Crime and the Police

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PENGUIN

BOOKS

ANTHONY MARTIENSSEN

Crime and the Police This

is not a crime

a survey of Britain;

story

but

of the police forces their organization,

methods of training, and the specialized work of the C.I.D. and Scotland Yard, all illustrated

by case histories of crimes com-

mitted in recent years.

COMPLETE|

50c

UNABRIDGED

ABOUT

THIS

BOOK

The police forces of Britain have the reputation of being the best in the world. In view of the large increase in crime since the war, is this reputation still justified? Have the many changes which have been made during the past few years in the organization, training, and methods been all for the better? What chance has a criminal now of escaping the arm of the law? How does the modern detective set about catching criminals? What should be the proper function of a policeman to-day? Mr Martienssen carried out a survey of anumber of police forces in Britain in an attempt to answer such questions, and this book is the result of his researches. He describes the organization of the police, modern methods of training recruits and senior officers, and the day-to-day work of policemen. He shows how C.I.D. officers pit their wits against criminals, and he analyzes the detective methods for which Scotland Yard is famous. Every point is illustrated by case histories of crimes committed during the past few years, for, throughout the book, the author’s aim is

to give a practical rather than an academic account of police work. For a complete list of books available please write to Penguin Books Ltd Harmondsworth, Middlesex

PENGUIN

BOOKS

888

CRIME

AND

ANTHONY

THE

POLICE

MARTIENSSEN

Anthony Martienssen

CRIME AND THE “POLICE *

WITH

A FOREWORD

BY

R. M. HOWE C.VeOne MCs Assistant Commissioner (C.I.D.) New Scotland Yard

PENGUIN MELBOURNE*

BOOKS

LONDON

= BALTIMORE

FIRST PUBLISHED 1951 BY MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD PUBLISHED IN PENGUIN BOOKS 1953

This book is dedicated to

ADRIAN,

SEBASTIAN and

i

CAMILLA *

MADE AND PRINTED

IN GREAT BRITAIN

FOR PENGUIN

BOOKS

HARMONDSWORTH

BY HAZELL WATSON AYLESBURY

LTD

* MIDDLESEX

AND VINEY LTD

AND

LONDON

IFORM BRANCH ‘DETECTIVE 5 NCE AND CRIME

NY AND FRAUD ER ING LONDON WOMEN

-

ING

2.

P15 172

203;

3 ENIOR OFFICER

218

. THE POLICEMAN’S LOT x THE FUTURE OF THE POLICE

237

NDEX

-

254

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Frrst, I would like to thank Mr R. M. Howe, c.v.o., M.c., the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, for writing the Foreword to this book and for his extraordinary help and kindness during my researches, 7

I would like to thank the Home O fice for the facilities which they so kindly gave me, and the Right Honourable J. Chuter Ede, then Secretary of State, for giving me an hour of his valuable time and for a most enjoyable discussion about the police. I would also like to thank the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis for his kind permission to reproduce the diagrams and sketches in Chapter VI which were prepared in his statistical department. I owe a debt, as all writers on criminal investigation do, to Dr Hans Gross. I have marked the few parts where I have quoted from him directly, but many of my opinions have been coloured by his observations and the dividing line between my original thought and what I have culled from him is not always Clear. Finally, I would like to thank the large number of policemen all over the country who put up with me so cheerfully, and whose friendliness and courtesy was the most pleasant part of the task of writing this book. I hope they will forgive me for not naming them all personally. I should add that none of the opinions expressed in this book should be attributed to any of the police officers or

officials whom I have consulted.

FOREWORD

q AnTHONY MarrTriensseEn has produced a most readable book about the police and the battle against crime, neatly de: scribedby the Americans as law enforcement. To all those __ interested in this exciting subject I commend this work. :; In this country, we in the police depend to a large extent on ’ the help we get from the public we serve, so the more the public knows about the police the better will be the mutual understanding. It is some years since a comprehensive account :of the police service was published and in the interval there gne have beenea number of changes. This book does a valuable "service by recording those changes from the point of view of an outside observer. Although I do not agree with some of the criticisms and

can, of course, take no responsibility for the opinions expressis ed, I know that Anthony Martienssen has attacked this sub-

E ject 4

with the greatest zest and enthusiasm.

From the many

e discussions we have had together, I am left with the sneaking _ feeling that although he is a distinguished journalist working _for a most eminent paper, in his heart he knows he has missed _ his vocation and should really have been a detective.

eT eT TE

RONALD

HOWE

PREFACE q Durinc the last few years the police forces in Britain have . been undergoing a minor revolution. Police methods, training, recruiting, promotion, and organization have all been overhauled by committees of chief constables and local police auth__ orities. Under Lord Oaksey (formerly Lord Justice Lawrence) a thorough inquiry has been held into the pay and working conditions of policemen; the result of the inquiry was a set of

proposals most of which the Government adopted in 1949. Furthermore, the flood of crime in the post-war years has caused a number of forces to investigate the methods and organization of their detective branches to see how their work could be improved and what steps were necessary to increase the percentage of successful detections. _ The past four years, therefore, has been a period of experi~ ment and change for the police. Some of the changes have been good; some have not gone far enough; some have been pending for a long time, while others are the direct result of the war or of the growth of the welfare state. But whatever he reasons for the changes, and these are discussed later on in this book, it is important that the general public should at ast know what the changes are and what their effect might e on the character of the police service. For the peace and jappiness of a country depend to a very large extent on the type of police it has and on how they do their work. In this book, therefore, I have tried to do three things: to describe the police and their work as they are to-day, to note and comment on the changes which have been made, and to

PREFACE

|

make a few suggestions of my own for improvements. My | concern throughout the book has been with the present and | | future of the police rather than with the past; there is there-_

fore very little history in it. On the other hand, I have done _

my best to illustrate every important point in the book with an 4 | actual case, to describe the theory of policing by showing how — it actually works out in practice, and I hope that, although the reader may be disappointed by the lack of descriptions of nineteenth-century gin riots, his or her interest will be caught — as mine was — by the incredible variety of human failings and human behaviour with which the police have to deal to-day. : The book is based almost entirely on my own direct observations of the police; where I have had to rely on secondhand material I have done my best to check its accuracy. In gathering information I have interviewed nearly eighty police officers of all ranks and most of the senior civil servants who

deal with police affairs at the Home Office. I have visited a number of police forces in different parts of the country, watching them at work. I have spent a number of days at two of the principal training centres, at the new Police College at Ryton and at Scotland Yard’s Detective School at Hendon. At Scotland Yard itself, I spent, on and off, the best part of four months in making my inquiries among both the detective and uniformed branches. But I am nota policeman, and this book is necessarily written from the outside looking in. While

that might be a disadvantage recommend it: it has enabled of a layman and therefore it examine many things which

in me has are

|

|

| | | | |

|

some ways, it has this to | to see things with the eyes__ led me to describe and to _ taken for granted by the

e jolicebut about which the ordinary public is generally norant.

One final point: this book is not intended as an apology for e police. They need none. It is rather an attempt to give a traightforward account, with a few criticisms, of the theory nd practice of police work in this country. \ ANTHONY

MARTIENSSEN

ieeae Si gre ath Rae ea

Sheth aii

RESds

CHAPTER

ONE

PRINCIPLES On

28 February 1949 the jury at Bristol Assizes made a

police inspector pay £100 damages for wrongful arrest and for the wrongful search of a house. The inspector, in chargeof ix other policemen, had been making a sweep through a neighbourhood where there had been an outbreak of petty crime. e had arrested a man — a known criminal — in possession of ods, which, however, he could not prove were stolen. In e heat of the chase, he had then gone on to search a house

with neither a warrant from a magistrate nor with the perission of the owner. In finding that the police were in the rong, the jury were airing two fundamental principles which vern the police of Britain: that each policeman is individuly responsible for what he does and that he must not act outide the laws which carefully circumscribe his powers. : It was a severe punishment for a police officer who was, fter all, guilty of little more than excessive zeal in carrying ut his duty. Yet the principle at stake was of such importance vat the jury could not be accused of being harsh. The police n Britain enjoy a unique advantage over the police of almost every other country in the world: they are helped, not hinlered, by the public they serve. The reason for this is that the

ritish public respect and trust their policemen. For, ever since r Robert Peel established the first police force in London in 329, the principles which were then laid down by the first

eae

CRIME

AND

THE

1] 1}

POLICE

$!|

Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Richard Mayne, | _and which persuaded the public at that time to allow the police

to be created at all, have been strictly observed. Any breach of | those principles must be punished severely, otherwise the — essential foundation of the police in Britain would be under- | mined; their most precious asset, the co-operation of the public, would be lost. The idea of a policeman conjures up different iimpressions in different countries. In New York, it is of an Irishman, _

| | Lon- ~|

quick-tempered and somewhat threatening; in Paris, it is of a

gesticulating figure, fussy about minor regulations; in

don, it is of someone rather slow, very solid, but essentially good-humoured. There is no accident about these different national characteristics. They spring directly from the con-_ ception which each country has of what its police ought to be. In Britain, the basic conception is that the police are civilians” f whose job is to protect and to help their fellow-citizens, A number of important principles follow. First, with the exception of the Metropolitan Police in London, whose posi= tion will be explained later, the police are not servants of the Crown -— that is, of the Government. The police forces of England are administered not from Whitehall but by their own local police authorities. The policeman can and should — protect his fellow-citizens against the Government or against _ any other authorityifthe Government or that authority acts illegally, and this applies to the Metropolitan Police too. He — would, for instance, be fully within his powers if he restrained — an official of a Government Department from making an ille- . gal entry into a private house. His duty is simply to see that the law is kept, and he must be free from fear or favour. 4

nig

PRINCIPLES

15

Then, partly because of their civilian status and partly as a safeguard against the possible abuse of their power, the police are unarmed. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the good which Britain has gained from insistence on this principle. The fact that the policeman is discouraged from using force means that he must do his work by tact and persuasion. Blustering or shouting only makes a British crowd laugh or jeer, ~- and the policeman learns that good humour and pleasant courtesy are essential if he is to do his work well.. British _ crowds were not always as good-humoured and tolerant as they are to-day, and it is not going too far to say that the _. improvement owes much to the police, whose non-violent methods of controlling a crowd have slowly taught the British _ that public behaviour which is justly admired by foreign visi- _ _ tors. The amiability of a British crowd is an active mood of interest, not a passive one of sheepishness or apathy. It springs b from an awareness of what is reasonable behaviour on public a occasions, and this is chiefly due to the use by the police of _ persuasion rather than force. The third principle is that, because the policeman is a civilian, he must live among, and be a member of, the comtf munity he serves. His family life and his standard ofliving are _ most important. He holds a key position in society and his __ fellow-citizens cannot be expected to turn a blind eye on what he does in his leisure moments; they must trust and respect Ee him in his shirt-sleeves, digging in his garden, as much as they te do when he is wearing his helmet and uniform on his beat. Finally, there are the two principles which were set out in : es eat - the first paragraph: each policeman is individually responsible for his actions, and his powers must be clearly defined and

SHAG Caan WN

;

16

CRIME AND

Bie |

THE POLICE

3) :

»,

limited. Neither principle needs much explanation. If each 7! policeman did not have individual responsibility, it would — mean that the police would be a para-military organization of a sort known only too well in totalitarian countries. For the same reason, their powers of arrest, of search, and of question- — ing the public must be definite and restricted. | Besides these basic principles, there are one or two other — facts which govern — or should govern — the methods and — organization of the police. Fundamentally, the usefulness of the police depends on the ability of the constable on the beat _ __or in the patrol car. It is to him that the citizen in trouble first" turns, and it is on his alertness and efficiency that the preven- — tion of crime and the arrest of criminals primarily depends. Unlike the fighting services, there is no need for more than a handful of senior officers and specialists. The policeman does not work in a squad under an officer. He is an independent _ agent, and, though there are of course occasions when two or more policemen work together, for the most part he does his . tas Mole Sot

work alone.

.

|

It follows that the bulk of policemen are required in the lower ranks; it follows also that even the lowest rank of policemen, the constables, should be of good average intelligence and ability. The proportion of constables to all ranks in all the — police forces in the country is 80 per cent; if sergeants, the _

next rank up, are included, the proportion is as high as 92 per — cent. As a result promotion is not very fast, but it is, as Lord — Oaksey’s committee pointed out, not nearly as slow as is | popularly supposed. Nevertheless, the slowness of promotion — | is of obvious importance when such questions as pay and :| conditions of service come to be considered.

PRINCIPLES

17

‘So many institutions and Ofeanizatons in a England: have

3 ind.They are not, nor should fhe ever be, under state control, and the fact that the British police are split up into a number of separate, autonomous forces is the best safeguard _ against the danger of a police state in this country.

