Police, Europe and the Movement of People
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7304600305 |
| Author | David Stephen |
| Date | 01 July 1973 |
| Published date | 01 July 1973 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DAVID
STEPHEN
Mr. Stephen, an authority on the European Economic Community,
who has lectured on the subject at the Police College, Bramshill,
examines some of the implications of our entry to the Common
Market.
POLIC~J
EUROPE AND THE
MOVEmENT OF
PEOPLE
The subject of community relations is now - and rightly so -
amatter high on the agenda for many British police forces. The
arrival of over a million Commonwealth immigrants, many of them
from rural backgrounds, often with very different attitudes to
social customs and behaviour. coupled with the fact that. for a
variety of economic and social reasons, they have gravitated to
the most congested parts of our biggest cities, has added a new
dimension to the already difficult police role in such areas. The
complication of "colour" - a powerful weapon easily exploited by
oppressor or oppressed - has ensured continual press attention
to the subject and kept race and immigration a controversial topic
in British politics for a decade or more. But the media obsession
with "coloured" immigration. and the very real importance of
police-community relations, should not obscure other important
trends in migration in the world.
While immigration into Europe from developing countries is
now. in almost all cases. subject to stringent legislative controls.
movement within Europe -i.e., between and among
EEC
and
other developed countries - is not only increasing in volume
massively, but is also becoming subject to more relaxed controls.
This type of immigration has a police relevance quite different
from that of commuity relations; the vastly increased mobility of
the affluent European (among whom can be numbered a fairly high
proportion of the new criminal classes) and the fact that police
forces have remained stolidly national in an era of supranational
organizations pose new challenges. In this article I shall attempt
to outline some of the trends on movement which could have
implications for police work.
(i) Tendencies in Worker Immigration
Because of our sluggish economy. we are the only Western
European country which has not had a rapidly increasing rate of
immigration since the early sixties. In Britain. since the introduc-
tion of the Commonwealth Immigration Act. 1962, controls over
Commonwealth immigration have become progressively tougher;
for example, in 1972 only two citizens of Jamaica received vouchers
July 1973 242
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