International Co-Operation of the Police
| Author | Roger Birch |
| Published date | 01 October 1991 |
| Date | 01 October 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X9106400403 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
PRESENTATION BY ROGER BIRCH, CBE, QPM.,
Chief Constable of Sussex, and Chairman of the ACPO
International Affairs Advisory Committee: July 1991
INTERNATIONAL
CO-OPERATION OF THE POLICE
The growing scale and sophistication of criminal activity related to
terrorism and drugs have, I suggest, done more in the last decade to focus
attention on the international nature
of
serious crime than anything else,
but the growing pains of a 'new Europe' are now adding a much broader
dimension to the challenges of policing across international boundaries.
These challenges are very real. They will not go away and demand an
urgent response.
Against that background we would like to develop two main themes
in our presentation today.
The first is that anyone who sets out to combat the threat to the
international community posed by drugs,
terrorism
and serious crime
would be making a fundamental errorof judgment in assuming that these
problems can be effectively dealt with in total isolation by specialist
agencies, vital though their role may be, ignoring the role of the more
general agencies
of
law and order.
The second, by way of corollary to the first, is that the arrangements
pertaining to aEurope free from internal frontiers, permitting inconsequence
the free movementof persons, goods, services and capital across borders,
extend immediate and significant challenges to the agencies of law and
order, and call for immediate closer, practical inter-agency co-operation.
In some ways this is more important than the resolution of mid and long
term strategies for dealing with policing the new Europe.
Having dealt with these two issues, we would then like to sound a
note
of
warning about the 'five year void' for want of a better description,
by which I mean the period for five years or so after January 1, 1993, and
also the consequences of 'lost opportunities'.
Finally, we will suggest ways in which that vacuum can be at least
partially filled, and opportunities turned to advantage rather than lost.
Turning to the first of our themes, I think all of us would accept that
in a democratic society policing is, in essence, all about preserving quality
of life; which is achieved in a variety of ways. The prevention and
detection of crime is but a small part of police work. In this context it
would be short -sighted, for example, to overlook the significanceof traffic
policing and road safety; or of the police responsibilities for dealing with
major disasters; or the policing of major international events. The
maintenance of public order is also a major and time consuming policing
responsibility.The philosophyofmaintaining a general sense of tranquillity
and providing reassurance to local communities by the mere presence
of
police officers patrolling in towns and villages is a key to sound policing.
October 1991 289
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