For one thing, incidents such as that in Greater Manchester are extremely rare. Overall gun crime, too, remains low. In Scotland during the same period, there were two fatal and non-fatal injuries during the same period, a decade-long low. Additionally, officers, chief constables and politicians alike are wary of upsetting an equilibrium that has been maintained throughout Britain's year policing history.
Arming the force would, say opponents, undermine the principle of policing by consent - the notion that the force owes its primary duty to the public, rather than to the state, as in other countries. This owes much to the historical foundations of British criminal justice, says Peter Waddington, professor of social policy at the University of Wolverhampton.
A force that did not routinely carry firearms - and wore blue rather than red, which was associated with the infantry - was part of this effort to distinguish the early "Peelers" from the Army, Waddington says. Over time, this notion of guns being inimical to community policing - and, indeed, to the popular conception of the Dixon of Dock Green-style bobby - was reinforced. While some in London were issued with revolvers prior to , from that date only trained officers at the rank of sergeant or above were issued with guns, and even then only if they could demonstrate a good reason for requiring one.
Today only a small proportion of officers are authorised to use firearms. None of which implies, of course, that the British police are somehow gun-free. Each police force has its own firearms unit. Police armed response vehicles have been deployed since This was not out of any crazy hope that US police might put down their guns.
In the most armed nation in the world, an unarmed police force would be defenseless. Still, a society not that different from America—in fact the nation that gave birth to America—functions with unarmed police.
How did that happen? And might there be in it any revelation worthy of consideration here? He instilled trust and confidence in the public even while we were under attack by terrorists of several persuasions and the police had to use lethal force.
After leaving policing in , Sir Mark co-founded Hagalaz, which uses new methodologies, gaming technology and crisis leadership expertise to help organizations improve preparedness. He is also Executive Chair of Make Time Count, a new social enterprise digitizing the supervision and reintegration of offenders and other vulnerable groups into communities. He spoke to me from his London home. On average, less than one police officer a year gets murdered in the line of duty in the UK, out of , cops.
The average is high enough—about 50—that the murder of a police officer in the US is not big news. Just yesterday, there was a short article buried in The New York Times about the murder of two police officers in Texas. By contrast, when two young women officers were tragically murdered in Manchester in , that was in the news for ages.
The government set up a task force to coordinate efforts to tackle the organized crime behind the murders. In the States, there is data around officers being killed by their own gun after it was taken by an assailant. An FBI report says that between —, 28 US police officers were killed by their own stolen guns.
The downsides are serious. On average, less than one police officer a year gets murdered in the line of duty in the UK, out of 12, cops. A nonprofit that promotes mental health assistance for US police officers reported a record number of suicides in ——among current and former police officers. Still, there must have been a moment in your career as a police officer when you wished you had a gun? Not really. I was very pleased when he decided to throw it away and keep running rather than turn around.
If we were more militarized and armed in UK policing, maybe he would have turned around and pointed it at me. As it was, he threw it away and ran and I was faster than he was because I was fit and he was a drug addict.
So justice was done. Did I hear you say the percentage of British police officers carrying guns rose slightly under your watch? After looking at terrorist attacks as they were developing in other parts of the world, most notably after the Bataclan attack and other Paris events, we decided we needed a larger number of armed officers to deal with such eventualities.
At that time, I was in charge of national counter-terrorism, and I discussed that with David Cameron and Theresa May and they gave us extra money to arm us.
That might have taken us from 5. It was a big deal for us, but it still left well over 90 percent of our officers unarmed. That small percentage does mean the training levels can be very, very, very high. On my watch, in , we shot dead quite a few terrorists. Do you remember the attack on London Bridge? Police Scotland has said it has no plans to arm more officers despite a survey suggesting more than half would like to have a handgun.
The force said it had "no plans to move away from being an unarmed service" with "armed capability". The same percentage of officers said that they would also like a body-worn camera. He said officers perceived the biggest threats to be from "knives, bats, vehicles and firearms".
He added that this did not necessarily mean routinely arming officers. There are different options that can be looked at.
0コメント