L900 Professional Policing : Police Culture and the New Policing Conte

1 The regulations and legislations that are relevant to the exercise of powers by the police officials include the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2012 in the United Kingdom. These legislations and regulations as well as the other statutory requirements are applicable to all police officers and special constables. The other essential and relevant legislations and statutory provisions that requires police compliance include the European Convention on human Rights (ECHR), Human Rights Act 1988 (HRA), the Data Protection Act 1998.

Further, the police officers are required to comply with certain risk principles (ACPO 2010) and comply with the ethical and values of the police officials. Some of such risk principles are enumerated as below:

1. The police officers must undertake risks while making decisions under conditions of uncertainty which is an essential professional requirement for all the law enforcement officials;
2. The police officers are required to take risk decisions focusing on its quality and not on the outcome of such decision;
3. While undertaking risk decisions, the police officers should consider whether such decisions would have been taken by other agencies. Hence, the police officers are required to be accountable of their decisions and actions (Crank 2014).
4. Since good risk taking relies on quality information, the police service is required to work with partner agencies for sharing relevant information about people who usually poses a risk to the community or those who are vulnerable to such risk of harm (Pollock 2014).

The ethical values and the professional standard of behavior that should be complied with by the police officers are enumerated as below:

1. The police officers must exhibit highest standard of occupational behavior and practice;
2. They are required to express courtesy and consideration towards the colleagues and the community and be respectful towards the Force (Miller and Blackler 2017);
3. They must be caring and committed while exercising their duties and empathize with the victims;
4. The police officers are expected to act honesty and with integrity without being partial and unfair while exercising their powers;
5. They are obligated must not take advantage of their power opposition by conducting in a manner that disrespects the dignity of public and loses their confidence.

The PACE sets out the fundamental principles that govern the exercise of powers conferred upon the police officers. This statute aims at stating that the primary purpose of the position of the police officers is to confirm suspicion about individuals without exercising their powers. If the police officers can exercise their powers non-discriminately and in a fairly manner, it can be considered as an effective contribution towards detection and prevention of crimes (Robinson et al. 2016).

Code C and Code G of the PACE 1984 lays down the power of arrest and detention conferred upon the police officers. The provisions states that the police cannot detain any person for an indefinite period and imposes an important restriction on the power of the police that a suspect should be detained for a restricted period.

The police officers have a right to conduct a search a suspect at the police station but a strip search includes removal of more than the outer clothing. However, such strip search shall be conducted only if it is necessary to remove an article that is not allowed by the detainee to keep when in detention. An intimate search should only be carried out if a high-ranking officer authorizes such intimate search for Class A weapons or drugs conducted by a doctor or nurse. Further, a police officer is entitled to stop and search any person, vehicle or anything in or on the vehicle under certain conditions (Van Ness and Strong 2014). However, prior to stopping and searching a car or any person, the police officer must establish the reasonable grounds for suspecting that they will find drugs, stolen goods, knives, or an offensive weapon etc.

The police are required to safeguard the protected characteristics, which signify that they are prohibited from discriminating amongst people on the ground of disability, race, age, pregnancy, and maternity, sex, religion, sexual orientation or belief. In case, the police officers fail to comply with the legislative provisions, they are entitled to be prosecuted for the commission of criminal offense or disciplinary action may be imposed upon them (Johnstone 2013).

2 Arrest

According to section 24 of PACE 1984, a police on the following grunds can conduct a lawful arrest:

1. The police has reasonable grounds to believe that the arrest of the person is necessary;
2. The person to be arrested must be involved or suspected to be involved or may have attempted to be involved in the commission of a criminal offense;

These two essential elements must be satisfied and the police officer is required to determine an arrest to be lawful or unlawful based in the statutory provisions stipulated under the PACE Act (Crawford and Newburn 2013). Further, if any police officer is of the opinion or has received any material information that the person to be arrested or the person who has already been arrested is innocent or doe not satisfy the above-mentioned grounds, shall be released immediately by such police officer. However, if such person is required to be de-arrested, it is important to bring that person at the police station and must be brought in front of the custody officer.

Detention

After a person is under custody, the detention of the suspect is controlled by PACE. The police officers must ensure that detainees are transferred to the custody safely and efficiently. In order to detain a suspect, the custody officer must consider the following factors:

1. Whether there are any grounds of detention to detain such suspect;
2. Whether the suspect should be granted bail;
3. Whether to refuse or authorize detention;

When a detainee has been transferred to custody suite but he cannot be detained due to the unavailability of cell, staff and officers, the officers must open a custody record and mention te reasons for the inconvenience in detaining such suspect (Turner 2015). Detention is considered as the last resort and custody officers must authorize such detention only when it becomes necessary to detain such person instead whenever it is expedient or convenient to detain a suspect.

