Scrap Police and Crime and Commissioners to improve police accountability

Our Director Richard Garside argues that the Independent Police Commission proposal to replace Police and Crime Commissioners with an enhanced role for local authorities is a step in the right direction that deserves support.

Police and Crime Commissioners, he argues, have undermined, rather than enhanced, local democratic oversight of the police. He writes:

'The assumption that a single individual might embody the public interest in relation to the policing of geographically large, culturally diverse police force areas was always a dubious one. Add to this some significant, largely untrammelled powers and a lack of any democratic accountability - bar periodic elections that few appear to want - and the current mess of police governance is wholly unsurprising.'

You can read Richard's post here.