‘There are 132 separate police forces in England and Wales and 45 in Scotland. They vary in size from the enormous fetropolitan Police with its establishment of 20,000 men to small forces of less than 70 men. They are, with one or two ceptions, offshoots of local government rather than of cenal government, and their organization follows the general amework of local authorities. In each force there is a police authority who pays half the cost of, and to some extent administers, the force. Each also “has a chief officer of police (a Chief Constable or, in London, _a Commissioner) who operates the force, but who is responsle to his police authority. Ranks, pay, conditions of service, d discipline are uniform throughout the country. But there e similarity ends; the organization and methods

of each

rce are as different as the localities in which they work. There are three broad categories of police forces — the etropolitan Police, the County Constabularies, and the City

and Borough Police. id

The headquarters of the Metropolitan Police is at New

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CRIME

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Scotland Yard. Its police authority is the Home Secretary, to whom the Commissioner is directly responsible. Under the Commissioner there are a Deputy Commissioner, four Assistant Commissioners, and the Secretary. There is also the ~ Receiver who looks after the finances and the property of the force. The four Assistant Commissioners are responsible respectively for the uniformed police, traffic, criminal investigation, and organization. The Metropolitan Police area, which

covers 700 square miles of London and its suburbs — with the exception of the City — is divided into four districts. These in turn are broken down into divisions, sub-divisions, and police stations. A police officer of appropriate rank isin charge of each, and at the base of the pyramid there are the constables on their beats. In the provinces the organization is different. Each county, except for a few small ones which have joined their bigger neighbours, has its own police force under the general supervision of the Standing Joint Committee of the county and under the direct control of a chief constable. Similarly, each large borough and city — again with a few exceptions — has its own police force, but, in this case, under the supervision of the Watch Committee. The operational control is, as with the county forces, in the hands of a chief constable. The chief difference between a county and a borough force is that the police authority for the borough force — the Watch Committee — is responsible for appointments, discipline, and promotions, whereas in the county forces these matters are the responsibility of the chief constable.1 The chief constable of a 1. Lord Oaksey’s committee have recommended that borough forces should be brought into line with county forces.

PRINCIPLES

19

“county force, therefore, has slightly more power than his colleague in a borough force.

Some of the smaller counties have combined together to _ form either one single force or two forces under a single chief a, constable, and there are now 51 county police forces under

authorized total strength is about 20,600, including more than 400 policewomen. There are also nearly 12,000 policemen : _ employed by the Port of London Authority, dockyards, railways, and airports, and the Special Constabulary, which is an

a unpaid reserve of men and women who are given an elemengtary training in police duties and who are sworn in to help the ~ regular police in emergencies or on special occasions. Finally, there is the City of London Police Force which : does not fitinto any of the broad categories. It covers an area _of about one square mile in the heart of London and consists of about 1,000 policemen under a Commissioner. It was set “up as a result of statutes and ancient charters of the City, and ‘it is particularly jealous of its unusual status. It was only a _ few years ago, for instance, that it agreed to organize a joint

~ “fraud squad’ with Scotland Yard, though it has for long been - obvious that a common organization of the two forces was the

best way to deal with frauds and similar offences. Itis inevitable, with so many different forces under so many different authorities, that conditions and even methods should

20

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vary a great deal between one force and another. In itselfth does not matter. Much of the strength of a police force depen t on local pride and local knowledge. But there must be some -co-ordination, and in operational matters this is achieved by personal contacts between the policemen concerned, by cer=— tain services which Scotland Yard provides for the whole country and, on very rare occasions, by the action of_ the

Home Secretary. The police of Birmingham, say, do not abandon the chase of a criminal simply because he crosses intonH the area controlled by the Warwickshire police. They would il inform their headquarters by radio, and a phone call from | there to the Warwickshire headquarters would be all that was necessary either to get help from the Warwickshire police on just to let them know what was happening in their area. a complicated communications system also keeps all police forces in touch with each other and with major items of interest to the police. It would be most unusual these days for cooperation to break down because one chief constable did not like the other. | The organization within each police force varies, but. | the usual arrangement is shown on page 21. | In country districts, the functions of the police station and of the constable on the beat would be combined in the village || constable who usually lives with his family in the police sai tion. The ranks of the police officers in charge of the different | parts of the organization depend mostly on the size of the) force. In large forces, there would be a superintendent or chief inspector in charge of a division with an inspector as his deputy and sergeants in charge of the police stations. In smaller forces the scale would be one rank lower. Other senior |

‘as Chief Constable

vepaies ChefConstable

a

AtE Sg

_ Deputy ChiefConstable A cadquarters Staff

Constable Sergeant Inspector Chief Inspector Superintendent Chief Superintendent Assistant Chief Constable Chief Constable %

| are the principles which govern the police and an outf the organization of the many separate forces. ‘There

ee :

22

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remains one further question before settling down to discuss the| details of police work: is it really a good thing to have a police | force at all? The answer may seem obvious: so that the com=_ ‘munity can protect itself against its enemies. But is not the existence of the police a serious threat to the freedom of tha|| individual ?Sir Robert Peel answered this charge when it was made more than one hundred and twenty years ago by saying © that freedom to be robbed was not what he would call free-

dom. This is only half the answer. The Communists, for instance, would say.that freedom to be misled by bourgeois poli- | ticlans was not what they would call freedom. The step from | depriving people of the freedom to be robbed to depriving© them of the freedom to be misled by politicians is not a very _ big one. More, it is a logical consequence of the first step. Fortunately, it is most unlikely that any political principle | would ever be taken to its logical conclusion in England. Still, | the danger is there, and though it would be silly not to use fire, _ say, because fire is dangerous, it is far from silly to make sure _ that the fire is restricted to its proper use. In the next chapter, the control of the police will be examined in order to see how | far it conforms with the principles which have already been set out. For it is those principles which are the best safeguard | of the English public against the threat which the police could be to their freedom. y

:

CHAPTER

:

CONTROL

AND

TWO

ORGANIZATION

SuHort ty after the end of the Second World War, there was a

vacancy for a Chief Constable in a certain borough police

_ force. The responsibility for appointing chief constables for such a type of force rests with the Watch Committee of the borough, and in this instance they tried to appoint a police officer who, in the opinion of the Home Secretary, was not a suitable candidate for the post. The Home Secretary inter_yened and refused to ratify the appointment. The Watch _Committee concerned were asked to find another man more : suitably qualified. The Watch Committee refused to do this _y and insisted on keeping to their original choice. The question bs i of who controlled the force was clearly at stake.

Now the members of a Watch Committee are not permanent officials. They serve only for one year and they are elected annually from among the borough councillors. They are not, therefore, likely to have to face the consequences of any rash thing they might do— unless, of course, they happen _to be re-elected in later years. Nevertheless, by various Police ‘Acts which Parliament has passed, the Watch Committee is Established as the ‘police authority’ for city and borough police - forces. They are responsible for all appointments to the force, ffor its financial administration, for promotion, and, surprising(ly, for discipline. But, by the Police Act of 1919, the approval of the Home Secretary is required for appointments to the.

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ae

post of chief constable and, by subsequent Acts, any policemna | can appeal to the Home Secretary against his dismissalo: punishment by the police authority. These laws were designe ‘to prevent local political bias from creeping into the police i} and, in his turn, the Home Secretary usually has to re | Parliament any action he might take. a es almost any form of surface, including snow. Fingeraf‘from i

- again according to the surface of the material on which the

102

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print has been made. The print is preserved by taking a photo- >

graph of it. Marks on doors and windows are normally pre- — served by taking wax impressions of them; fragments of ma-

terial are kept in special cellophane or nylon envelopes; if the blood stains are on a piece of clothing or material which can be detached, they are kept in water-tight and air-tight packets; _ . scraps of paper can be preserved, if need be, by covering them with a thin coating of colourless varnish. There are very many other methods of preserving all types of different substances, and the detective to-day has at his disposal a great variety of special containers and chemicals which enable him to ensure that his clues will be kept ‘fresh’ until he has finished with them, Another important application of scientific research is in the development of methods for testing substances and for detecting forgeries or invisible writings. A simple chemical . test was discovered in the last century which enables the detective to determine, on the scene of the crime, whether a stain was caused by blood or not. (Laboratory confirmation is always required, but the test saves much time and the detective can get on with his inquiries without waiting for the laboratory report.) A number of ingenious devices exist for detecting forgeries. There are chemicals which can show whether different inks have been used; infra-red photographic _ plates which reveal the original writing or print beneath the | forgery; and in Switzerland yet another method has been re- | cently discovered — an electric current is passed through the | suspected piece of paper, and if there has been any alteration | in the paper, the current will vary, the variations being shown — in the form of sounds on a loud-speaker. Invisible inks are not often used by the ordinary criminal, but the detective some- »

SCIENCE

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103

times finds a piece of paper which has rubbed against others in the suspect’s wallet or pocket and which has taken on ‘ghost’ impressions of the other papers. These impressions can be brought out by either photographic or chemical treatment and may reveal the contents of documents which the suspect had — destroyed. Nor are these rubbings transferred only from pencil or carbon marks: there are chemicals in most inks, typewriter ribbons, and print which slightly corrode paper and which will also corrode another piece of paper placed next to the piece on which the ink was originally used. The corrosions are invisPa _ ible to the naked eye, but they can be made visible with comparative ease. Some of the most useful scientific developments have been in improving communications. The use of radio-equipped police cars has already been described. Some experiments have also been made with miniature transmitting-receiver sets x _which will fit into a policeman’s helmet, while the ‘walkietalkie’ of war-time fame is also being tried out — by thieves as

_ well as by policemen. All the ordinary developments in telecommunications can be applied to police work. Thus, the high-speed teleprinter devices enable a long series of police messages to be broadcast to all major police stations; sending photographs by telegraph or radio enables a wanted man’s ~ picture to be in the hands of the police at all ports and aerodromes within less than an hour; mobile loud-speakers simpli= fy the control of crowds; and it is not impossible to imagine one or two uses to which television might be put in due course. It is obviously impossible for the detective to carry about all the equipment he might conceivably want in an investiga__ tion, but it is necessary for him to take some equipment when

j - he goesout on an important case. ¢ TIhe County Dur

yi _usea small, inconspicuous van which contains mostof tl h Brraentss chemicals, and containers which can usefull : ployed on the scene of the crime, but most detectives ha content with a small attaché case. One force used to provic maystill doso, a fitted suitcase containing the following it n

a "

-

Leather writing-folder containing stationery.

re

Two towels.

.

One apron. Two pairs of rubber gloves. Four pairs of scissors.

‘ei

Three pairs of tweezers.

‘

re ' Two pairs of lancets and a pair of pliers. Five test tubes. ; ae Box containing ultra lenses. ; Two magnifying-glasses and a compass. An electric torch. 5 One pair of handcuffs with two keys. Three different lengths of steel tape measures.

=

Two-foot boxwood rule. Soap box. Lysol powder.

tial “iy _ A

i

Ammonia. Lysolats. Set of sponges. : Finger-print apparatus with magnifying-glass. Blower for graphite and finger-print powder. — Graphite. . Squeegee. Finger-print block. folding steel foot-print surround. 1. Gross.

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*

SCIENCE

AND

CRIME

;

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Most detectives, however, carry a small satchel or attaché _ case containing only the bare essentials of their profession and call for the photographers and elaborate equipment only if _ their first survey of the scene of the crime seems to warrant _ Specialist treatment.

Statistics play a surprisingly important part in police work. The compilation of facts and figures about crime, about accidents, about the policemen themselves, has on occasions led directly to the catching of thieves, but its chief purpose is to enable senior police officers to keep a continual watch over _ the whole field of police activities. The Home Office is the — _ central authority for compiling criminal statistics for the whole 4 country, but in addition each force keeps figures of its own _ which enable the Chief Constable to plan the disposition of ~ his men and to concentrate the activities of his force where

they are most required. The Metropolitan Police, being much the biggest force of a all, has a highly developed statistical department. It is mana ned by a large staff of experts who sort out every year some E: 3,000,000 facts about crime alone. The sorting and counting - is done on Powers-Samas 3-bank printing-counting-sorting 4 machines into which are fed a complicated series of punched _ cards showing the principal details of every crime committed ain the Metropolitan Police area every day. The machines count and sort out the details and show the incidence of a twenty-three different categories of crimes, how and where _ they were committed, the value of the property stolen, the incidence of successful detections, and the value of property

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recovered. From these facts, the statisticians build up week — | by week a series of graphs and diagrams which show the information visually. ‘The facts about crime are then linked up with the facts _ about the strength of the police and C.I.D. in the different | districts and divisions, so that senior officers can see at a glance whether there are enough uniformed men in a particular area © to prevent crime and whether there are enough detectives in another area where the inquiry work is heavy.

The mass of information about crimes is also displayed in a large Map Room

in Scotland Yard where some

100,000

crimes are recorded each year on more than 4,000 square feet of large-scale maps. Coloured pins and flags bearing codes’ which show the nature of the crime, the method used, the time of day on which it occurred, and, in the case of thefts, _ the value of the property stolen, are placed on the position of the map of the actual building where the crime was committed. The pins and flags not only help in devising preventive methods but also sometimes reveal a connexion between crimes which would not otherwise have been apparent. A series of housebreakings through a side-window committed at, say, 2 a.m. would be shown by identical flags and the track of the criminal or gang can be worked out and the future moves foretold. In one district, for example, it was noticed that an epidemic of one particular type of theft had broken out on both sides of a small stream which was spanned by | three bridges. It was also observed that the thefts took place on each side on alternate nights. A simple trap was laid by putting policemen on each of the three bridges on the night when it was anticipated that the thief would be crossing the

CRIMES

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!OO ACRES.

ee

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149

The body was found on the Sunday morning by two farm labourers, who immediately called the local police. There _ were no obvious pointers to the murderer, and it was decided to call in Scotland Yard. The body was covered with a tar- paulin, but otherwise the scene of the crime was not disturbed.

