The weekend’s shameful behaviour of the Police and ambulance service to the Singh family of Manurewa prompted me to have an overdue look at Annette King’s Policing Bill, reported back from the Law and Order Select Committee this week. The Bill too is deplorable. Somewhere in the last 15 years New Zealand policing has lost its way, and instead of trying to correct that, the Bill cements in place the new model.

We needed inspiring words. There are fears of political corruption at the highest levels in the police (Labour’s immunity from prosecution), and headlines run for months revealing bad character and incompetence. The times call for a Bill with an uplifting vision of policing.

The Bill goes in the opposite direction. There is absolutely nothing in it about selfless service, nothing to inspire, nothing to recognise that without public willingness to enforce the law, and to take risks themselves there can never be enough police to protect the helpless and the innocent from thugs. Nothing in it recognises that we ordinary citizens will come to the aid of the Police when they need it, only if we feel there is reciprocity, only if we feel that we ought to, because that is what the Police are willing to do for us.

There is nothing to balance the last two decade’s dreary elevation of personal safety above all other values, nothing to put back on their pedestals “foolish” courage, and initiative, nothing to honour the nobility of self sacrifice.

Of course these values have not been lost among emergency service workers. The problem is that their bosses value other things more.

This is a big topic. I’ll set the scene in this post and conclude later. I’ve always tried not to criticise if I could not propose a constructive solution. That was how I worked as an MP. So we’ll get to my remedy last.

We inherited from Britain a then novel and fantastically successful civilian model of policing. Sir Robert Peel was determined to avoid the evils from using the soldiery to repress crime. Essentially the Police were there to stimulate, and to ensure, citizen self policing of civil behaviour. Constables were neighbours doing full-time what every decent citizen could and would do when necessary.

The “Peelers” were to command public support by moral claim.  The claim was to be founded on their courtesy and respect for even the most humble of citizens, and the law. Like firemen, they gained it, for the obvious devotion to duty, and willingness to sacrifice themselves for others.

Here’s the philosohy, extracted from  the influential 1829 formulation of Sir Robert Peel’s nine principles of policing, by the first (London) Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne.

1  To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2 To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3 To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4 …

5 To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but  …, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6 ….

7 To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8 ….

To my astonishment the Cabinet Policy Committee Minute of 19 September 2007 shows a government poised to rejuvenate that model. In approving the drafting instructions for the Policing Bill they record:

6 agreed to recognise that policing is a shared responsibility, which takes place in a networked and cooperative policing environment, by referencing in legislation the fact that:

1. all citizens can help uphold the law, keep the peace, prevent crime and crashes, and bring offenders to justice;

2. local authorities can work with police to support the social well-being of communities….

8 agreed that the following principles of policing in New Zealand should guide the drafting of the Policing Bill:

•1.    reflecting the tradition of policing with public support and cooperation

•2.    …

So how did those instructions emerge in the Bill?

Here are the relevant extracts from  the Policing Bill as reported back by Parliament’s Law and Order Select Committee this week:

8 Principles This Act is based on the following principles:

(a) ….

(b) effective policing relies on a wide measure of public support and confidence:

(c) ….

10 Roles of others acknowledged

(1) It is acknowledged that important and valuable roles in the performance of the functions of the Police are played by:

(a) public agencies or bodies

(b) the holders of certain statutory offices (for example Maori wardens); and

(c) parts of the private sector (e.g. the private security industry).

(2) It is also acknowledged that it is often appropriate, or necessary, for the Police to perform some of its functions in cooperation with individual citizens, or agencies, or bodies other than the Police.

The Bill has turned Sir Robert Peel’s principles on their head. Instead of public involvement being at the heart of policing, the public are in the subordinate role of “support”. We are to have “confidence”.  Instead of steering Police toward partnership with the public, so that support is mutual, it “acknowledges” that Police are part of a state apparatus which is to work together to rule the rest of us.

The grudging “acknowledgement” that sometimes police must work in “cooperation” with individuals is a mockery of the principles which so distinguished British citizenship and policing from the continental models 170 years ago.