A custody record must be maintained in the police station for all the detainees. If the custody officer is of the opinion that there are no sufficient or eligible grounds for detaining the suspects, the reasons for the same shall also be stipulated in the record. Pre-charge bail is a unique policing tool, should be applicable to the specific circumstances, and is an alternative to custody. It allows the police officers to continue to investigate the matter without subjecting such person to detention (Thornton 2017).

Reporting

If the investigating officer informs the custody police officer about the investigation report of the suspect detained, the custody officer may decide whether there is sufficient evidence to take the case to court. However, if such information is such that the custody police officer decides to drop the charges or there is a need to alter the charges, the custody officer shall inform about the same within 5 days to such detained suspects. In case, the officer opines that there is a need to alter the charges alleged upon the suspect, the suspect shall be informed about the procedure to request for a review of such decision. On the other hand, if the custody officer is of the opinion that the charges must be dropped, the detained suspect shall be notified about the same and shall be provided 7 days to make such request (Smith, A.M., 2014).

Other disposal options

The other disposal option is the out of court disposal (OOCD) which is a method to resolve an investigation of low-level crime and anti-social behavior, and the offender must have admitted such offence. However, such OOCD can be used under restricted circumstances, and enables reparative and restorative justice. An OOCD is usually considered as a preferred disposal option where the police considers such disposal in consultation with the victim and is a preferred option for offender as well. Although the consent of the victim is sought before, undertaking this option, but it is not mandatory for the victim to take part in the process. The police officer dealing with the case shall finally decide how to deal with the case (Chaulk, Eastwood and Snook 2014).

The officer dealing with the case shall be accountable for making reasonable efforts to retain the views of the victim to determine whether the offender should be provided with out of court disposal (Baldry and Sebire 2016). Besides, the opinion of the victim, the officer dealing with the case shall consider the previous history of the offender, impact of the offender upon the victim, seriousness and circumstances of the offence. although there are several other methods to deal with the suspects such as community cautions where a sanction is issued with the objective of diverting the offenders from their criminal behavior, thus, encouraging them to be accountable for their conduct and face the impact of their conduct.

3. The police officials are required to exercise their powers in an effective manner and ensure that the people are not subjected to unnecessary inconveniences. The types of contingencies that may arise during the processing of the suspects include unnecessary use of physical forces in police custody or spontaneous occurrence of violent incidents that is beyond the control of the police officer (McCann et al. 2015).

In regards to the use of physical force, the police officers usually are forced to use violence when the behavior of the detainee compels the police officer to exercise physical violence. It includes facial expressions, prolonged eye contact, verbal threats or gestures, reporting violating feelings or anger, refusal to communicate, irritation or poor concentration, etc.

In regards to the potentially violent incidents that usually occur spontaneously without giving the police officer, any chance to avert such situations, which leads to such violent incidents. This is because potentially violent incidents are not always convenient and easy to control because such incidents place so spontaneously that the police officers are not provided with sufficient time to even anticipate that such an incident can take place (Leese 2016). Since such incidents arise spontaneously, the police officers fail to respond to such events immediately or effectively.

Another factor that causes the police officer to fail to respond to such incidents or prevent the occurrence of such incidents at the first place is an insecure setting where the environment or the conditions may be unfamiliar or variable to the officer. Under such circumstances, the police officers are required to restrain such disturbed or violent detainees after informing them about any known condition, risk factors and the warning signs that may result if the detainee is subjected to any form of physical violence.

A form of contingency that may arise while processing suspects is the growing risk of causing positional asphyxia, which may occur while restraining detainees who are of large or small build or have taken medications, drugs or alcohol (Rekrut-Lapa and Lapa 2014). These circumstances also compel the custody officers to exert physical power upon such detainees to bring them under control.

Further, the staffs working in a custody environment should be provided with effective training to deal with violence. Such training should include recognizing and tactical communication skills to deal with managing of positional asphyxia. However, while restraining any detainee, a safety officer must be present who shall be responsible for monitoring the condition of the detainee, especially, the officer must ensure that the response and airway, head and neck is safeguarded effectively (Young et al. 2013).

