Commentary
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6403700601 |
| Date | 01 June 1964 |
| Published date | 01 June 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Commentary |
Who"
Instructs
" the Police ?
We observe atendency nowadays for persons usually careful in
their choice
of
words to urge
that-"
instructions"
should be given
to the police with regard to the enforcement
or
otherwise
of
the law.
Questions in Parliament after the Fanny Hill case suggested
that
instructions should be given to the police (and to the Director
of
Public Prosecutions) on the alternative procedures concerning porno-
graphy. A special article in The Times, criticizing rent tribunals and
"Rachmanism "postulated a need
for"
the police to be instructed
to caution landlords when asked
to
do so by tribunal-protected
tenants,
or
by their lay or legal advisers." A sessions court, awarding
costs to motor-drivers acquitted on drink-driving charges, has wished
to vary the Metropolitan Police orders respecting medical evidence
in such cases.
It
may not be
out
of
place to remember what, under the law, are the
status and the responsibility
of
the police in this context. They reside
in the historic and impartial office
of
Constable, aposition defined at
length before the Royal Commission by witnesses representing the
Association
of
Chief
Police Officers. After the Commissioners had
examined the authorities
and
considered this
and
much other evi-
dence they concluded
that"
the present legal status
of
the
constable"
was"
appropriate to his
functions"
and
made no recommendation
to alter it.
Co-Education
Police officers are so accustomed to being regarded as old-fashioned
that
they will be rather amused to find
that
they are sometimes
manifestly abreast
of
modern thinking.
The
divergent views now
being expressed on the desirability
of
public schools and university
colleges, hitherto exclusively male, being open to pupils
of
both sexes
are continuing an old debate which was long ago settled in the Police
Service. Police training, since the opening
of
the district centres in
1945-46, has always been firmly on a co-educational basis.
That
it is so is in a great measure due to the fact
that
Mr. Chuter
Ede, then
Home
Secretary, brought into the Police Division
of
the
Home
Office a woman
of
exceptionally single-minded, dynamic
and
persuasive character.
The
late Barbara Denis de Vitre knew
that
if
policemen and policewomen were to work together successfully
their vocational training should be at all levels a
joint
enterprise.
June 1964 252
To continue reading
Request your trial