That night, however, there was a heavy fall of snow, and _ when the chief inspector from Scotland Yard arrived early

on the following morning, the ditch was knee-deep in snow 7 and most of the potential clues round the body had been } obliterated. The snow was carefully cleared away, and the

_ chief inspector examined the body. Great violence had clearly been used: the clothes had been ripped and torn and there was a large pool of blood underneath the body. The chief inspector also noticed some rabbit skin and fur in the ditch, a small ‘jigger’ button such as is used to fasten the collar of a greatcoat, and that the soil in that part of the ditch was a curious mixture of red and yellow brick dust. He learnt later that a

pile of bricks had been dumped there a few weeks before. The body was removed to the mortuary for identification and for

the post-mortem examination. __ The identity of the body was quickly established, and the chief inspector turned his attention to the camp where the girl had been stationed. ‘There were some 700 men and about 100 ‘women in the camp. The men’s sleeping huts were divided ) from the women’s by a main road through the centre of the ) camp — the ditch where the body was found was alongside this | road —and the administrative and operational blocks of the | ‘camp were some distance away down the road.

_ The chief inspector began his inquiries among the other | women who had shared the same sleeping hut as the murdered

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girl. From them he learned that the victim was a quiet, selfcontained girl from a good family. She was not known to have any particular male friends; but she appeared to enjoy the weekly dances. She was never thought to have made any ‘dates’ as the other women had done, and some went so far as to say that they were certain that she had never gone out alone with any man while she was at camp. She was not outstandingly pretty, but was considered to be quite attractive in a subdued way. She was about twenty-one or twenty-two _ years old. The W.A.A.F. corporal who was in charge of the hut and who was a good friend of the murdered girl appeared to have been the last person, with the exception of the murderer, who had seen her alive. She told the chief inspector that her friend had come in quickly from the dance saying that she was going on duty, that she had changed her clothes very quickly and had rushed out. The corporal had offered her a torch, as the night was dark, but she had hurried away without taking it. At the Signals office, the chief inspector heard how the girl

|

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whom the W.A.A.F. was meant to relieve had waited at her post until 1 a.m., how she had then decided that the other girl |

must have forgotten she was on duty, and had got permission from the officer in charge to return to the camp without getting another relief, as there had been very little happening that night. She had not noticed anyone on the way back to the W.A.A.F. quarters nor seen anything out of the ordinary. é The chief inspector then recalled the W.A.A.F. corporal, who had impressed him as a sound, reliable woman. He took her over her story again and stressed the need for every detail

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_ of all that had happened on the Saturday night. One important new fact emerged. Just after the murdered girl had left the hut, the corporal had gone on her final rounds, and in the washrooms adjoining the hut she had come across an aircraftsman who was slightly drunk. She had told him off sharply and had asked him what he thought he was doing there. The aircraftsman said he had lost his way and that he was looking for ‘No. 1’ hut. The W.A.A.F. corporal had _ roundly ordered him off the premises and had seen him go out on to the main road. This had happened not more than a _ minute or two after the murdered girl had left. The W.A.A.F. corporal did not know who the man was, but she thought she ‘would be able to recognize him again if she saw him. All the men in ‘No. 1’ hut were accordingly paraded, but the corporal could not identify any of them and she was cer‘tain that the man she had seen was not among them. The chief inspector then arranged with the commandant of, the - camp for a recognition parade of every man in the camp, but as he did not want to alarm the culprit before he was ready to arrest him no formal parade was ordered; instead, it was arranged that the corporal should sit next to the accountant . officer when he paid the men on the coming Friday. In this | way the corporal would be able to get a better look at every | man and at the same time the men themselves would not be

| aware of what was happening. :

In the meantime the chief inspector busied himself with an ‘attempt to find out more details about the dance. He ques} tioned a large number of the men and women who had been there, but was unable to find out anything conclusive. The |7 victim had apparently danced quite a lot, but not with any one

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man more than another. She had sat out dances with her

_

women friends and had not joined any of the few mixed parties"

which had formed. There had been no unpleasant disturbances, and no one had been seen to make advances towards

her. In the trucks going back from the dance there had been | the usual merry and lightly amorous scenes, but again she had taken no part in them. The results of the first day’s inquiries were thus ange - negative. The aircraftsman who had been found in the — W.A.A.F. washroom was a suspect, but his identity was not yet known, and it was in any case a far cry from suspecting a

man to establishing definite proof of his guilt. The chief inspector had therefore started inquiries with the object of tracing everybody who had been on that particular stretch of the main road within an hour of either side of the presumed time of death. (This was an easier task in war-time than it | would have been in peace, for nearly all the traffic along that | road was military traffic, the movements of which were carefully recorded at both departure and arrival points.) B On the following three days the inquiries were continued —

without any further positive results. The murdered girl's: parents confirmed the opinion of the women in the camp; her letters home had given no indication of anything out of the ordinary. The post-mortem examination brought nothing |[ new to light.

At the pay parade on the Friday, foweeen the W.A.A. F., corporal definitely identified an aircraftsman, Arthur Heys, as the man she had seen. On being questioned, Heys denied | that he had been in the washroom or anywhere near the

W.A.A.F,

sleeping quarters. He insisted that the corporal if

walt >

th 3

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PRES

__was mistaken. He said that he had been to the dance, but that he had not met the murdered girl, whom he did not know and — never remembered having seen. ‘The chief inspector was not satisfied with Heys’ answers;

_ the W.A.A.F. corporal was not the sort of woman who would _ maliciously fabricate such evidence and she was quite certain that Heys was the man she had seen. The chief inspector therefore inquired further into the matter and questioned the -men who shared Heys’ hut. None could remember when he

came in on Saturday night; they had all been asleep. Heys was neither liked nor disliked. He was a bit talkative at times, but nothing was known against him. Later that day, two of Heys’ room-mates came to the chief i‘. inspector and told him that they had remembered something which had not seemed important when he first questioned | them but which they now thought might have a bearing on the case. On the Sunday morning after the murder Heys had

remained behind in the hut instead of going in to breakfast. _ When they, the two room-mates, had got back to the hut after _ breakfast they had found Heys just finishing cleaning his uni_ form. That anyone should miss breakfast in order to clean a or even that anyone should clean a uniform in the

uniform

_ morning instead of in the evening had struck them as extra-

ordinary. It was altogether outside the normal routine of life |

in the camp and of Heys himself, who was never known to

|-~ have

been quite so particular before. They had chaffed Heys, _ who had not taken the chaffing kindly. departure from routine was what the chief inspector . This had been looking for. It confirmed the suspicions he had || formed when he first questioned Heys, but there was still far

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too little evidence on which he could act. It was also necessary

to rule out any other possible suspects. He arranged to have Heys watched if he should attempt to leave the camp, and in the meantime he had the clothing of all the 700 men in the

camp examined. On Heys’ uniform, and only on Heys’ uniform, traces of blood were found, but they were too slight to be able to determine whether it was human or animal blood. The searchers also found, however, a human hair of the same colour, thickness, and texture as that of the murdered girl and a trace of rabbit fur on his uniform, and on his boots there were grains of yellow and red sand which were the same as the grains of brick dust in the part of the ditch where the body

had been found. The ‘jigger’ button of Heys’ greatcoat was | also missing. Heys was questioned and made a statement. He said that

the blood was probably rabbit’s blood. He had been out shooting rabbits some months ago, before he had joined this camp,

and he had got some blood on his uniform. He did not know where he had lost the button off his greatcoat; it had been missing for a few weeks. He had gone to the dance on Saturday night ona bicycle which he had borrowed. When he came out of the dance he found that the bicycle was missing. He had asked a policeman on point duty about it and had gone with him to the police station to report the loss. He was worried about it because it was not his own bicycle. When he got back to the starting-point for the trucks which were going back to the camp, he had found that the last truck had just left. It must have been about 11.15 p.m. He had then walked | back to the camp which he had reached at about 1.30 a.m.

He had not met anybody on the way, and all the men in his |

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_ hut were asleep when he got in. He again denied that he had been in the W.A.A.F. washroom or that he had ever met the murdered girl. He did not know where he had got the yellow _and red soil on his boots, but he supposed that he must have picked it up on the walk back from the dance. It had been dark and he had not noticed the surface of the path on the side of the road. He thought the hair might have come from his _ wife.

The chief inspector checked the statement. The policeman to whom the loss of the bicycle had been reported was tound and confirmed Heys’ account so far. The report had been _made shortly after 11 p.m. The drivers of the crucks were . _questioned and confirmed that the last truck had left at 11.15. None of the drivers could say, however, whether or not they | had picked up Heys at the starting-point. There was no check on the names of the people in the trucks; the night was dark _and it was impossible to be certain about who the passengers were except that they were all in R.A.F uniform. Nor could anyone be found among all those who had returned in ‘he trucks that night who could be any more definite. There _ were many who did not even know whom they had been “sitting next to. The chief inspector then walked the distance himself from the town to the camp. The time fitted in with what Heys had said, but except for the patch by the scene of _ the crime, and that was off the path, there was no other piece ¢ of ground which in any way resembled the yellow and red

} soil which had been found on his boots. Reports now began to come in from all the army and § R.A.F. drivers who had been on that road between 11.30| p.m. and 1.30 a.m. on the night of the murder. The traffic

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had been heavy and the interval between the lorries had never ;

been much more than five minutes. No one had seen any- — | body walking between the town and the camp — they would H | certainly have given him a lift if they had —and the only sign r of life had been at the camp itself, where a few figures were — seen until shortly after midnight, after which time the road had been completely deserted. : These reports quashed Heys’ alibi, and the chief inspector felt he was on surer ground. The case against Heys was not as _ good as it might have been, but there was now enough evidence to justify a charge of murder against him. He was accordingly arrested, and the case was remanded at the request | of the police. Heys was sent to the remand prison at Norwich. » The chief inspector continued his inquiries in the hope of getting further evidence, and the next development in the case surprised him. He was sent for urgently by the commandant of the camp, who showed him an anonymous letter he had ) received. The writer of the letter said that he, the writer, was: the murderer, that the police had got hold of the wrong man, | and then proceeded to give details of the crime, details which _ fitted in exactly with the chief inspector’s reconstruction of | what had probably happened and which only the murderer could have known. The writer of the letter said that after he

had been chased out of the W.A.A.F. washroom by the cor-_| poral, he had gone out on to the road, had seen the murdered | girl some distance ahead and-had quickly overtaken her. He — had no intention of giving himself up, but he begged the police to release Heys. The postmark on the envelope was _ Norwich.

i |

The commandant was very agitated and asked the chief

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_ inspector to get Heys out of the remand prison at once. He thought that there had been a serious miscarriage of justice; Heys must. have suffered a great deal and the sooner this terrible stain was removed from his character the better. The chief inspector, on the other hand, was delighted. Here was _ the final piece of evidence he needed to prove his case. He was absolutely certain that Heys had written the letter himself. He had a note which Heys had sent him a few days before his

arrest and a rough comparison with the anonymous letter confirmed his opinion. Inquiries at the prison revealed that letters were sometimes sneaked out, without first going through the censorship of the warders, by the delivery vans,

_and a man was found who admitted that he had taken out a _ few letters on the day when the anonymous letter had been posted. He could not say whether the anonymous letter had been among them or not; he had not looked at them carefully. Further proof came when it was found that the paper on

which the letter had been written was the same as some scraps

of paper which the governor of the prison kept in a box on his desk for those prisoners who had no paper of their own, but ~ who wished to send letters to relatives and friends.

A hand-

writing expert was called in and said that there was no doubt at all that the writing on the anonymous letter was identical fi with some certified specimens of Heys’ writing which he had

been given. In his brief for the Director of Public Prosecutions, the é chief inspector summed up the evidence against Heys: (1) his identification by the W.A.A.F. corporal as the man in the | washroom and her evidence of his subsequent departure a / minute or two behind the murdered girl; (2) that he had

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taken the first opportunity he could to clean his uniform un-— observed on the following morning; (3) the hair on the uniform which was the same as the dead girl’s hair; (4) the rabbit fur which was the same as the fur which had been found on the scene of the crime; (5) the yellow and red soil on his boots which was the same as the soil in the ditch; (6) the jigger button was the same type as that missing from his greatcoat; (7) the blood stains; (8) no alibi for the time of the crime; ;

(9) the fact that he was the writer of the anonymous letter which contained details of the crime which only the murderer could have known. At the trial only one of these facts was upset:itwas proved that the hair found on the uniform was in fact indistinguishable from that of Heys’ wife as well as from that of the murdered girl; it was impossible to prove to which of the two it | belonged. A verdict of guilty was brought in, and in due course | Heys was hanged. Shortly before he was executed he wrote | to the chief inspector and accused him of falsifying the evi-

dence chief letter letter

against him. This was, of course, nonsense, but the | inspector noted with interest that the writing of this | was again exactly the same as that of the anonymous and was merely additional evidence of Heys’ guilt. *

In the preceding case the search for the murderer could be } —and was — limited to the men in the camp. It is often said, , however, that the ‘perfect? murder would be one in which } there was no connexion between the murderer and his victim,

or rather one in which the murderer and victim were quite| unknown to one another and which was a casual, unpremedi-

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tated killing. In practice, a large proportion of murders fall into this category and very few indeed remain undetected. ‘The case which follows is a typical example of such homicides. The verdict in this case was one of manslaughter, so ~ that it does not strictly belong to this series of murders, but it was nevertheless a homicide and is therefore not altogether out of place here.

