Budget cuts may not affect crime—but they willchange politics
削減預算可能不會影響犯罪—但能改變政治
Good old-fashioned policing
傳統治安維持方式
POLICING in England and Wales is in crisis and things are about to get nasty. That, at least, iswhat the coppers would have you believe. Ahead of the annual conference this week of thePolice Federation, the policemen's union, Steve White, its leader, cautioned that budget cutscould mean a move towards more“paramilitary” policing, with officers using water cannons,rubber bullets and tear gas. Theresa May, the home secretary, accused him ofscaremongering. Mr White's logic is certainly fuzzy. But his warnings highlight thedeteriorating relations between the police and their traditional allies, the Conservatives.
Police today are warier of heavy tactics than they once were. Chris Donaldson, a retired policeofficer, was on the streets of Tottenham in 1985, when riots broke out around the BroadwaterFarm estate. He was back there in 2011 when disturbances erupted after police shot and killedMark Duggan, a suspected gang member. Three decades ago, police were far more willing—sometimes overly so—to use force, says Mr Donaldson. In the 1980s, at the height of battleswith striking miners, the police “would definitely be instructed to charge at times,” says PeterNeyroud, a former chief constable now at Cambridge University.
Today they are more reluctant to use such strategies. Officers try to to contain publicdisorder with tactics such as kettling, whereby demonstrators are confined to a small area.Rather than leading to paramilitary-style policing, declining ranks of officers could makenegotiation between police and protesters more common. Short on numbers, cops policingprotests will have to behave even more carefully to avoid precipitating trouble. And toughertactics are “largely anathema to the British police”, says Tim Newburn, a criminologist at theLondon School of Economics, with senior officers unconvinced such tactics are effective andcertain they are unpopular.
Even after the coalition government's cuts of 20% to police budgets, and an 11% fall in officernumbers since 2010, by historical standards there are still a lot of police about. Bobbies aremore numerous today than in the mid-1990s, when law-breaking was at its peak.
The police have long resisted reductions to their budgets. But few would have thought thefiercest cuts, harshest criticism and clearest diminution in their political clout would come underthe Tories, so long the party of law and order. With David Cameron, the prime minister,determined to save money and reform what he once called the “last great unreformed publicservice”, the once-close relationship between the Tories and Britain's law-enforcers has soured.