothing is happening.” Met with a round of applause, Kyle’s words were potent and compelling.

The revelation of these missing children comes after a winter of controversy surrounding the housing conditions of asylum seekers.

If Sir Mark Rowley, the Met’s recently appointed commissioner, is to turn around the force’s reputation, he will have to begin by enforcing discipline throughout the organisation, driving out the culture of impunity and bigotry which appears to have taken root.

The murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer who was nicknamed “the rapist” by his colleagues; the contempt for the bodies of two women stabbed to death; the strip-search of Child Q. No doubt, the Met has been ridden by scandal for some time. The recent conviction of another officer, David Carrick, on 49 charges relating to more than 80 sexual offences, highlights the appalling behaviour to which the Met has turned a blind eye for too long. In October, it was revealed that more than 1,800 officers and staff had faced multiple allegations of misconduct since 2013, but only 13 of those people were sacked.

What has so far been a trickle of public revelations of criminality in the Met, though, could soon

However, a further problem for the Met is that the majority of good officers are demoralised: a result not just of the scandals which have consumed the force in recent years, but also a consequence of being over-stretched and understaffed.

The Met is currently a quasinational police force, meaning it is constantly balancing the need to deal with the most serious, national and international crimes, including terrorism, with fighting crime in London. If the burden of being a national force could be separated from the day-to-day policing of London, many argue the Met could be more effective in tackling crime and restoring public confidence in policing.

But if more crimes are to be solved, more officers will be needed too. Like many police forces across the country, the Met is still working to regain the staff lost to austerity measures introduced by the Conservativeled coalition after 2010. Yet when it comes to recruiting police officers, it is often argued that government quotas are unhelpfully forcing the swift employment of substandard candidates, sometimes without adequate ve ing of prospective officers.

If the Met are to improve the quality of their policing, it needs to only hire right-minded people who are up to the job. The Government can also help by making it easier to dismiss poorly

As Britain’s most high-profile constabulary, the Met should provide an example of modern policing to the rest of the country and lead the way in restoring public confidence in civil law enforcement. Rowley may only be in the initial months of his tenure as commissioner, but for the sake of British policing, he needs to succeed.

A Home Office spokesperson has since released a statement claiming, “The wellbeing of children in our care is an absolute priority,” following this with, “In the concerning occasion when a child goes missing, local authorities work closely with agencies, including the police, to urgently establish their whereabouts.”

Robert Jenrick, the Minister for Immigration, appeared in Parliament on 24th January to answer emergency questions regarding the disappearances. Jenrick reiterated the Home Office statement, and argued that, “many who go missing are traced and located.”

But for many, Jenrick’s simple self-assurance in the face of tragedy has been unsatisfactory. The Labour

The Manston asylum centre, which could hold 1,600 migrants for 24 hours at a time, had been housing 4,000 migrants for weeks on end until December 2022. Diseases such as scabies and MRSA spread through the camp, alongside reports of violence and drugmisuse.

Chris Philp, the Minister for Policing, defended the centre last year, saying “If people choose to enter a country illegally and unnecessarily, it’s a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions.” Critics would claim that migrants don’t have to arrive through conventional means to legally claim asylum, and that fleeing war and persecution wouldn’t qualify as unnecessary. Even so, the UK’s capacity to ensure a reasonable duty-of-care to all asylum seekers remains in doubt. The pressure atop Westminster can, and will, only continue to grow.