THE news yesterday that, for the first time, London’s Metropolitan police will be directly recruiting plainclothed detectives with no previous experience of policing is a historic break with the normal progression from uniform to plainclothes.
Throughout its history, the bedrock of consensual policing in Britain has been the uniformed ‘bobby on the beat’ who learnt his or her policing skills by pounding the beat and, at least on paper, being integrated with the community they were serving.
The natural career progression from uniformed police to the plainclothed detective ranks was through a process of training, exams and interviews. Now, starting in London, this is to be thrown out the window as from May 31 to July 3 the Metropolitan Police will be seeking applicants to directly join as detective constables without any experience of working in uniform first. The only qualifications being asked are that the applicant has lived in London for three of the last six years and that they hold a degree-level qualification in any subject.
These new recruits must then pass a national investigators’ exam within a year and complete a two-year development programme before being made up to a ‘substantive’ detective constable.
These trainees will have full police powers and be issued with pepper sprays, handcuffs, batons and Tasers. It seems that London, and then the UK, are on the way to having their own version of the Stasi, East German secret police.
According to the man in charge of this recruitment policy, Detective Chief Superintendent Stephen Clayman, crime in the capital is changing and so are the criminals: ‘Increasingly complex crimes such as cyber-criminality and the pressing need to protect vulnerable people mean our investigators need to develop new expertise.’
The police statement made it clear that it was looking to recruit ‘those who may not have been previously attracted to a uniform policing role’. In other words, they are looking for people who basically don’t want, or rather, actively dislike, police uniforms. One section of society which hates uniforms but would jump at the chance of immediately being a detective are, of course, potential villains with a degree in management studies.
As for the argument that the police lack the necessary skills to combat cyber-crimes, this ignores the fact that a massive army of IT experts is already contracted to the police to combat these crimes. All these experts earn vastly more than the Met is offering so it is doubtful they will want to join.
This operational decision by the Met (the Home Office has denied that it has any responsibility for it but will not oppose its introduction) has been met with hostility by the Police Federation. Karen Stephens for the Federation said: ‘As with other direct entry schemes, we believe that individuals first need a grounding on what it takes to be an officer in the 21st century. Direct entry is not a magic bullet for the current detective shortage.’ She added, ‘Detectives need first-hand experience of responding in an operational capacity to incidents they would not encounter in any other walk of life – the bedrock of British policing is the Office of Constable.’
This move to recruit completely untrained people, unencumbered by any ethos of public service, cannot be divorced from the political crisis that is engulfing capitalism and the Tory party. With the ruling class facing the ‘catastrophe’ of a Corbyn victory, or a hung parliament, or even a narrow win for the Tories that would spell the end of May and her determination to become a supreme leader, all the old certainties have vanished, and along with them all the old traditions, including bobbies as the bedrock of policing.
Instead, we are facing a state force of untrained, undercover ‘elite’ police who will doubtless be used against capitalism’s real enemy, the working class. This is one more demonstration we no longer live in ‘normal times’ but in a time of huge upheaval and change.
The immediate task for the working class is to grasp change by the scruff of its neck by voting Labour on June 8 to kick out the Tories and in the five constituencies with a WRP candidate to vote WRP and build the WRP to lead the biggest change of all by going from a victory for Labour to the historic change of the working class taking power. Then the entire police force will be replaced by a workers’ militia.
