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.