“CASE3 The scene of this crime was a mining town in the north of England. It is one of the most depressing towns to be found _ anywhere in Britain. The small stone houses are built back _to back and side to side in long monotonous rows. There are no gardens to any of them, only a small paved area in front of each, leading out on to grimy streets. Coal dust fills the air and dirties the fagades of all the dingy little buildings. The _ roads are narrow and most of them are cobbled. When it rains, as it frequently does, it is as though all the dirty water in England had been gathered into the clouds above the town and emptied over it in a fine drizzle of ash and soot. The social centre of the town is the so-called marketsquare. It is about three acres in size and is surrounded by half a dozen public-houses, two dance halls, and a cinema. The main road through the town runs past one side of the square, {| and a little way down the road the houses on the other side | give way to the coal mines, the railway shunting yards, and the slag heaps. A number of small paths lead off from the main road at this point down to the railway tracks which are about thirty feet below. About half a mile beyond the market_ square, on the south side of the town, the houses come to an

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abrupt end and the main road winds on through beautiful moorland country, which seems all the more attractive by :

contrast with the grime of the coal mines. The people of the town have hard, drawn faces. They — suffered terribly during the great slump of the thirties, and, in © spite of far higher wages since the war and the welfare benefits of the post-war years, they are still suspicious and fright- _ ened of what the next day will bring. They live therefore — entirely in the present. They seem to be incapable of thrift and they gamble and drink away the large surpluses in their weekly pay-packets. Every Saturday night many of the young men‘and women in the town gather in the market-place. They go to the pubs rf or dance in the dance halls or hold hands in the cinema or simply mooch about the square discussing the day’s racing & results. The pubs shut at 10 p.m., the cinema comes toanend | at about 10.15 p.m., and the pes halls are emptied between .| 10.45 and 11 p.m. After 11 p.m., the market-square becomes __ a seething mass of people — police estimates put the average crowds at between three and four thousand men and women. =| They jostle and move around, but gradually they sort chee selves out into couples and disappear down the side streets_

leading away from the square. Many of them go down the main road, but instead of seeking the open country for their love-making they turn down the paths to the railway tracks and slag heaps. é On one such Saturday nehetin the winter of 1948, a man picked up a partner whom he had never met before and went with her down to the shunting yards. They went into a disused railway hut to take their pleasure. In the hut some sort

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of quarrel broke out between them. The woman happened to be a prostitute and may have demanded payment, or, as the _man later said, may have attempted to take money from him by force. Whatever the cause, the man lost his temper, knocked her down, and smashed her face with a shovel, killing her. The body was found on the following morning by some railway workers who immediately summoned the police. One of the larger-county forces was responsible for policing the town and the C.1.D. of the force had a high reputation for successful detections. The chief constable therefore decided that there was no need to call in Scotland Yard and entrusted ES the investigation to his senior detectives. The scene of the crime revealed very little. The cause of _ death was obvious, the weapon was there beside the body and there were no finger-prints on it. After a short delay, the body ‘ was identified and the character of the girl was established. _ Butapart from these few facts, the police had nothing to work _ on. A search of the surrounding district was organized and _ door-to-door inquiries were started, particularly among the _ licensees and people employed in the various establishments _ around the market-square. 5; The search produced one more clue: the victim’s purse was |_ found by a fence some four hundred yards away from the scene | f of the crime. Foot-prints by the fence showed that someone | had climbed over it, and the detectives deduced that the cul| prit had escaped in that direction. ‘They were able to work out

\- the approximate path the culprit had followed and guessed

|

that he probably lived in the district where the trail came to

an end. The inquiries in the market-square brought out the C.P.—6

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fact that the dead girl had been dancing in one of the dance halls on the Saturday night, but that she had left on her own when the hall shut. Posters were immediately prepared showing a large photograph of the girl and calling upon anybody who had seen her on the Saturday night to come forward and tell the police;

further inquiries were made among her relatives. The posters produced a few witnesses who remembered seeing her in the dance hall, but nobody remembered whom she had been dancing with or had seen her after the dance. The inquiries among her relatives were fruitless. The lack of information slowed down progress in the investigations almost to a standstill, and the detectives decided to take extraordinary measures to get more information. They had learned from the local police about the Saturday night activities in the market-square and it was generally believed that much the same people went to the square every week. On © the Saturday night following the night of the homicide, therefore, every exit from the square was blocked by the police from 10.45 p.m. onwards. As each person or couple started to leave the square, they were stopped and questioned about their activities on the previous Saturday night. : ‘More than two thousand statements were taken. Many people could not remember whom they had been with the week before, most had not got beyond Christian names,some

could not even describe their partners and others quite clearly did not wish it to be known that they had been in the square

at all — not because of the crime, but for fear of husbands or wives or parents. The detectives checked as many of the statements as could be checked. In the end they managed to narrow

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»

their investigations down to nine men who had not been able to account for their activities satisfactorily. Each of the nine men was closely questioned again by the senior detective in charge of the investigation. Each was asked to repeat the first account he had given of his movements and to try to explain the discrepancies which had been revealed during the checking of the statements. They were asked what routes home they had taken, what clothes they had been wearing, whether they had ever been down to the shunting yards, who their friends were, whether they knew the dead girl, which of the two dance halls they normally went to, which was their favourite pub. They were questioned about their life histories, about their work, about their pastimes, until the detective had a complete dossier on each man. Every fact that could be checked was checked. Eventually, suspicion centred on one man; but the one lie that he was known to have told —

that he had never been to the dance hall where the dead girl had been seen when in fact he was a regular visitor there — was no proof of his guilt. Meanwhile, however, the clothes of all nine men had been ‘sent to the nearest. Home Office laboratory for examination.

The reports of the laboratory showed that there were traces of a small quantity of human blood on the legs of the trousers of one of the men, the one whom the detectives now suspected. The man was brought in once more for questioning and was confronted with this new piece of evidence. In his previous statements he had not made any reference to any accident to himself or his mates which could account for the presence of the blood. He admitted defeat and confessed to the crime. At his trial, the jury considered that he had acted under

"et

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Z ree exceptional provocation and brought in a verdict of guilty of manslaughter but not guilty of murder. He was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment. *%

/

‘The reader will have noticed that in none of the three cases —

cited above was there any discussion of motive or any prolonged attempt on the part of the detectives to discover what the motives might have been. This is true of most murder cases; the exceptions, which are rare, are murders, usually— poison cases, which have been committed in order to obtain large sums of money. In such cases there is normally an in- — surance policy or a will which definitely establishes a motive and which is a material factor in the evidence against the murderer. ‘Not even the Devil knows what’s in a man’s mind’, sums up the chief difficulty in establishing motives. A detective can usually determine how, when, where, and by whom a murder — has been committed. He sometimes knows with reasonable — certainty the extent to which it has been premeditated, but © the motive more often than not remains the dark secret of the — murderer. Moreover, motives, even when they are known, © are extremely difficult to prove, and no Court can ever be certain that it has heard the whole truth. The last victim of John |

George Haigh, the ‘acid bath murderer’, was killed apparently for the sake of furs and jewels worth little more than £1003

Cummings, who killed three women and attempted to kill two others in London in 1942, did so for even smaller sums

_

of money. It is difficult to believe that gain was the only mo- q tive in each case, but the medical advisers to the Home Secre-

MURDER

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_ tary could find no sign of insanity in either man and there was no evidence to show any other motive. No detective worth his salt, therefore, ever bases a case against a murderer on motive alone. At best an overwhelming motive for commit_ ting a particular murder is but one pointer among many to the identity of the murderer; at worst, the motive can be so trivial

or improbable as to make the rest of the evidence against the murderer appear doubtful. There are in fact almost as many different motives for murder as there are murderers. The Home Office has made an analysis of all murders since 1900, showing among other __ things the victims of murderers divided into eighteen different groups. The relation between murderer and victim is, of course, only a guide to what the motive might have been; it is in no way conclusive evidence. A man, for example, might - murder his wife in order to be able to marry another woman, in order to get hold of some money, or simply because he is s annoyed with her. There is the notorious but genuine case in

__ America where a woman shot her husband because he mis_ played a hand at bridge. From the table on page 166, therefore, it is possible only "to come to some very rough general conclusions about the - more usual motives for murder, but that is all. If anything, :the table emphasizes the difficulty of separating one set of motives from another. (The eighteen groups in the Home Office table have been consolidated here into eleven groups.)

"The table shows some surprising facts. The crime passtonel As appears to account for more than half the murders; murders "committed during robberies account for less than a quarter, _ while murders as the result of taking drink amount to little

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CLASSES OF MURDERERS, 1900-1948 Number sentenced

For murder of: (a) Wives and husbands (b) Parents (c) Sweethearts, mistresses, or lovers

to Death Men Women 206 II 18 I 290 4

(d) Children over 1 year of age in

e

sexual assaults (e) Other children over 1 year ofage (f) Women, other than those above, in sexual assaults (g) Men and women during robbery

30 43 4I 150

° 40

~*

° 7

(h) Men and women, other than

those above, in quarrels or from revenge or jealousy (i) After drink (j) Police and prison officers (k) Miscellaneous

105 26 19

2 ° °

74

I

more than 3 per cent of the total. Women show up far better than men, although there is a large number which are not shown on the table, as they are covered by the Infanticide

Acts; the majority of those shown are guilty of the murder of children and most of these murders were committed in an

abnormal state of mind. The table is more valuable, however, to sociologists than to policemen. It does not simplify the task

of detecting murderers or of proving the cases against them. It is as difficult to determine the extent of premeditation. In some murders, where there have been extensive preparations beforehand, premeditation can be clearly established, but in most, as in the three cases which have been cited, the

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murderer simply takes advantage of a favourable opportunity. If there is no evidence of previous preparation, it is almost impossible to prove how long, if at all, a murderer has brooded over his crime. Even the evidence of a quarrel with the victim — days, weeks, or months before the crime — is not con-

clusive. The murderer can claim that the quarrel was patched up and nobody but the victim can say otherwise. Moreover, some murders, such as those committed in the course of a’ _ robbery, are definitely unpremeditated, but they are often the most reprehensible of all. ‘The most controversial question in a large number of murder trials is the question of whether the murderer was insane or not. The present law regarding insanity was laid down ina set of judges’ answers to questions by the House of Lords in the appeal of Macnaghten in 1843. (Macnaghten was a madman who attempted to assassinate Sir Robert Peel but killed his secretary instead.) The Macnaghten Rules, as they are now called, state first that the burden of proof of insanity rests with the defence, and second that the jury should be told that a plea of insanity can be upheld only if it was proved that, at the time of the crime, either the accused did not know what _he was doing or that he did not know that what he was doing _ was wrong. In theory a plea of insanity can be put forward as a defence for any crime, but in practice, as the success of the plea means an indefinite stay in the criminal asylum at Broad-

~ moor, the plea is normally made only in cases of murder. Where the insanity is obvious, the Macnaghten Rules are | perfectly satisfactory. They are clear, they are simple, and they can be easily applied. But sanity shades off into insanity by an infinite number of gradations, and the time is overdue

’

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for the law in England to recognize, as the law in Scotland has done for some decades, that between murderers who are completely responsible and those who are completely irre-— ; sponsible there is a third class of those who are only partially 4— ; responsible. In Scotland, this third class are found guilty of culpable homicide which is not punishable by death. The state _ of mind to be proved in a plea of diminished responsibility is — not clearly defined, but it has been put forward by the Lomte Chief Justice Clerk (Lord Alness) in a case in 1923: that there must be aberration or weakness of mind; that there must

_

be some form of mental unsoundness; that there must be a state of

mind which is bordering on, though not amounting to, insanity; that there must be a mind so affected that responsibility is diminished _ from full responsibility to partial responsibility.

The chief difficulty in cases where insanity has been put | forward as a defence is to get some measure of agreement | among the medical witnesses. he diagnosis of insanity is far| | from being an exact science, and, particularly in borden cases, it is rare indeed to find two psychiatrists who will agree as to the nature of the mental disease from which the prisoner| may be suffering or even as to the degree of his insanity. In Court, the final decision rests with the jury, and where the _ medical evidence is conflicting or obscure they inevitably fall back on their own common sense. But this, too, can lead toq the danger of grave injustice.

