eBulletin, 29 September 2023
Our latest eBulletin, sent out to those on our mailing list on Friday, 29 September. Sign-up for our free eBulletins here.
More than 1,000 people are shot and killed by the police in the United States every year, according to a database compiled by The Washington Post.
In England and Wales, by contrast, three people were fatally shot by the police in the twelve months to March 2023. I am not aware of any fatal shootings by police officers in Scotland and Northern Ireland during the same period.
I can only imagine the grief, anguish and anger any fatal police shooting must cause family members and friends. We should always aim for no fatal police shootings across the UK, as has been the case in some years.
Gun carrying and deployment is routine among the thousands of federal, state and local police forces in the US. In the UK, very few police officers carry guns. The role itself is voluntary and does not come with additional pay.
The deployment of armed officers in the UK is also subject to more stringent guidelines and review than is the case in the United States.
These are some of the reasons why the number of fatal police shootings are so much lower in the UK than in the USA. Given this, the recent manoeuvrings around the police officer facing a murder charge for the fatal shooting last year of Chris Kaba should concern us all.
Following the officer’s court appearance last week, a number of police officers in London stepped back from armed duty.
While one can sympathise with the dilemma – most of us are not in jobs where a split-second, high-pressure decision might result in a death – it is vital that any use by the police of lethal force is rigorously and transparently investigated.
If an armed police officer is not comfortable with the scrutiny that comes with the role, it is certainly for the best that they step back, permanently, from armed duty.
After the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, intervened this week, in a manner that some argued risked prejudicing the trial, the Solicitor General issued a media advisory. This followed a contempt of court warning issued by the judge in charge of the murder case.
The Home Secretary has also announced a review into armed policing. If this review is to be useful, it should take into account the conclusions of the Casey Review into the standards of behaviour and internal culture of the Metropolitan police.
The review, commissioned and published by the Met, was damning in its assessment of the Specialist Firearms Command, MO19.
One anonymous witness described MO19 as “the most toxic, racist, sexist place I’ve ever worked…it’s just an unbelievable place.”
Casey herself summarised MO19 as: “Well resourced, with elitist attitudes and toxic cultures of bullying, racism, sexism and ableism, normal rules do not seem to apply or be applied in MO19.”
She called for “higher vetting and behaviour standards in its specialist armed teams to identify any conduct issues and to keep out those drawn to these roles for the wrong reasons,” and for such vetting to be applied retrospectively.
Far from being over-scrutinised, the Met’s armed police officers are not scrutinised enough.
Richard Garside
Director
Longer reads
Don’t close Victorian prisons: We really enjoyed this counter-intuitive and intriguing take by Frances Crook, now of the Commission on Political Power but known to many as the former Chief Executive of The Howard League for Penal Reform. Rather than tear down Victorian prisons, she argues, we should stop building new ones, maintain properly the ones we have, and reduce significantly the prison population.
What do you think about Frances Crook’s piece. If you fancy writing a response, check out our contributor guidelines here.
“One of the decent screws”: In August, Mike Guilfoyle mused on the potential positive influence a good prison officer can have. Read more about his encounter with ‘Mr M.’, while visiting a client in a Young Offender Institution.
In the interests of justice: Mike followed up in September with a reflection on the importance of probation officers going that extra mile to prevent an unnecessary prison sentence.
Why not a marriage of convenience: One thing abolitionists and reformers can agree on is that the Metropolitan Police Service needs a shake-up. Facing challenges on multiple fronts, should the force be reformed, or abolished? Roger Grimshaw and Tony Jefferson make the case that the choice between abolition and reform is a false one.
What’s the Home Office trying to hide?: As part of a joint project with StopWatch, looking at young adult safety, we asked the Home Office about their plans to evaluate their two pilot programmes rolling out serious violence reduction orders (SVROs). Read Holly Bird’s piece on the difficulties obtaining information – which the Home Office acknowledge they do hold – about the evaluation of SVROs and the implications of such lack of transparency.
News
Hold on: Unfortunately we have had to postpone the launch of our planned new series of ‘Last month in criminal justice’, due to unforeseen circumstances. We’ll let you know the new launch date when we get our ducks in a row.
In the media: We’ve been busy over the summer providing commentary, expertise and opinion in various media outlets. Richard spoke to The Telegraph about the Lucy Letby case and anonymity orders, appeared on Talk TV with Mike Graham about current crime trends, and offered his views on the BBC and Channel 4 about Home Office instruction to the police to “follow every reasonable line of inquiry” in relation to burglary, theft and other property offences.
Our Research director, Roger Grimshaw wrote in Inside Time about the continued injustice of the Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence. We also contributed to a Guardian piece on the sentence here, a story also picked up by Inside Time.
We’re glad to see that Kate Hollern MP wrote about IPP and referred to the ongoing work by us and our friends UNGRIPP, in her recent column in the Lancashire Telegraph.
We are recruiting for new trustees
Our Trustee Board is expanding and we’re inviting applications from people who want to support our aims, share our commitments and grow our impact. We are particularly interested in hearing from people for whom collaboration and creative problem-solving are important and people who relish the opportunity to make significant contributions to a high profile, sometimes controversial and always questioning, national organisation.
The closing date is Friday, 27 October. More information here.
Partner news
Suresh Grover, from one of our partner organisations, The Monitoring Group, will be part of panel at the Ricky Reel Memorial Lecture on Saturday, 21 October. He will be speaking alongside a number of others, including Ricky Reel’s mother, Sukhdev Reel, Michael Mansfield KC, and John McDonnell MP.
Ricky Reel died in controversial circumstances in 1997. Despite evidence that he and his friends were racially abused and assaulted, the investigation into his death was marked by a litany of police failures. Indeed, the Metropolitan Police diverted resources to spy on the Reel family and the Justice for Ricky Reel campaign.
More information on the Ricky Reel Memorial Lecture here.
Suresh Grover is also part of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Violence in Leicester, which is investigating the reasons behind the serious violence between South Asians from Hindu and Muslim backgrounds that shook the city in the summer and autumn of 2022. You can find out more about the Commission and its work here.
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