Reform After Casey – The International Context

The Casey review called for the MPS to improve the protection it offers to women and children, “re-invest in and reprioritise frontline policing”, move rapidly to end discrimination in internal processes, radically enhance vetting and disciplinary procedures, and improve its leadership and accountability.

This is of course not the first time that British police organisations have faced calls for change after official investigations. The Scarman, Macpherson, and Winsor reports, to name just a few, all proposed significant reform.

Yet, Casey feels different to anything since at least Macpherson, in terms both of its evisceration of MPS culture and the widespread reform programme it seeks to advance. There is a real sense that ‘this cannot go on’. It is tempting to say that the MPS is drinking in the last chance saloon, although as things the stand the alternative, should its ‘Turnaround plan’ be seen to fail, is far from clear.

Equally, on an international level, British policing is not unique in terms of repeated challenges to its activities and indeed its legitimacy. Events such as those this year in France and Italy, or the perma-crisis of race in US policing, have shown time and again that the police organisations are very frequently in urgent need of reform. And the issues involved are often the same: racism, chauvinism, misogyny, corruption, malpractice.

An obvious response to the change programme that the MPS is (yet again) embarking on is to look for points of comparison elsewhere. What can we learn from similar developments in other jurisdictions?

Yet, such examples can be surprisingly hard to identify, and international points of comparison are rare. Despite widespread evidence of police behaviours similar to those uncovered by Casey, reform efforts targeted specifically at such issues seem to be unusual.

To be clear, major police reforms have taken place multiple times, and in many different places. First, there have been primarily political reforms associated with state-building or post-conflict situations. Examples include the South African Police Service, the Bosnian Police, and police reform in various post-Soviet states.

Second, and relatedly, there have been reform programmes aimed specifically at countering corruption and links between police and serious organized crime groups, as in Georgia and Singapore, or the Knapp Commission in New York. Often at stake here is the state’s ability to control police.

Third, there have been many ‘centralizing’ reform programmes aimed at improving efficiency (and cutting costs) – these, again, frequently involve shifts in the relationship between police and the wider state.

Issues fundamental to the Casey review, such as police culture and internal patterns of discrimination, have not been central to many of processes outlined above. There have of course been reform efforts more similar to Casey.

In the US consent decrees have been used in many cities, including Ferguson and Chicago. These are binding legal agreements between the federal government and specific police departments found to have engaged in patterns of misconduct that often look very familiar from a UK perspective, revolving often around violation of constitutional rights, racial and ethnic disproportionality, and the use of force.

Research has suggested that consent decrees can be effective in achieving desired ends, although this is contested, not least on the grounds that it is unclear what happens when the decree expires. To underline one pertinent point, consent decrees are externally mandated (by the Department of Justice), specifically tailored and legally enforceable. The police departments involved must comply with a set of court enforced reforms.

Closer to home, the formation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) may also hold some lessons for London. While clearly stemming from change at the state level, the process of turning the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) into the PSNI paid close attention to cultural issues. There was a significant emphasis on increasing the number off Catholic officers in the force, and the Patten report also discussed the representation of other minority groups, and women.

Central to the whole process was a recognition that to legitimize policing there must be close attention not just to ‘what’ is done but also ‘how’ and by ‘whom’.

What unites the US and Northern Irish examples (as well as many of the reform processes noted above) is external political pressure. Rather unlike the current situation in London, national and indeed supra-national political bodies are often intimately involved, and are ready and willing to invoke the law to achieve their ends – up to and including, as in Northern Ireland, radical change to existing legal frameworks.

Conversely, the lack of political pressure in countries such as Italy and France would seem to explain the relative inaction there. Put bluntly, it is plausible that governments in these countries, and surely elsewhere, have had little interest in curbing malpractice, and may indeed be invested in supporting police against charges of poor practice or discrimination.

In the absence of external pressure police organizations, like all large bureaucracies, default to a position of reproducing themselves over time while fighting off external threats to the(ir) status quo.

Oftentimes, then, change to policing occurs in tandem with change to the state, or indicates and implicates a change to the relationship between the state and the police. Even when the process is centred on police, wider state action seems key to success. Indifference to, indeed collusion with, police malpractice on the part of government and other important actors more or less precludes meaningful change.

Consider, by contrast, the situation currently playing out in London. The Casey report and the police response is, unusually, an in situ effort directed towards changing policing from the inside. The MPS requested the review, and has provided the immediate response to it. While external actors are plainly involved – most obviously the Mayor’s Officer for Policing and Crime – central government has taken an arm’s-length position (to say the least). The courts are not thus far involved, although there is currently judicial action in related areas, including the Undercover Policing Enquiry.

What does all this mean for the MPS, and the Casey report? On the one hand, the fact that police have taken the lead, at least at this juncture, seems a positive development. That ‘mainstream’ discourse in the UK is such that actors inside and outside the police are willing to admit to the existence and urgency of problems seems a necessary if not sufficient step on the path to meaningful change. Certainly, this readiness to admit something is wrong contrasts favourably to many official responses to the recent rioting in France.

On the other hand, the lack of wider political pressure is concerning. If external actors are not prepared to step in and bring with them the force of the law and other resources, then the concern must be that genuine change will be difficult to achieve. There is a risk that after a period of busyness the MPS reverts to previously established modes and activities without meaningful change having been achieved.

The most important conclusion to be drawn from international comparison is thus, perhaps, that police reform is too important to be left to the police (and the immediate, local, political frameworks that sit around policing, which have over decades allowed many US departments to literally get away with murder). A much larger, collective, effort, which includes central government, seems a necessity.

That being the case, a compelling reason for scepticism about the current moment in London is that the present government, and the wider political apparatus, looks singularly unwilling to – indeed incapable of – engaging in the ways likely to be required.

Ben Bradford is professor of global cities policing and director of the Centre for Global City Policing, at University College London. He would like to thank Liam O’Shea for his extremely helpful comments on an earlier draft of this piece.

This is the second in a series of planned articles discussing the Casey Review of the Metropolitan Police. If you are interested in submitting a piece, please contact our research director, Dr Roger Grimshaw.