:|

Shortly before the war a tea planter from Ceylon came home to London on leave. He had saved up about £500 and| he had some four months in which to spend it. He met a | pleasant woman who had been living with a doctor, but who 3 }| :| |

7

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| s

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_willingly left the doctor to come to him. They spent three months happily together, but towards the end of that time the - planter’s money was nearly all spent and the woman began to _ think of her future. She made representations to the doctor, suggesting that she should shortly return to him. The doctor had missed her and was pleased at the suggestion. The planter, however, discovered a letter from the doctor to the woman in his flat and taxed the woman with infidelity. She explained SS ; he, the planter, would be returning soon to Ceylon, that she would then be homeless and penniless, and that it was EDjothing but common prudence on her part to make plans for | her future. The planter demanded to know whether she had ke finally decided to leave him. She made some non-committal \ reply. Within the next few days the planter obtained an axe | and a week later killed the woman in her sleep. The planter - then gave himself up to the police. __ During the subsequent inquiries the detective in charge of the case discovered that the planter’s father had died insane, _ that his brother was in an asylum, and that, when the news b of the murder was published, his sister had had a severe nerL yous breakdown and her sanity was now also in doubt. It was ' reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the planter was suffering | from some form of hereditary insanity, although it had not

| been obvious from his behaviour either before or after the

| crime. Still, this information was given to the defence before _the trial, together with the evidence on which the police "charge was based. _ At the trial the prosecution simply gave a straightforward | account of the crime; there was no doubt of the planter’s

"guilt. The defence duly put forward a plea of insanity, and

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they called as their chief witness a young doctor who had only recently qualified and who had begun to specialize in psychiatry. He gave an able but very technical account of the form ~ of insanity from which he thought the planter was suffering. Counsel for the prosecution cross-examined him: ‘How old are you?’ “Twenty-five.” ‘How long have you been practising ?”

‘Six months.’ ‘Where did you qualify?” ‘Cambridge.’ ‘What degree did you get?”

. ‘Bachelor of Medicine.’ ‘Is not that the lowest degree you can get at Cambridge?’ Byes “Thank you, doctor. That is all.’ The jury rejected the plea of insanity and the planter was sentenced to death. The Home Secretary, however, exercised the royal prerogative of mercy and the sentence was commuted to one of detention at the criminal asylum at Broadmoor. English law recognizes only one punishment for murder, and that is death, but it is saved from any serious charge of injustice by the existence of the royal prerogative of mercy. The royal prerogative is exercised in the Queen’s name by the Home Secretary in any case where the sanity of the murderer is in doubt, where there is some physical deformity which would make hanging difficult or unseemly, and where there are good grounds for regarding the murder — in the phrase used in some States in America —as a case of justifiable homi-

_ |

| |

MURDER

ETS

_cide. No murderer is ever exonerated entirely, and the length of the prison sentence or of the period of detention at Broadmoor is left entirely to the Home‘Secretary and is seldom announced. In practice to-day, reprieved murderers usually serve fifteen years in prison — in a few very rare cases it may be quite considerably less — while those at Broadmoor are, in the interests of safety, sometimes detained for the whole of _ their lives. Reprieved murderers usually make model prisoners, and their resettlement in society after they have completed their sentences is not as difficult as might be supposed. In deciding whether or not to exercise the royal prerogative, the Home Secretary reviews all the evidence produced at

the trial and any subsequent facts which might have come to light. If necessary, further inquiries are made into the murderer’s past and into the circumstances which led up to the crime. At this stage, motive becomes one of the most important factors and every effort is made to discover what the | motive might have been. If there is a question of the murderer’s sanity, as there usually is, the Home Secretary calls in three psychiatrists who are leading specialists in mental abnormality in criminals. They examine the murderer thoroughly and report on his state of mind without regard to the “Macnaghten Rules. This report usually decides the murderer’s fate. Where there is no question of insanity, reprieves are | usually given only in two types of cases: the so-called ‘mercy’ killings, which are murders committed in order to end intolerable suffering on the part of the victim, and ‘suicide pacts’ when one partner of the pact has survived.

; : CHAPTER NINE

POLICING

LONDON

: -

:

5

Tue streets of London are no longer paved with gold, but for centuries the wealth contained in its shops, warehouses, and banks has proved an irresistible temptation to criminals from all countries. Roughly 25 per cent of all the crimes — committed in England take place in London. The blind alleys, — the narrow winding streets in the older boroughs, the river, — and the higgledy-piggledy layout of the great town make it a natural habitat of thieves. The centre of the underworld —the receivers of stolen property, the ‘contact’ men, and the petty organizers of criminals — can move easily and quickly from one part to another. The population is perpetually shifting, like quicksands, and a man may deliberately lose himself i =| London as effectively as in the Sahara desert. London is unique. No other city combines the pana | nalia of business with the trappings of government on such a scale. Only New York compares with it in size, but even | New York is not, as London is, both the centre of business _

and the centre of government. Crime and politics make bad | bed-fellows, and though the two are not normally related in : London, the police have to deal with both. Most political _ storms find their outlet in London, often causing a minor outbreak of violence and riots. Political meetings abound and |

attract large crowds which are not always peaceful. Clashes : between extremists are all too common, diverting large num} |

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_ bers of policemen from their more normal work. At the end _of March 1949, for example, a fight between Communists and neo- Fascists involved from 400 to 500 policemen, many _ of whom were themselves injured. On May Day in the same year, rival meetings in Trafalgar Square broke out into violence and again some 200 policemen were required to restore order. The Thames and the many miles of docks along its banks create a police problem of exceptional difficulty. More ships _ use the Port of London, than any other port in the world. _ Throughout the twenty-four hours there is a continuous |stream of cargoes being loaded and unloaded at the docks. ‘The opportunity for crime and the risk of accidents are both great. It is the responsibility of the Metropolitan Police and = ee, _ of the police of the Port of London Authority to see that both are kept to a minimum. _ The presence of the Royal Family and of the many ‘very _ important persons’ demand constant vigilance. Buildings such as Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, and Gov‘ernment officesin Whitehall have to be protected. The huge

-crowds which gather for London’s frequent spectacles — rang-

_ing from the Trooping of the Colour to the premiére of a film _ show — have all to be controlled and watched. | The very size of London magnifies what would be normal _police tasks into major operations. A traffic block at Hyde Park Corner, for instance, could — and sometimes does — lead vin less than ten minutes to an immovable mass of cars stretch| ing back for more than two miles. The inhabitants of London _ make twenty million journeys a day on the buses and under|ground railways; a breakdown of the trains or a sudden trans-

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port strike could (if they were not controlled) build up enormous crowds with incredible speed. The ordinary policeman on his beat is swamped by the density of the houses and the vast number of people; to patrol even a few London squares properly would take up most of the policemen in a whole subdivision. Finally, although the Metropolitan Police are under the single control of the Home Secretary, the 140 separate local governments which go to make up the administrative authorities of Greater London have to be consulted on a num‘ber of different matters —and they do not always automatically agree with the police or with each other about such questions as accident prevention or providing houses for.policemen. How does the Metropolitan Police carry out its compli- | cated tasks? First of all, the 700 square miles of London and its suburbs which are under their control are divided into four _ districts, each under a District Commander who is of the same rank as an assistant chief constable. He is helped by a Deputy Commander, a District Chief Superintendent (C.I.D.), a District Superintendent, a District Traffic and Transport Officer, and a District Inspector of the Mounted Police. Each district is then divided up into five or six divisions under a Chief Superintendent whose staff consists of a Superintendent (administrative), a Superintendent (crime), and a Chief Inspector (C.I.D.). There are twenty-three divisions, including the Thames Division which patrols the river from | Dartford Creek to Teddington. The divisions are again split up into sub-divisions, of which there are eighty-five in all, and | each of which is under a Chief Inspector. The sub-divisions} are then broken down into one hundred and eighty-three} section stations, each of which is under a Sergeant.

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Scotland Yard itself is divided into eight main departments, _

four of which are operational, three administrative, and the office of the Receiver. Each of the four operational departments is under an Assistant Commissioner, who is of the same _ rank as a chief constable in the provincial police forces. (The Secretary of Scotland Yard also ranks as an Assistant Com-

missioner, but he is not a police officer.) At the head of the whole organization is the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who is the most senior police officer in Britain. The first of the operational departments is known as ‘A’ ' Department, and is misleadingly called the administrative department. It controls the uniformed police, the women Lees police, and the mounted police. It is responsible for a wide ‘ variety of police duties such as controlling public meetings, supervising elections, dealing with riots, strikes, and processions, and enforcing the licensing laws. It deals with a number —of minor crimes, including prostitution, betting, and fortunetelling. It is also responsible for a number of administrative / matters such as discipline, promotion, and distributing the number of men available to the parts of London where they are most required. _ ‘B’ Department is responsible for traffic and transport. It deals with the general problems of road safety, the investigation of serious accidents, traffic patrols, public transport, street lighting, and street trading. It runs the police driving school -at Hendon, and it controls all the police cars and vans in the Metropolitan District. Its chief task is, of course, the control _of traffic in London. It supervises proceedings in Court for serious traffic offences and it advises the Ministry of Trans| port on all aspects of traffic regulations.

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ee

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‘C’ Department deals exclusively with crime, and its or ganization has already been explained in Chapter Three. Its importance in this context is that under it comes the Special Branch, the only body of men approaching a political police. force in Britain. The Special Branch has two chief duties: to track down and to prevent, where possible, offences against the security of the State, and to protect members of the Royal Family, Cabinet Ministers, and other important persons. Men of the Special Branch are present at any political meeting which is likely to break out into violence, and they watch ports _ and airfields for undesirable visitors to Britain. They conduct special inquiries into such matters as passports, requests for naturalization, and the possession of arms and explosives. | They number only a few hundred, and they possess exactly the same powers of arrest, search, and interrogation as other policemen. They are not in any way a Gestapo, and they are subject to the same restrictions as their less mysterious colleagues.

i

The last of the operational departments, ‘D’ Depa | is responsible chiefly for communications, training, and ree cruiting. Like ‘A’ Department, it also undertakes a certain | number of administrative duties, and it supervises the medical care of the men in the force, the issue of stores and clothing, | and the maintenance of police stations and other police build- | ings. Under the heading ‘communications’ comes the In- | formation Room, which receives all emergency calls from a public and which directs patrol cars to the scenes of crim accidents, or other incidents requiring police help. The igs formation Room also keeps in radio touch with the patrol boats on the Thames. One section of the department busies-

POLICING

LONDON

©

77

_ itself exclusively with new developments in communications and works closely with the Post Office in improving existing _ equipment and methods. The first of the three administrative departments iis the Secretariat. Vhis department, besides running the administrative staff in Scotland Yard, is responsible for dealing with the Police Federation on matters affecting the Metropolitan _ Police, for getting out answers to questions in Parliament, for relations with the Press and public, for the registration of

ie aliens, and for statistics. It controls about five hundred civil

servants who are scattered among the other departments. The

- function of the Secretariat is in effect to oil the wheels of the

esMetropolitan Police machine. F The second administrative department is the legal depart_ ment, whose duties are self-explanatory. There are some fifteen solicitors who conduct all police cases which need _ legal aid. The department should not be confused with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which is not in any way controlled by the police. The duty of the Director of Public Prosecutions - who comes under the AttorneyGeneral — is to institute criminal proceedings in the case of any offence punishable by death, in cases referred to him by _ Government departments, if he thinks a criminal charge is warranted, and in any-other major case in which he thinks his intervention is necessary. All police forces are obliged to report certain major offences to him, and also all cases in _ which the prosecution is withdrawn for whatever reason. He may also call for a report on any case in which he is interested, and all police forces may seek his advice on complicated cases or in any case where some difficult point of law is involved.

