Commentary
| Date | 01 April 2002 |
| Published date | 01 April 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X0207500201 |
| Subject Matter | Commentary |
The
Police
Journal
COMMENTARY
Regular readers of this Commentary will know that the identi-
fication and separating out of police core and non-core activities
continues to be a particular area of interest in this Journal. At the
heart of this debate, and let's remember it is a debate which
commenced in the Thatcher administration of the 1980s, are two
fundamental questions. First, should the police service continue
to try to meet all of the demands made by members of the public
or can some of those services be delivered by other organisa-
tions? Secondly, is it necessary for individual police forces to
undertake all of the tasks associated with running an effective
and efficient organisation or can any of those functions be
outsourced or delivered in other ways? The essence here is to try
and make the police service more effective and efficient by
making better use of resources. The critical question in this
regard, which remains unanswered, is: should police officers be
employed to undertake anything other than activities which are
concerned with crime or public disorder reduction?
I am prompted to return to this debate for a number of
reasons. First, there does appear to be an acceptance by some
forces that roles traditionally carried out by police officers can be
undertaken by personnel other than sworn officers. For example,
the Metropolitan Police Service in London recently announced a
new Command and Control Centre involving the reduction of 32
locations involved in call handling and messaging to three. More
significantly the new call centre will be staffed by specialist call-
handlers thus freeing up approximately 800 officers to return to
front-line operational duties.
Secondly, I have recently been working on a project which
has involved examining a number of police organisations that are
looking to deliver policing services in a way that is very different
to the traditional police station-supported patrol. In Queensland,
Australia, for example, the use of Police Beat Shopfronts has
transformed the State's approach to community-based policing.
The Police Journal, Volume 75 (2002) 91
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