According to section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, whether the exercise of the force was reasonable in the concerned circumstances, shall be determined in terms of eh circumstances under which the police officer believed to be necessary to use force upon the detainee. This is because the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force is unlawful under article 2 and 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and failure to establish such reasonable ground shall mount to violation of the ECHR provisions.

The National Decision Model is a risk assessment framework or a decision-making procedure that is used by the police force all over the country. The NDM model sets out five distinct stages that the police officers usually follow while engaging in a decision-making process and was meant to be a replacement of the Conflict Management Model. This model is applicable to all police officers who shall make decisions based on the NDM model and is applicable to all assessors and decision makers involved in the entire decision making process. The various NDM stages are explained below:

Stage 1 of the model states that police officers shall obtain sufficient information about the problem in hand and such information should be used in the rest of the investigation process.

Stage 2 of the NDM model states that the police officers should determine the potential threat and the nature of the threat in order to assess the circumstances and make right decisions.

Stage 3 shall require the officers to determine which powers they are required to exercise under such particular situation.

Stage 4 shall require the officers to outline a plan with all the information gathered and ensuring that he is acting compliance with the relevant legislations. The police officers must determine a particular plan that they shall execute to achieve the desired outcome.

Stage 5 requires the officers to determine which is most desired option that should be applied under such circumstances and obtain the desired outcomes.

4. Several disposal options enable the police officers to deal with the offenders and secure an effective justice outcome (Dorn et al. 2014). These options have been designed to provide an alternative outcome to the formal justice system. The police officers have the following options available in order to dispose of the suspects:

Arrest

After arresting a suspect, the police can hold the suspects for 24 hours unless the police officers charge the suspect with a crime, otherwise, they must release the suspect. However, the suspects can be held up for 36 or 96 hours if such suspect is arrested for a serious crime such as murder. They can be held up without any charge against them for 14 days is they are arrested under the Terrorism Act.

Moreover, sometimes it may not be possible to obtain adequate evidence to prove any charge against the offender within the custody time limits without undergoing any further investigation.

Restorative Justice

This process refers to a situation where both the victim and the offender meet and come to an agreement. This process enables the parties to come together in a controlled environment along with other relevant individuals that is facilitated by a trained volunteer and other trained police officer (Lushbaugh and Weston 2015). In the meeting, the offender takes responsibility of the crimes committed by such person and understands the consequence of the commission of such crimes. The offender shall be accountable for the harm caused to the victim as well as the community. This is an effective process from the perspective of the victim, as it enables the victim to be a part of the decision making process.

Out-of-court disposal

It is a method to resolve an investigation of anti-social behavior, and the offender must have admitted such offence. It includes elements of restorative justice where less serious offences are dealt in a proportionate manner. This process is less time-consuming but is also cost-effective process (Bacon 2014).

Community Resolution

Community resolution can be offered when the offender admits an offence and the victim do not wish to undertake any formal action against the offender. This process requires the offenders to confront with the consequences of these actions and take responsibility for the same with the resolution that such behavior shall not be repeated in the future. This is an effective disposal option for the suspects that are available to the police officers as this process has the probability to reduce re-offending (Smith 2014). The police officer, however, must consider actual offense, guilt admission, background and history of the offender as well as the consent of the victim while executing a community resolution.

Penalty notice to disorder (PND)

This is a statutory form of disposal that is established by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001which imposes a financial fine to manage anti-social and less serious offences against behavior that might cause distress, alarm or fear or for causing disorder in public place.

No further action

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the police are required to assess the available evidences including hearsay or forensic evidence or any witness. In the absence of sufficient evidence, the decision may be taken to concentrate resources on such offences that are competent of being charged and prosecuted. When no further action is to be taken against the suspect as per the advice of the (CPS), the prosecutor must notify the investigator about the same (Turner 2015).

Verbal warning

Unlike written warning, verbal warning is a warning that is given to a offender who has committed less serious crime and is issued during a conversation between the offender and the police officer. It is a first step in the corrective process. the main purpose of giving a verbal warning is to provide the offender with a second opportunity to rectify the conduct.

Police Cautions

On commission of minor crimes, the CPS or the Crown can provide a warning (caution) or may serve a notice of penalty to the person committing such minor crimes. Although a police caution is not a criminal conviction but it can be used as an evidence for a bad character in case the person is required to go to court for another crime (Gerstein and Prescott 2014).

Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) and court summons

A FPN is an administrative alternative to prosecution before the magistrate’s court that includes a fine and penalty points as well. If the person accepts his/her guilt and pay the fine, the person may avoid a court summons. However, if the person challenges the notice, he will have to appear before the court.

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