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In practice,-the decision whether to prosecute in major offences or not rests largely in his hands. Finally, there is the office of the Receiver, who is an independent official responsible directly to the Home Secretary and not to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. His position is unique in both local and central governments. He administers the Metropolitan Police fund and pays for everything which the force needs to carry out its work, including the salaries of the policemen, from monies which he precepts from the local and central authorities. All Metropolitan Police property is vested in his name, and he is a ‘corporation sole in perpetual succession’. He has the power to — buy and sell land and to sue or be sued in his official name. All Receivers of the Metropolitan Police have, according to tradition, been hard-headed, independent-minded men who refuse to bow to authority however wrathfully expressed. They are regarded by most policemen — without malice — as skinflints who will never allow them to buy the extra patrol car or piece of equipment the policemen think they need. In a sense, the Receiver might be, and has been called, the business manager of the Force. The local authorities in London are obliged to pay half the cost of the Metropolitan Police — the Exchequer pays the other half—but they have no say in how the money is spent. By tradition, therefore, the Receiver looks after the interests of the Metropolitan local authorities. He is in no way responsible to them, but he sees that the money which they are obliged to give to the police fund is well spent. He advises both the Commissioner and the Home Secretary about police expenditure in the Metropolitan

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_ Police District, and he is responsible for the care and maintenance of all police property and equipment. The Assistant Commissioners at Scotland Yard assume direct control only when major incidents, such as a general strike or a series of major crimes, occur. In general, matters are left to the men on the spot. A traffic jam in Piccadilly is» dealt with by the constable on point duty, or, if it gets beyond his control, by the inspector in charge of traffic in that division. A fight in Covent Garden market or a raid on a suspected gambling house in Hammersmith would each be handled by the sub-divisions concerned, the police officers in charge simply reporting what has happened and what they have done about it to their immediate seniors. The only day: to-day control exercised by Scotland Yard is that of the Information Room. The senior officers at Scotland Yard, therefore, supervise rather than operate the men under them. Their responsibility is to see that the machine works smoothly rather than to drive the machine themselves. *

The Assistant Commissioners and their staffs plan ahead as much as they can. The dates and times of most big public events — football matches, major processions, tournaments, the opening of Parliament — are known some time in advance of the events themselves. ‘A’ Department, which is chiefly 1 responsible for police organization on such occasions, draws {up a general outline of what it thinks is necessary. Conferences are then held to decide how many men will be required, which divisions can spare them with least disruption of nor4 mal work, where they ought to be placed, how early they

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ought to be in position, and so on. “B’ Department works out the traffic arrangements which might be necessary. Road di- |

versions are planned, and the extra policemen who will bel required for point duty are asked for. “C’ Department ar-_ ) ranges for extra detectives to be on duty, and sends out orders — to mark down all likely trouble-makers. For, unlike the system in America and on the Continent, the protection work_ in England is done inconspicuously among the watching crowds rather than by armed bodyguards with the people who are being protected. If troops are taking part in the procession, _ they are, of course, instructed to keep a watch for any disturb- : ance; the operational part of any such military guards are the ~ troopers immediately behind the carriage or car to be protected, _ the reason being that it is much easier to spurt ahead to ward off an intruder than to turn back to attack him. (Itis general accepted that the success of the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia at Marseilles was because the royal guar were in front instead of behind the car carrying the king. ; *D’ Department makes plans for any special communications _ which may be needed. :| Finally, ‘A’ Department co-ordinates all the different plans. which have been made, arranges meetings with the organiz of the procession and with the military authorities if they are taking part, and then draws up written instructions for every unit taking part. The mounted police are instructed in their duties, and motor-cycle police are warned. | On the day of the procession, senior officers take control on the spot. The arrangements are carefully inspected and any last-minute alterations which may be necessary are made. If| anything shouldE HAREESS the organization in Scotland ‘||

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itself is ready to deal with the-emergency — to call up extra men, to divert patrol cars to the scene of the disturbance, or,

‘in extreme cases, to call out the army. The biggest event of the year which the Metropolitan - Police have to deal with is Derby Day at Epsom

Downs.

More than 500,000 people regularly attend the Derby, and among them are the Royal Family and most of the important ypeople in the country. Confidence tricksters, thieves, and - pickpockets flock to the Downs and a great part of the detec|tive strength of the force is diverted to watch over them. The

|traffic problem is incredibly complex, and many years have been spent on experimenting with different systems of controlling and organizing it. (The use of a helicopter has been tried with good results; by watching the movement of traffic | from the air a senior police officer can direct the police on the _ ground to points where a block appears to be building up and so resolve the muddle before it has become serious.) It says much for the efficiency of the Force that there has never yet (|been a major disturbance at the Derby. London’s thieves are not very different from thieves in other parts of England. They are, however, more numerous, and, like every other police problem in London, detecting and ‘catching them involves peculiar difficulties. The detectives in - each division and sub-division get to know their local crimin| als as well as they can, and their success in catching them is | surprisingly good. But it is extremely easy for a thief to move ‘his headquarters, if he has any, from one part of London to |another, and if he finds that the detectives in Chelsea, say, | are pressing him hard, he simply changes his area of operations to another borough. If the Chelsea detectives can find out

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;

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where he has gone to, they will warn the detectives in the division concerned, but it is not often that the police tied to a Coa

:

.

Wy

divisional area can trace, or even spend time on tracing, a _ regular offender who has left their area. In the busiest division, that covering the West End, each detective has handled an

average of two hundred local cases a year during the post-war years. When it is realized that each case involves many inquiries, attendances at Court, and a fair amount ofpaper work, it will be appreciated that the detective has not much time left over for investigations outside his own division. Shortly after the First World War, therefore, it was de- | cided to set up what has become known as the Flying Squad. There are now about eighty men in the Flying Squad, which is basically an organization of free-lance detectives. The members of the Squad are unhampered by divisional responsibilities, and they are free to operate wherever they like in the Metropolitan Police District and to some extent in the Home Counties as well. They are all carefully picked men, and they are regarded as the cream of the detectives in the Metropolitan Police. From time to time they spend a year or more on divisional work in order to spread the knowledge they have gained among other detectives and also to ensure that, when | they are promoted, they will be able to undertake the administrative work thrust upon all senior detectives. Most of the — men in the Flying Squad are given cars for their own use, and | they all act as individuals rather than as a team. They constitute probably the most mobile and the most expert body ofé detectives in the world.

In general, members of the Flying Squad fall into two | groups: those who are expert at catching thieves and those *

POLICING

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_ who are expert at obtaining information. It is rare to find a man who is equally good at both aspects of Flying Squad work. Moreover, much of the success of the Flying Squad is due to the ability of those who gather in the information to keep their identity secret; if they were to carry out the arrests as well,

their identity would soon become known. There are, of _ course, occasions when the detective who gets the information must also make the arrest, but these occasions are avoided if it is at all possible. ‘The secrecy with which the Flying Squad surrounds itself, however, has certain drawbacks. It was partially responsible for one of the very few new criminal tricks which have been invented in recent years. The first criminals to practise the trick, known in the argot of the underworld as ‘lawing’, did so almost by chance. 'wo army deserters were walking down a street in the Tottenham Court Road district when they happened across a lorry loaded with cigarettes, with its engine ticking over and with no driver. The opportunity was too good for them to let slip by, and they promptly got into the lorry and drove it off. The question then arose of where and how they were to get rid of the cigarettes. They knew no receivers who dealt in that particular market. They therefore - took a chance and called in at a small tobacconist’s in Camden Town. They told the tobacconist that the cigarettes were stolen, and offered to sell them to him at a third of their normal price. The tobacconist hesitated, but the temptation was too great and he accepted the offer. The two criminals helped ‘him to stow the cigarettes away in the back of his shop and then drove away. They thought over what they had done, and suddenly they realized that they had the tobacconist in a

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_ cleft stick. They called on two friends, told them what they had done, and worked out a simple plan. The two friends red turned to the tobacconist’s shop that same afternoon, aa

banged in through the door. They put their hands in their pockets, flashed a couple of white visiting cards before the tobacconist’s face, and announced that they were two police officers. he tobacconist quailed. | ‘Understand you’ve got some stolen cigarettes here,’ one of the men said. The tobacconist tremblingly denied the fact. ‘Mind if we have a look round?’ The tobacconist nodded assent. Primed previously with the knowledge of where the cigarettes had been stored, the two men quickly found them and —

put them on the counter of the shop. It was a quiet period of | the day, and they were nof disturbed. “This may mean three years in prison for you,’ the second of the two men said to the tobacconist. ‘A cheque for £200, will see you out of trouble.’ The tobacconist thought for a moment. He did not dare to call up the local police station to ensure that the men were genuine — even if such an idea occurred to him — because he

z

;

‘|

himself was a receiver of stolen property. He wrote out and — signed the cheque without further fuss, the two men took thel cigarettes away together with the cheque, and that night all. 4

four criminals celebrated the success of their scheme. They ||

repeated it with equal success at intervals during the next few months, but on these later occasions they used clothing cou-des pons instead of cigarettes, as they were easier to carry about and — more incriminating for the purchasers. In a short space of time two other gangs had discovered the

iia er eee ire: teibin mies hom

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_trick,and bycommon agreement London was divided into three Operating areas; the first gang stuck to the north, the second _ worked the West End, and the third operated south of the river. Whispers then began to reach the senior officers of the Flying Squad that their men were accepting bribes. It was difficult to believe the whispers, for the men of the Flying Squad had all been very carefully chosen, but they, more than “any other detectives, had the opportunity for taking bribes because they were such independent agents. One or two traps were laid with negative results, and the senior officers decided that the whispers were false, but that nevertheless something _ out of the ordinary was going on. All the men in the Squad _ were instructed to keep their ears and eyes open and to see - what they could discover. Within a week or so the mystery was unravelled, but then the real difficulties began: none of the people on whom the trick had been played were willing to give evidence because of their own guilty part in the tricks and because they were afraid of what the gangs might do to them. Fortunately, a story got about that one gang was trespassing on another’s district. A fight between the two gangs ensued. ‘They were arrested for breaking the peace, found guilty, and sent to prison. Once they were in prison, a few people were found who were willing to give evidence against them. The criminals stood trial on the second charge and their “sentences were greatly increased; eventually most of the criminals guilty of ‘lawing’ were caught and sentenced. The Com‘missioner of the Metropolitan Police warned Londoners of what had happened, in his annual report for 1948, and it should not be possible to repeat the trick. *

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Most Londoners are but dimly aware of what goes on in their great town. They accept it as their right that they should be safer in their streets at night than they would be in any other major city outside Britain, and few give a thought to the conscious and continual effort which makes such a boast possible. It took the best part of a hundred years to make London as safe and as free as it is to-day, but there are- now faint signs that carelessness and ignorance on the part of

Londoners may lead to some of that great work being undone. Policing London was never an easy task, and it has been made more difficult during the post-war years by the lack of police recruits. The Metropolitan Police were, at the time of writing (1950), some 4,000 men under strength, and this has meant that every policeman in the Force has had to work longer hours under difficult conditions. Leaves are short, and the burden on the more senior officers is particularly onerous.

There has also been a large influx of foreign immigrants, most of whom have come from countries where the police are regarded as the enemies and not the protectors of society.

Most adapt themselves to English ways, but the steady refusal of some of them to help the police has made the work of look-

ing after the districts where they have settled particularly dificult. Moreover, the behaviour of this handful of people has begun to have a bad and dangerous influence over their neighbours. Violent clashes between different political groups

in these districts are distressingly frequent, and the police get little thanks for their efforts to preserve the peace. False and libellous stories about their corruption and partiality are) spread and believed by some journalists and politicians who |) have not bothered to verify the facts. ,

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On the other side of the picture, there are countless stories _ of the friendliness and affability which exist between London policemen and the citizens they serve. The cheerful ease with which they contro! crowds or deal with difficult situations has _ for long been the envy and admiration of tourists; indeed, their resourcefulness and humanity have become almost legendary. Of the very many stories about them, one in par- | ticular appeals to me. It happened some years ago, but I believe the main facts at least to be true. ‘Two men carried out a smash-and-grab raid in broad daylight in one of London’s busiest shopping centres. They broke ' the window of a jeweller’s shop and stole a tray of rings. The police got a fairly good description of the first man, whom they were able to identify as a man who had had one previous conviction for petty larceny, but all they could learn about the second man was that he was tall, thin, and had bright red hair. The detective in charge quickly found out from his informers where the first man was living, but he could get no line on the second. He therefore decided to wait before making an arrest in the hope that the first man would lead him to the second. A week or so later, the detective learnt that the first man was about to get married at a registry office in the district. He deduced that the man with red hair would probably be present at the wedding, and rushed off to the registry office. _ He got to the registry office just before the ceremony was about to begin, and sure enough the red-headed man was there acting as best man. The detective gently took the two men aside and told them that he was going to arrest them for the smash-and-grab raid. He then asked the first man whether he

would like to go on with the wedding or whether he would

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prefer, in the circumstances, to wait until he came out of _ prison. There was a hurried consultation between bride and | groom. It lasted only a minute or two; the bride then an- | nounced that she’d come there to get married, and ~— she would be whatever her fiancé was alleged to have done. ‘The detective waited until the short ceremony was ore and then, after congratulating the bride and groom, he invite the newly married pair, the best man, and their friends to ac company him to the police station. Once in his office, he sug- 1 gested that one of the wedding guests went out and bought _ the bottle of champagne necessary on such occasions, and, | while he took statements from the groom and best man and ~ prepared the charge sheets, the guests celebrated the wedding — breakfast in somewhat different circumstances from those they had expected. The bridegroom was allowed out on bail that night, and duly appeared at the magistrate’s court on the following morning. He pleaded guilty, but there were ex= tenuating circumstances in his favour and he and his best man received only light sentences. It has been rightly said that a people gets the — . it deserves; it is equally true that a city gets the police force it

deserves. Londoners possess one of the best police forces there is, if not the best; may they never allow the fine traditionsin which they and their policemen have been bred to lapse anc wither away. The danger of what can happen has been mor than sufficiently emphasized by recent examples in 3 i countries.

