Read on Twitter
Extremely interesting conversation this morning with a front line Met officer that centred on public confidence in policing. A few things stand out - THREAD below.
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First, the value of hearing from the front line why they do things the way they do. Eg the officer discussed routine handcuffing during #stopsearch, citing experiences of close colleagues who had 2x dealt with suspects trying to swallow drugs during stops, one nearly died.
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The officer discussed the balance of risks between angering individuals who are stopped for a search but may have done nothing wrong, and those that would follow a death during police contact.
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The discussion made me reflect on the vital importance of communication: by front line officers, but also that police leaders seem to do a really *bad* job of explaining this stuff to the public (see also the total lack of communication when #spitgaurds were rolled out).
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Second, and related, the mindset drilled into new police recruits (specific to the Met?) that there are only 2 kinds of risk situations they will encounter: high risk and unknown risk, and the implications that has for interactions with people who have done nothing wrong.
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And that this is made more difficult by the lack of continuity of roles and size of London, which mean most officer interactions with individual members of the public are for the first time, with no prior experience to draw on.
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Third - linking to a discussion with a different officer the other day - the importance of officer competence to (positive) confidence, e.g. to slow things down and focus on communication rather than e.g. getting the law and process right (because they are second nature).
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Does training prepare new officers to be sufficiently competent that they have the mental space to communicate effectively and positively? The officer I spoke to the other day described many new officers feeling fearful.
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Fourth - the ongoing policy wrangle around #stopsearch, perhaps characterised at the extremes as between those (both within and outside of policing) who think the powers should be used as much as possible, and those who think they should be used as little as necessary.
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Fifth, the difficult balances around social media videos, complaints and due process, and public confidence, including the potential value of early apologies when things go wrong - but the cultural aversion to admitting things could have been done differently.
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And related, I'd observe the tendency, e.g. by (often anonymous) police users of social media to always have a 'what if' scenario that could explain e.g. why officers in a video acted the way they did. Links to this: https://twitter.com/gmhales/status/1337324825925312512?s=20
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And in today's discussion there was also a link to a point about failed internal projects within policing that are rarely if ever described as such. Does policing have a problem admitting mistakes?
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Lots to digest, especially in the context of the current (renewed) focus on relationships between London's Black communities and the Met.
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Bit of a typo here. As much as possible vs. only as much as necessary (and therefore as little as possible) https://twitter.com/gmhales/status/1337411811180736518?s=19
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I forgot to add: the officer I spoke to today is strongly opposed to the use of s60 #stopsearch powers, arguing that if the intel exists to support an authoritisation, then it's highly likely officers will find other powers - s1, s23 etc - sufficient.
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To expand on this point. An officer I spoke to recently described being involved in a vehicle stop for a search. They were dealing with the driver, who got out of their car quite happily, was being compliant and everything was going fine > https://twitter.com/gmhales/status/1337411806457974785?s=19
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> until a relatively inexperienced colleague went over and butted in, getting 'hands on' the driver and reciting GOWISELY without any other communication, breaking the calm and upsetting the driver who ended up being arrested for resisting a drugs search.
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