Turning a blind eye on police discretion

An interesting article in today's Herald about police officers losing their ability to exercise discretion, accompanied by the headline 'Police must be freed from time-consuming red tape', thus clearly a shortcoming that in general has been a concern for some time now.

However, this particular piece mentions an operating standard which, for example, compels officers to record and investigate any complaint, which could well be a spurious claim for insurance purposes or to secure a crisis loan from the benefits agency. Another specific gripe is that performance targets decreed by senior officers - for example, more detections for public urination, which may be driven by their bonuses - may not allow beat officers enough discretion on whether to book someone found breaching the letter of the law. A rank and file representative says:

A police officer has to behave in different ways when he comes across, say, teenagers peeing in the street because they think they can or when he discovers an elderly gentleman with a bad prostate caught short.

The article encapsulates the problem thus:

Scotland’s most senior operational officer has warned that rank-and-file constables have effectively lost the ability to use their professional judgement. [...] "We need to empower our officers, to train and equip them to make decisions on their own discretion. We need to trust them."

But the idea that police are as hidebound by rules and procedures as portrayed by the article is frankly ludicrous. For example, officers will turn a blind eye to numerous motoring offences in the course of their work, even assuming they do anything about them at all, for example administering an informal slapped wrist. Perhaps the problem with the article is that it fails to emphasise one or two important points, most obviously that the standard compelling officers to record and investigate all complaints relates to those made by members of the public rather than offences observed by officers themselves.

Indeed, the article is nicely juxtaposed with a letter in today's Herald complaining about the behaviour of drunken football fans on a train:

They were obviously drunk and yet once on the train were allowed to drink even more liquor. I did ask a railway official to at least ask them to mind their language, but this according to him was just the usual for a Saturday night.

Of course, the comments from officialdom doesn't involve policing per se - and clearly it's all ultimately the fault of the supermarkets - but the general ethos is surely neatly demonstrated by the railway official, whilst as regards policing specifically the powers that be are more concerned with crude electioneering centring around officer numbers, not to mention soundbites about 'frontline' and 'community' policing etc.

Indeed, last night I witnessed a group of drunks shouting and bawling in the early hours, yet the chances of either me complaining about it or the police taking any action were remote. And this ruckus was taking place outside my local police station, which is indeed probably part of the attraction for the drunks!