i

CHAPTER

TEN

POLICEWOMEN _ PERHAPS the most outstanding development in the British police service during recent years has been the steadily increasing use of women on police duties. Since the society which the police serve is composed of men and women, it might seem obvious that women should share police tasks ‘with men, but it was not until 1914, some eighty-five years after the first Police Act had been passed, that women were employed at all in the regular police forces. They had, of course, been used for many years before that to take care of women and children in custody, but it was only during the First World War that the Metropolitan Police and some provincial forces first enrolled a few women for specific police duties. These forces, however, did not use policewomen as a _necessary complement to the use of policemen in dealing with _a mixed society, but simply because there were some police -duties — dealing with the victims of sexual offences and social welfare work — for which women were clearly better qualified

than men. And this conception of the proper task for police_ women prevailed well on into the 1930s. It was not officially "quashed until March 1949. _ The struggle which women had for recognition in other walks of life was not repeated in quite the same way in the police service. Not that there was no struggle, but that the

struggle was waged on different principles; women

did not

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argue that it was a matter of right that they should be represented in the police, but that the police service would be more balanced and better able to carry out its complicated duties if women were used as well as men. Some men could be more easily controlled by women in the same way that some women _ were better left to men. They made no exclusive claims; they

simply insisted that since society was composed of men and

women it was nothing more than common sense that women | should be used as well as men to serve the needs of that society. In the beginning, however, the authorities thought differently. They were willing to concede that there was a /imited role for policewomen, but they obstinately refused to extend the duties of policewomen to cover the whole range of police work. In 1924, when slightly more than one hundred policewoinen were divided among thirty-four forces, the Home | Secretary set up a committee to review the experience of those | forces which did employ women and to make recommendations for the future. The committee reported very favourably on the work that policewomen had so far done, but they felt that the question of whether they should be employed or not

and on what duties was one which each police authority should settle for itself. They suggested that police authorities should

use policewomen as far as was practicable for taking statements from women and children in sexual cases and that women who were employed only on clerical duties should not be regarded as policewomen. ‘The Royal Commission on the

Police of 1929 endorsed the views of the earlier committee. and added that the number

of policewomen

creased and that the employment

should be in=

of policewomen

would

diminish the need for unofficial women’s organizations which

POLICEWOMEN IgI were not readily understood or accepted by the public at large. ‘The Home Secretary issued the first Regulations for policewomen in 1931, and he set out in an appendix the sort of duties to which a chief officer of police might properly assign policewomen. These were: Patrol duties;

Duties in connexion with women and children reported missing, found ill or homeless, and with those who have been the victims

of sexual offences or who are in immoral surroundings; Escorting women and children to or from hospital and in custody; Watching female prisoners or women who have attempted to commit suicide; Attendance on women

and children in Court;

~ Searching and attending female prisoners; Plain-clothes duty and detective work.

But as the number of policewomen has increased, their _ duties have gradually become more general. The Home Office committee of 1924 had scotched once and for all the idea that a policewoman was nothing much more than a superior sort of clerk; they expressly stated that policewomen should not be

employed on clerical and administrative duties, since to use

them for such work was a disgraceful waste of a long and expensive training. In 1933, the passing of the Children and Young Persons Act, which gave all police, men and women, wider powers for dealing with young boys and girls under seventeen years of age in moral danger, made it unnecessary for chief officers of police to reserve their policewomen exclusively for this form of social welfare work. Since then, by _ example, by persuasion, by the maintenance of an exceptionSY,

192

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

ally high standard of entry for women recruits, policewomen |

have gradually become accepted by most chief officers of police ) not only as fit and proper police officers for all types of police | work, but also as an essential part of the police service as a whole. | : a By 1939 there were-still only 246 policewomen in a to al police establishment of more than 63,000 men, and they were

employed by only 45 police forces out of a total of 181. During the Second World War, however, when so many policemen volunteered to fight with the armed forces, there wasa big increase in the employment of policewomen, and in the peak year of 1943 there were 340 regular policewomen and © about 4,500 members of the Women’s Auxiliary Police Corps, _ most of whom were employed on clerical, switchboard, and.

canteen duties. About 300 of these auxiliaries were given some police training and used on police duties proper. Since © the end of the war, the number of regular policewomen has | grown steadily, and in 1948 there were about 1,100 women in the regular police forces. This figure represents more than three times as many policewomen as there were before the war, and it seems likely that, if anything, the establishment of policewomen will continue to increase during the next few years. In 1948 a policewoman was appointed as H.M. Asis Inspector of Constabulary, and in 1949 the Home Office| regulations of 1931, which limited the work of policewomen, | were revoked and replaced by regulations identical with those governing the work of policemen. The last stronghold to give | .

.

.

.

.

.

4

way was the Police Federation, which had steadfastly refused | either to represent the interests of policewomen or to allow

BIR ig GG AS

POLICEWOMEN

193°

_policewomen to be elected to any of their central committees, _ At the end of 1949 they accepted the inevitable march of _ progress and gracefully acknowledged the right of policewomen to full membership of the Federation. Particularly high standards are required of women recruits, for the work demands exceptional strength of character and tact. The investigation of sexual offences, for instance, is never a pleasant task —a woman who has been assaulted is a difficult witness at the best of times. The investigator has always to beware of false testimony, and an unusual combination of delicacy and an unflinching matter-of-fact approach is needed. Such a mixture of qualities is rare, no less among women

than among men.

Policewomen as a whole are neither disappointed spinsters nor single-minded missionaries. Many of them are young and

_attractive — the large number of marriages between police- women and police constables bears witness to the fact — and, _ while they all to some extent have a calling for their work,

there is nothing priggish about them. They work their beats — ~ often in the worst neighbourhoods — with the same goodhumoured tolerance as the policeman, and their courage is _ remarkable.

In a recent case, the local police had had some difficulty in catching a man who had been accosting and mildly interfering

_-

with a number of women in a certain district. None of the had a assaults amounted to rape, but on two occasions violence been used, and there was an obvious danger that the man was _ working himself up to much more serious crimes, possibly even murder. None of his terrified victims had been able to

"describe him properly — the crimes were all committed after C.P.—7

.

194

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

‘a wo

i 4) I

«

+ §

“dark — and a policewoman was therefore asked to act asa decoy. She changed into plain clothes, and the plan was that she should stroll down a road which the man was known to frequent while a police car waited round a corner near by. The first part of the plan went forward without a hitch. The man appeared and went up to the policewoman. He began to make ~ improper suggestions to her and tried to take her arm. She shook herself free —she had to be careful that she did not act as an agent provocateur — and continued walking along the road.

|

The man followed her, but all the time she had been so ab-

sorbed in her role that she had not realized that instead of walking towards the waiting police car she had been walking away from it and she was now almost out of reach of any help she might need. The man again caught her arm and plucked at her dress. She turned on him angrily and told him to take _ himself off, but inwardly she had become extremely frightened. The man held back for a moment, but once again he overtook her. She was just preparing to shout for help when a group of people came out of a house on the road and the man hurried away. She had, however, kept her head throughout her ordeal and she was able to give a complete and accurate description of the man, who was arrested on the following day. He was later picked out from an identification parade bya number of his victims, and in due course he was sent to prison. — Many policewomen are used on detective duties, and they ‘ are trained in company with male detectives to investigate all types of crimes. They are generally better able to question women or young children who have been involved in sexual cases than is a male detective, and they are also sometimes

asked to question female criminals on the ground s that a

: — _|

—

|

|

|

POLICEWOMEN

195

woman is more likely than a man to sense when another woman is lying. But this is by no means always true, and there are many cases in which a woman will reveal far more to a man than she would to someone else of her own sex. There are some occasions on which it is probably best that the questioning should be carried out by a policewoman and a policeman together. Very few male detectives, however, are able to handle very young children with the skill and tact of policewomen, and that side of police work is best left in feminine hands.

Sexual offences and juvenile delinquency represent the two most serious factors in the trend of crime in the post-war

years. Both have increased greatly, and so far they have not shown any signs of diminishing. They represent a sociological rather than a police problem, but it is the responsibility of the police to try to prevent such crimes as well as to catch the offenders. The figures shown on page 196, which are taken from the Home Office statistics for 1950, show how serious the problem has become. The detection of sexual offences is not particularly difficult. Of the 13,185 offences committed in 1950, 10,081 were cleared up—slightly more than 75 per cent. The identification of the criminal and the proof of his guilt were in most cases fairly straightforward. The difficulties which did arise usually occurred where the victim could not or would not describe the criminal. It often happens that in cases where children have been assaulted, if the police surgeon says that no damage

USE

aeSe OW

hai

at SEXUAL

a)

Annual

is

nS

Offence

ae

average

1935-9

4 Unnatural offences _ Attempts to commit

117

OFFENCES we

1947

1948

247 0 2Re

258

1946

- unnatural offences

703

1,523

1,839

2,216

- Indecency with males Rape Indecent assaults on

299 104

561 251

690 240

860 252

25347

4659

53052

51659

females Defilement of girls under 13

Defilement of girls between 13 and 16

Incest Procuration

- Abduction _ Bigamy Totals

; 82

109

II5

100

468 gi 20

684 127 26

675 152 29

784 138 3I

23

15

24

16

BION

isk 27

928

808

4574

95329

9,999

11,122

ee 838 ae866 161 — | 16

ees 618

om i

£

12,015.

child to be questioned any further or to help the police | track down the criminal. The reason for this is that m i parents consider that their children are much more ike forget the horror of what has happened if no furtherf made about it. They believe, with some justification, th: questioning by the police and subsequently by the magis _ child’s mind an event which is far better forgotten. It isa different matter if the child has suffered physical damage,

there are few parents who do not give the police every _ they can in such cases.

POLICEWOMEN

197

The prevention of sexual crimes is very much more difficult. The offences occur in public parks at night, in deserted, unlit streets, or in out-of-the-way country districts. It is im-

possible for the police to patrol every likely area where offences _might be committed, and other methods have had to be tried. ‘Police dogs let off the leash in some London parks have proved useful, while better street lighting has helped to keep sexual crimes down in some districts. If a sexual criminal is known _to be operating in a particular neighbourhood, the police can and do warn the inhabitants and schools. But the sexual criminal is seldom known for what he is until he has committed an offence, and it is then too late to take preventative measures. The solution of the problem lies partly in the treatment of offenders after they have been caught and in the general in‘culcation of higher moral standards than exist at present. It is probably true that most sexual criminals start from small be_ginnings, and it is when they are first caught that they should be taken in hand for psychological treatment. Usually, how-

ever, the minor offenders — the man or woman who commits indecent exposure, for example — receive a very small sentence

_and are very rarely ordered to undergo medical treatment. In 1950, 2,480 people were found guilty of indecent exposure (which is not an indictable offence and hence not shown in

the foregoing table) and of these 1,023 were simply fined. Indecent exposure is not a serious offence, but the commission of such an offence shows that the self-control of the individual concerned is beginning to crack. Many will never do anything "worse, but some — and these are the people who need to be, _and seldom are, detected at once — go on to commit more and more serious crimes. Neville Heath, who sadistically

198

CRIME

AND

THE

1

POLICE

$

murdered two women in 1946, first appeared before a court | many years earlier on a charge of indecent exposure. Indecent exposure is not, of course, the only minor sexual aberration, but it is the most common. Others are fetishism, transvestism, and the lesser forms of sadistic and masochistic activities. All can lead to extremely serious crimes. The fetishist, for example, may knock a woman down and cause her grievous bodily harm simply in order to obtain possession of her shoe. The police come across many minor cases of abnormal sexual activity, but the cases are seldom those which can be taken to Court. Yet it is just such offenders who eventually become sexual murderers. It will probably be very diff- —

cult to frame legislation to achieve the end desired, but the post-war increase in sexual offences is serious enough to warrant far more public attention than has so far been paid to it. Juvenile delinquency, on the other hand, is on everyone’s conscience, and a great deal is being done to try to prevent children and youths from turning into criminals. The Home | Office statistics are again disturbing: NUMBER

OF

Larceny:

PERSONS

FOUND

GUILTY

OF:

1938

1947

1948

1949

10,874

12,956

16,574

16,058

16,298

Between 14 and 17

8,876

9,196

11,076

10,018

10,073 |

Between 17 and 21

8,847

9,225

95422

7,850

7,796 |

28,597

313377

37,072

33,926

34,167 |

Breaking and entering: Under 14 years Between 14 and 17 Between 17 and 21

4,006 2,761 1,388

6,518

7,696

4,085 3,216

4,878 3,573

Totals

8,155

13,819

16,147

Under 14 years

Totals

1950 |

6,385 7,276 3,867 4,219 2,802 | (2e8uam 13,054

14,369|

|

:

. POLICEWOMEN Frauds and false pretences: Under 14 years _ Between 14 and 17 Between 17 and 21 Totals

Sexual offences: Under 14 years

|

199

1938 26 90 179

1947 25 Om 124.

