Destruction of Gaming Machines
| Date | 01 April 1954 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X5402700207 |
| Published date | 01 April 1954 |
| Author | F. Drayton Porter |
| Subject Matter | Article |
123
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL
is one cause of weakness but there never has been any justification for
a lack of faith in enforcement properly carried out.
CONCLUSION
The ramifications of the problem of maintaining and enhancing
the status of policing are wide indeed.
It
is in fact very hard to see
our
problem whole instead
of
concentrating one's regard on
just
two or three facets as has been done in this article.
For
example,
those who claim that it is essential to make the service attractive to
the best type of man are quite right. So are they who attach great
importance, as we all do, to the careful selection
and
training
of
our
leaders
and
senior officers. And so again are those to whom
technical efficiency is the axis on which the question
of
status turns.
Fundamentally it is a problem
of
human relations. Policing can
never be truly popular in the same sense
that
say film stars are popular.
Policemen must always be, to some small extent anyway, set
apart
from the rest of the community. As individuals they will each find
their own social level but, wherever that may be, their calling will
impose certain small restraints
and
inhibitions. Every police officer
carries the same individual responsibility in the matter
of
status as
he does in the execution of his duty. Bad conduct on or off duty
by one reflects on all.
As a Servicewe have yet to achieve a full realisation
of
the importance
of
maintaining public support by impeccable methods. Democracy is
a word meaning so many things to so many people
that
one hesitates
to use it. But if democracy can be measured at all it is measurable in
terms of policing. How small is the power of the professional police?
How great is the support given to them by the public at large? On
the answers to those two questions depend all the freedoms which
we associate with true democracy.
If
our
ideals are high enough, so
will
our
status be.
Destruction
of
Gaming Machines
By F.
DRAYTON
PORTER
Assistant
Chief
Constable of Nottingham
IN the High
Court
of
Justice, King's Bench Division, on 16th
January, 1950, William George Coughtrey, of Queen's Road,
Beeston, Nottingham, appealed by 'case stated' against an order
made by the Nottingham Justices for the destruction
of
certain
gaming machines. The case was heard by Lord Goddard, C.l.,
Mr. Justice Lynskey
and
Mr. Justice Sellers,
and
in alIowing the
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