The Belfast Agreement recognised that peace in Northern Ireland required a "new beginning" for policing. The Patten commission created a plan of action for doing just that.
Although the British Prime Minister warmly welcomed the report, stating that it "charts the way forward in the interests of all the people of Northern Ireland", the Bill before parliament (with its third reading in the Lords today) dismantles the foundations on which the Patten commission's plan was built.
Patten report:
The terms of reference of the Patten commission called on it to "inquire into policing in Northern Ireland and, on the basis of its findings, to bring forward proposals for future policing arrangements, including means of encouraging widespread community support for those arrangements".
These terms make clear that policing is, and should be, more than the police. They recognise that much is, and can be, done to promote security outside of the activities of the police.
The commission took this seriously. It developed a plan for renewing policing. It expressed this in its core premise: "Policing should be a collective responsibility: a partnership for community safety." Policing, the report stated, "is a matter for the whole community, not something that the community leaves to the police to do". This principle unified its report.
The Bill:
The Bill, as its name makes clear, rejects this conception. It is a police Bill, not a policing Bill. Its focus is consistently on the police rather than on policing. It reflects the limited conception of policing the Patten report sought to transcend.
Does this matter?
Yes. It abandons the Patten report's "core project". The Bill, as Paddy Hillyard and Mike Tomlinson have recently observed, doesn't simply "water down" the Patten report, it "completely rejects" it. It abandons the notion of policing as a "collective community responsibility" and fails to heed the Patten report's plea for "an end to `us' and `them' concepts of policing".
Patten report:
The commission proposed the establishment of a policing board, writing: "The title `policing board' is deliberate. We see the role of the new body going beyond supervision of the police service itself, extending to the wider issues of policing and the contributions that people and organisations other than the police can make towards public safety." To realise this wider conception, Patten proposed that the board have a policing budget, not a police budget.
The Bill:
The bill creates a policing board in name only. Its focus is the police, not policing as the Patten commission conceived of it. This board will have a police budget, not a policing budget.
Does this matter?
Yes. The vision of a policing board administering a policing budget and overseeing policing lies at the centre of the arrangements proposed in the Patten report. The network of partnerships the commission regarded as essential to a new beginning for policing require it.
Patten report:
The commission proposed that the policing board have extensive powers of, and resources for, oversight to enable it to hold the police accountable. It rejected the established doctrine of "operational independence" in favour of the concept of "operational responsibility".
It proposed: "The policing board should have the power to require the chief constable to report on any issue pertaining to the performance of his functions or those of the police service. The obligation to report should extend to operational decisions."
The Patten report strictly limited the "grounds on which the chief constable might question this requirement" to issues involving "national security, sensitive personnel matters and cases before the courts". The report further proposed: "The policing board should have the power to follow up on any report from the chief constable by initiating an inquiry into any aspect of the police service or police conduct."
The Bill:
The Bill completely eviscerates these proposals. To the three very limited grounds on which the chief constable might question an instruction to provide a report, the Bill adds a fourth. It would allow the chief constable to question almost any attempt by the board to require a report or get behind a report they have received.
The Bill states that "if it appears" to the chief constable that such a report "would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime or apprehension or prosecution of offenders, he/she may refer it to the secretary of state who may overrule the board. The Bill also allows the secretary of state to quash an independent inquiry initiated by the board on the same grounds. Brendan O'Leary has described these provisions as a "travesty". He is absolutely correct.
Does this matter?
Yes. The Patten commission recommended "a comprehensive programme of action to focus policing in Northern Ireland on a human rights-based approach". This requires transparency. The terms of reference of the commission required it to "bring forward proposals" that would ensure that the police service enjoys "widespread support from, and is seen to be part of, the community as a whole". This, too, requires transparency. This Bill does the very opposite. Its provisions make it possible to hide and obscure.
This analysis could be continued. The core elements of the Patten commission's report have been undermined everywhere. The district policing partnership boards that are so vital to the Patten commission's vision have been diluted. So have its recommendations in the key areas outlined in its terms of reference - composition, recruitment, culture, ethos and symbols. The Patten report has not been cherry-picked: it has been gutted.
The Bill does not fulfil the hopes and vision of the Belfast Agreement. Nor does it satisfy the very clear mandate set out in the commission's terms of reference. It is not a new beginning. It will not serve the people of Northern Ireland. Nor will it serve the many, many dedicated persons within the RUC who have been looking for a new vision for policing that will move and inspire them to police in partnership with the communities they serve.
Clifford Shearing is director of the centre of criminology at the University of Toronto
