The demands were a response to Coster`s stated belief that police must interact with the community in nuanced ways, which includes the broader principle of consensual policing. Coster also said recently that police “can`t stop us from getting out of the gang problem.” Consent takes many other mundane forms, ranging from reporting crimes and enforcing everyone`s expectations that we obey the law, to electing parties that promise more policing.6 Even inaction can contribute to this public approval. After the bad press they received throughout 2020, the Met released a video justifying their use of force. This video begins with a direct quote from the principles of Reith`s Peel and ends with the request: “We ask you, the public, to support us.” What this support means is: “If you see officers involved in a situation on the street, please step back, give them space. Do not disturb or obstruct officials. Monitoring the police when they use violence or harass people, filming them and questioning their behaviour is an important way to revoke consent. Go through signals to the police that they have public support. A 2021 study described the notion of consensual policing in three terms: “that police officers are `citizens in uniform`; whereas the main task of the police is for the public and not for the State; and that the use of force is the last resort. [16] Another study compares consent policing to “law policing” and states: “Although the basic premise of policing in Britain is consent, the British police system as it currently exists is more of an inverse process, with more power invested in people by law than in policing by consent. As such, policing in Britain has now become policing by law, but one that requires a police force accountable to the public.
[17] Policing by consent is generally defined by the approach of Robert Peel, who, as Home Secretary, founded the Metropolitan Police in 1829 and is summarized in the now famous and widely used “Peelian Principles” – nine brief rules for maintaining police legitimacy and effectiveness. 1 This was not generally the policing model used by the British state to maintain order in its overseas colonies.^ This dependency is a one-way street. The state`s assertion that consent is at the heart of its policing is an admission of what its rule depends on: the goodwill of those under surveillance. Despite the dynamics just described, the police cannot take public approval for granted; You have to work continuously for this. The Metropolitan Police Service runs a dedicated public relations department, the Media and Communications Directorate, which costs millions of pounds a year and manages not only press communications but also more than 600 official Twitter accounts. And as part of the licensing work, every blatant act of police violence that makes headlines is followed by a new set of commitments to restore trust in the police and “rebuild the relationship between police and the community.” The nine principles of policing derive from the General Instructions, which were issued to each new officer of the Metropolitan Police from 1829 onwards. [11] [12] Although Peel discussed the spirit of some of these principles in his speeches and other communications, historians Susan Lentz and Robert Chaires have found no evidence that he compiled an official list. [9] The Home Office indicated that the instructions were probably not written by Peel himself, but by Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne, the joint commissioners of the Metropolitan Police, when it was formed. [11] [12] It should be noted that this is the power of the police resulting from the general approval of the public, as opposed to the power of the state. This does not mean an individual`s consent. No individual can choose to revoke consent from the police or a law. Attempts to cultivate consent are at the heart of the discourse on police racism.
Although the police are not, in principle, an occupying Power, there are clearly areas where this is indeed the case and where little effort is made to portray the police as an extension of the people they control — there are populations whose consent is often not sought. One form of political and social marginalization is being excluded from the public to which the police appeal and being reinterpreted as the threat from which the public must be protected by the police. But this exclusion is not necessarily the most effective way to govern the state. By involving the public and inviting people to consent to policing, people are also placed under the power of the state. Reith`s list does not refer directly to race, but establishes a general principle of equality when it states that the police must “offer friendship to all members of the public, irrespective of their wealth or social position.” The police spend a great deal of time and resources ensuring not only tolerance, but also positive goodwill for those they treat most brutally. Contemporary statistics still show an imbalance in policing by and for Maori. Prominent Maori activists have long called for reform of the justice system as a whole. When the Home Secretary said “police by consent,” he was referring to a long-standing philosophy of British policing known as Robert Peel`s 9 principles of policing. However, there is no evidence of a connection to Robert Peel and was probably developed by the city`s first police commissioners (Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne).
The principles set out in the “General Instructions” issued to each new police officer from 1829 onwards were as follows: This idea of consent remains fundamental to policing in Britain as well as in countries that have adopted this peel model, including New Zealand. No individual can choose to revoke consent from the police or a law. Civil servants acted as a single point of contact between the state and the general public. The legitimacy of this expanded state power has been reflected in public opinion about the police. During the nineteenth century, the police were viewed in a more favorable light by many layers of society. Nevertheless, tensions persisted even in the twentieth century. [1] [13] Modern police forces in liberal democratic states are a new creation. Unlike the standing armies that formed alongside the sovereign state in the 1600s, policing (at least as we understand it in Western democracies) came late in the fight. The other principles of Reith`s list deal with some basic strategies for ensuring this public trust. These include maintaining political impartiality, using force only as a last resort after failed persuasion, acting within the limits of police power, and serving the public on an equal footing, regardless of wealth or social position. Finally, it states that policing should be judged on the basis of “the absence of crime and disorder” and not on the visible importance of policing itself.
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