Sunday 9th March

The trouble with the Police is that for far too long they have seen themselves as ‘them’ and us as ‘us’.  And it is being a part of an organisation, an institution, almost a club – that sets them apart.  At least in their minds.  And it used to be mutual, at one time the working classes largely saw the Police as the enemy.  This was partly because of a small degree of petty criminality in a lot of communities and a feeling of being harassed by the Police, but also because the Police have always been about protecting Property as much as protecting People.   Most ordinary people had no property, only the rich had property, and therefore theft of (or damage to) property was almost exclusively committed by those without property.  And in a way it is the same today, only far more people have Property so see the Police as on their side, possibly against those elements of society who want to steal it.

You can see immediately that this is why racial minorities, largely property-less, maybe living on council estates still see the Police as the enemy.  And as most crime (that gets reported) is committed by a small proportion of people from these estates the Police see them as the enemy too.

And so it comes as no surprise that even a few years ago many Police officers were corrupt, and maybe still are.  They regularly ‘stitch’ people up, or try to make the evidence fit their suspects rather than have an open mind.  And in my experience, at least as many crimes are committed by businessmen in the form of false accounting or by traders through collusion – but these are the very people the Police were created to protect, so it is no surprise that most of these ‘crimes’ are unreported and undetected.

None of the above of course detracts from the many honest Policemen who really are doing their best.  But one sad truth is that they will always close ranks and try to protect fellow Police officers rather than admit that they may have been wrong in the first place.