We are currently seeing widespread trouble across the United Kingdom, and there are a variety of reasons being put forward. Dis-satisfaction at the police and their actions, budgetary cuts to social and welfare services, political inaction in the face of economic disaster, falling incomes, rising unemployment, disaffection amongst inner city youth, anger at the state of the nation, and I'm quite sure that some or all of these have their impacts, but they are not justifications. Until 9pm last night the police in Birmingham had orders not to engage looters and rioters except in protection of personal safety. This meant that looters felt that they had free rein to act as they wanted and, in my opinion gave completely the wrong message. As we have seen, cctv footage has been widely used to arrest looters with 24 hours, but this is not the point. The damage done to property and livelihoods is tremendous, as is the harm done to communities and societies in general.
From the outset it should have been clear, indeed was clear to many people that there was a lot of opportunist thievery that could and should have been prevented. By actively engaging looters and rioters things would almost certainly have been more heated initially, but would have been resolved far more quickly. The use of rubber bullets and baton charges would have dispersed opportunist groups immediately and left a far smaller hard core of troublemakers who could have been mopped up quickly. I understand that the police are under pressure, but this is the reason for the title of the post. Tough decisions needed to be made, consistently need to made on a situation by situation basis, indeed as situations develop. More importantly these decisions need to be made quickly, and made by unit commanders on the ground in possession of the facts.
If we think about the way that military units operate in similar urban combat situations, we see that the squad leader on the ground has authority to stand off or to engage as the situation requires, assessments are made quickly and effectively and orders are followed instantly. I am not suggesting that a military solution is the way forward, but certainly there are things to be learned across disciplines. I can also understand tha there is a level of fear amongst police officers as there is little backup or support if they make a mistake and members of the public are injured or worse, but this is a consequence of the failure of our political leaders and feeds into the difficulties in taking tough decisions by leaving the police feeling isolated and unsupported. This feeling is in part because people have generally lost faith in the police.
In the current climate we need a fresh start, and fresh approach whereby we stand firmly behind our police forces, letting them know that we will still support them even when they make an occasional mistake, or there are bad apples that need to be removed. Only by acting in this way will we regain an effective police force and the control that is needed. You can imagine having a manager who encourages you to take risks, to try things, to think outside the box and allows you to do this by making sure that you know that they have your back covered no matter what as long as you are doing your best. Now imagine working for a manger who, you know, is going to stab you in the back the first oppotrunity they get....result? your performance drops, you are constantly looking over your shoulder, you don't achieve much at all....which is better?
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