President's Column - Getting Mr Big
“Notwithstanding that some aspects of the pursuit did breach policy, the criticism of the officers for ‘beginning’ the pursuit of a speeding driver, in the first place, is the sort of thing that leaves frontliners shaking their heads.”
Getting to Mr Big
I recently watched an excellent American Police drama called ‘The Wire’.
It’s set in the US city of Baltimore and is about a group of cops who want to go after some bigger criminals than usual in order to dent the local drug and murder crime rates.
They are hampered by politics, bureaucracy and a system requiring statistics be delivered in the required categories.
Anything they achieve is very much in spite of the administrators, not because of them.
Many cop and latterly hospital shows have a similar theme. I often wonder what administrators and bureaucrats think when they see themselves parodied in such roles, and their reaction to how the policies and demands they make are met with cynicism by those trying to get the job done.
A very good example is a recent Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report criticising two police officers for ‘instigating’ a pursuit of what turned out to be a stolen car, which then crashed and injured an innocent person.
Notwithstanding that some aspects of the pursuit did breach policy, the criticism of the officers for ‘beginning’ the pursuit of a speeding driver, in the first place, is the sort of thing that leaves frontliners shaking their heads.
So we only police honest drivers who stop when requested?
Obviously, there are always high-level decisions to be made by those with a global view, and with experience and information not available to those closer to the action.
The advice I give to those making important decisions, which will clearly impact on operational policing, is to imagine they were watching themselves on screen making and justifying what they were doing.
Call it another layer of audit perhaps! Okay, it’s only a TV show and every administrator I know does his or her best.
However, imagining a camera and microphone transmitting to the sergeant’s or detective sergeant’s office, while some high level discussions are taking place in and out of Police, might just help everyone focus.
In a parallel with the plot of the show I am referring to, I wonder if just being happy arresting the offenders for the large number of gang and drug related homicides we are having, without a strategy to disrupt the top players in both areas, means nothing