1948 32 4 126

1949 31 37 HG

1950 31 42 137

295

205

199

BD

210

11g

192

259

271

302

14 and 17

356

387

480

500

527

Between 17 and 21

354

324

436

454

504

829

993

Gis

36 80

74 97

100 131

163

297

279

468

Between

Totals

Violence against the person: Under 14 years Between 14 and 17 Between 17 and 21 Totals

= ee

15333

83 139

125 190

405

399

468

636

621

783

Of all the persons found guilty of indictable offences of all kinds in 1950, 37 per cent were under the age of 17 — that is, 42,415 juveniles, of whom 3,270, or 7:2 per cent, were girls. Like sexual offences, juvenile delinquency is not specifically a police problem. Juvenile offenders are easily caught and _ very few manage to escape the police. This fact accounts in 5 part for the abnormally high figures above. he prevention of juvenile delinquency does, however, concern the police, but it is a problem which is so bound up with the present condi- tions of living and with many other factors outside police control that there is very little that the police can usefully do. ‘Gangs’ of boys are responsible for many of the crimes, and where the police see such gangs verging on criminal behaviour, they can usually break them up before any crimes are /

200

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

committed. But it is dificult to draw the line between mis-__

chief-making and deliberate criminal intent; both may result |

in an offence being committed, but the one calls for very ‘| different treatment from the other. Bravado among the boys,— unhappy homes, lack of leisure facilities, mental and physical deficiencies — any of these may be the cause of particula a crimes, but it is not until the cause has been established that any progress can be made with preventive measures. A tactful_ word with parents sometimes helps, but more often than not juvenile delinquents seem to come from homes where the parents have no interest in, or control over, their children.— .

*

But dealing with sexual offences and juvenile delinquents , by no means the province solely of policewomen. Indee sexual offenders are usually men, and the vast majority of _ juvenile delinquents are boys between the ages of 14 and 175 both classes of offender are best dealt with by men. The police-

deal with girl delinquents ies 17 and to obtain evidence from women and girls in sexual cases. Clearly, therefore, the _ best results in dealing with such offences will be obtained, not from policemen or policewomen working separately, but fronnm i! both working together. And this is true of almost every other | aspect of police work. There is a feminine as well as a masculine approach to every human problem, and if there is a weak- | ness in the British police system it is that hitherto insufficient | attention has been paid to working out better ways of using |

policewomen. That this is being put right is clear from the | }

events of the last few years, and the British public may look | ;

|

POLICEWOMEN

201

Hk forward to an even better police service than they have at m present.

_

There is one point, however, which arises from the emphasis in earlier years on social welfare as an essential part of a policewoman’s work. The idea has got abroad that police- women are chiefly concerned with correcting the morals of Re women

who have ‘gone wrong’ and with keeping younger

i women out of trouble. In fact, only in cases where there has been a breach of the Children and Young Persons Act may the policewoman — or the policeman — take action. The police have nothing whatever to do with the moral behaviour of individuals. They do not set themselves up as judges of what Ha private person should or should not do so long as the law is not broken. Drunkenness, gambling, adultery, are not, with certain exceptions, criminal offences, and the police never interfere with such cases if no offence has been committed. _ On the other hand, every police officer, man or woman, has had some experience of being asked for advice by members of i the public on domestic or family matters. Such advice as the

a police officer is able to give is, of course, always given, but it is a golden rule throughout the police service that advice should “never be given unless it is first asked for. The little social welfare work which the police do carry out is restricted to border_ line cases for which no state or voluntary organization exists,

-or to emergency cases which have to be dealt with at once. The happy relationship which exists between police and public in Britain would be immediately destroyed if the police ever got the reputation of being busybodies who put their noses into affairs with which they are not properly concerned. ' Policewomen are coming to the fore at a time when they

aremost needed. They:comprise a ere “no less than the police service itself, eer to be ~ deal from them. While the police must i ren Be sioanty male service, there is no doubt that wnC = an increasingly large part to play in it. oi

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

TRAINING Tue thorough training which every police recruit in Britain Now gets is one of the most far-reaching reforms which has _ been introduced since the war. Before the war, the training of recruits differed widely from force to force. In some small

forces the police probationer received a few rudimentary hints for two or three weeks at his station and was then sent out on

patrol with an experienced man for about a month. At the _ end of this time, he was given a quiet beat and left to get on _as best he could. His probationary period lasted —as it still does — for two years, but it was not used so much to give him time to learn his job as to enable his Chief Constable to judge whether he was a suitable man or not. The larger police forces — particularly the Metropolitan Police, Lancashire County Police, Birmingham City Police, the West Riding County Police — had regular training schools to which members of - other forces were often sent; but on the whole training was unco-ordinated, and there was no central direction of how and __ by whom it should be done. But before going on to describe the new system which now exists, it is important to understand what the purpose of police training should be. There are three objectives: to teach the recruit the legal, technical, and practical sides of police work, to encourage the personal qualities which go to make a good policeman, and to give the recruit a frame of reference in

204

-

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

;

which to fit his career as a policeman. Of these three objectives, only the second is liable to become confused — what should the personal qualities of a good policeman be?

“The ideal policeman, of course, should possess all the char- ; acteristics usually given to the hero of a romantic novel. He | should be quick-witted, intelligent, and observant; he should— 3 have a wide knowledge of human nature; he should be ex- q ceptionally tactful; he should have a cool, unprejudiced mind; —3 he should be always ready to act on his own initiative; he >

should also be courageous, strong, and incorruptible. But if all | these qualifications were insisted upon, there would be very few a policemen. One or two qualities, however, really are essential.— In almost every case in which a policeman is summoned to 1 give his help, the people concerned are flustered and agitated. ~The man who has just had his pocket picked no less than the i individual who discovers a suicide is seldom calm enough or | collected enough to give a coherent account of what has hap-—| _ pened. The first task of a policeman, therefore, is to steady the nerves of the people who have called him in. If he himself is flustered, he will seldom if ever be able to get all the inform- ! ation he needs. His observation will be inaccurate and his _ mind will not be as clear as it should be. From this it follows i| that the two most important qualities which a policeman needs — 4 are tact — by which is meant the ability to deal with all ke| and classes of people without upsetting them —and quiet nerves. Almost every other personal quality which a uniformed olice-t man might be said to need springs from these two. Given a | adequate knowledge of the practical side of his work, tact and _

quiet nerves will see a policeman through any duty he may j evew oar

have to undertake.

| | i

| |

;| |

TRAINING 205 sigh ; The threefold purpose of police training, therefore, should _ be to teach the legal, technical, and practical subjects required, _to encourage the qualities of tact and steadiness, and to indoctrinate the recruit, in effect, with the traditions of the _ police. The extent to which this purpose is achieved is the _ measure of the success of the present system of training in

- Britain. i

*

- All police training in Britain, with the exception of that of the Metropolitan Police, is now under the céntral control of the Home Secretary. The 130 county and borough forces in England and Wales are grouped together in eight administrative districts, each district comprising fifteen or so police _ forces. All recruits to police forces in any one district now receive their initial training at a training centre which is f common to all the forces in that district. There are, in fact, ~ nine district training centres —eight in England and Wales and one in Scotland — and two training centres for the Metro" politan Police —at Peel House and at Hendon. The Home Secretary exercises his control through, and with the advice of, a number of committees. The general

a

supervision of finance and expenditure for the training scheme is carried out by the Special Services Committee, which is also responsible, as its name implies, for a number of other special services which the Home Office provides for the whole country — the forensic laboratories and wireless communications. The committee consists of Home Office officials and repre4 . sentatives of the local authorities. Similarly, the general super-

a a

a +3

206

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE Oca ree .

subjects should be taught, how they should be taught, how —

long the course should be, and so on — is carried out by a com= mittee of representative chief constables and Home Office officials.

Each district training centre in its turn is under the supervision of a committee of the local police authorities, who are responsible for finance, and of a committee of all the chief constables in the district, who are responsible for the technical

|

side of the training. The Chairman of the Chief Constables _ ‘Committee attends meetings of the local authority committee, and the chairmen of all the Chief Constables Committees — meet at the Home Office from time to time to consider ques= tions affecting training as a whole. In this way curricula and standards are kept uniform throughout the country. The training centres are under the command of Command-

ants who rank as Chief Superintendents. The Commandant

_

is responsible to the Home Secretary for the administration of |

the centre, for drawing up the detailed syllabus of training according to the general outline laid down by the Chief Con-

stables Committee, and for working out methods of instruc- | tion. The

Commandant

attends meetings of the District _

Police Authorities and Chief Constables Committees, and all _ Commandants meet quarterly to discuss administrative and technical matters with officials of the Home Office and with the Inspector of Constabulary. The instructors are chosen from experienced police officers of the different forces in the district. They volunteer for the work, and they may be of any rank from constable to inspector; they usually remain at the training centres for two years. They are selected primarily for their ability to teach — the

TRAINING

207

brilliant man is seldom a good instructor — and they are given ' asix weeks’ ‘potential instructors’ course’ at one of the centres

before they are finally selected and before they begin instructing the recruits. The success of a training centre depends almost entirely on the quality of the instructors, and it is one of the important duties of a chief constable to see that good men from his force are available from time to time for instruction duties. The instructors themselves usually find the work a pleasant relief from the strain of police duties and welcome — the opportunity to reflect about their service. The training centres differ widely in appearance. In some districts

war-time

hostels and similar buildings have

been

taken over, improved, and enlarged; in others, where there were no such institutional buildings available, large country houses have been bought and adapted to suit the needs of the centres. The country houses possess the advantage of an individual, traditional atmosphere — which is an essential feature ofthe police —and the recruit is impressed by his surroundings from the start. They help to inculcate the calm attitude of -mind which the recruit must cultivate if he is to make a suc-

cess of his career. On the other hand, it can be argued that, since recruits will have to spend a large part of their time in - police stations once they have qualified, the sooner they get used to institutional surroundings the better. It is also true _ that many country houses lack essential facilities, such as an adequate number of bathrooms and bedrooms or large kitg chens, and the work involved in fitting them out as training icentres is often more than would be involved in putting up a ~ completely new building. Nevertheless, training centres such as that which is housed in Eynsham Hall, near Oxford, seem

208

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

to the outside observer to have definite advantages over others which are housed in the more normal barrack-like buildings. - A recruit enters the training centre as a probationary con= stable. How thoroughly and for how long he should be trained _ toi before being let loose on the public was a difficult question is,| is master to expected is settle. The range of subjects which he wide, but much of his training —how to handle people, forla example — can be acquired only by actual experience. Under || the present system, therefore, his two years’ probationary— period is divided as follows: the first three months are spent_ at the training centre on book work and practical demonstrations; he then goes back to his force and works for a year on — normal police duties under supervision; then, if there is room at the centre, and if he can be spared from his force, he coma . back for a further two or three weeks’ ‘refresher’ course,_

followed by a final course at the end of the two years. Thel remainder of his probationary period is spent as though | were a fully qualified policeman, but some chief constables also use this time to give the probationer a variety of tasksi| order to discover his special talents and also to give him as __ much experience as possible — a practice that might well be more widely adopted. : |

‘The number of recruits in each training centre varies ac- | cording to the needs and the actual intake of recruits in each | district. Women recruits are trained at the same centres | in the same classes as the men, but their numbers are of course less than those of the men. There are usually three inseructors

for every fifty recruits.

| |

TRAINING

209

So much for the organization and setting of the training centres; their success or failure, however, depends on the quality and the subject-matter of the instruction they give. The temptation to load the recruit with text-book knowledge is - great. For the striking fact about police work —and one which tends to escape the notice of the layman —is the detailed know-

ledge of law which is necessary. It is not enough for a policeman to arrest a burglar, who is breaking into a house, simply _ because housebreaking is commonly accepted as a criminal act. When he comes to charge the burglar with his crime, he must quote the relevant section of the Act of Parliament ' which lays down housebreaking as a criminal offence. Hé _ must appreciate, for instance, the subtle difference between larceny and burglary, between a misdemeanour and a felony. He must understand and be able to apply the laws which govern his powers of arrest, the laws relating to evidence, and

the code for conducting an inquiry which is laid down in the _ Judges’ Rules. He must learn, for example, that a man may not be searched in a public place, and may not be searched at

_

- all unless he has agreed to be searched or unless he is under

arrest. If one citizen brings a charge against another citizen, 3 the policeman must be able to sum up quickly whether there

is a prima facie case or not and he must know in what circumstances he is obliged to take the charge, whatever his own opinion, and when he can refuse it. The amount of law he is 4 expected to know is in fact more than a barrister has to use in

daily legal work. Police instructors, therefore, tend to feel that the most 1. There are certain exceptions to this law, particularly in the Metropolitan Police District.

210

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

urgent part of their task is to give the recruit a text-book knowledge of the law. If this was all they did, however, the recruit would leave the training centre more like a peripatetic legal dictionary than a policeman, and it is clearly necessary to forgo some part of the legal training in order to make room 2 for the many other sides of a policeman’s work. In practice, the recruit is given a knowledge of those parts of the Criminal Law which are most often in use; abstruse or uncommon features are omitted. He is taught, and made to commit to memory, his powers of arrest and the Judges’ Rules, for, if he exceeds the first or breaks the second, he is liable to find himself in serious — and possibly expensive — trouble. ‘The remaining bulk:of Criminal Law is only briefly outlined for _ him, but he is shown where and how to refer to it, should that ever be necessary. Most recruits readily and quickly understand the important part which Criminal Law plays in police work, so that the difficulty of explaining its many ramifications and subtleties is simplified by their willingness to learn. The subject is far from dull, yet many instructors are tempted to limit them- ° selves to brief descriptions of the various Acts and sections of Acts concerned and to leave the recruit to get down by himself to the tedious business of learning the details by heart from text-books. There is no escaping from the need to memorize the law—a constable on the beat cannot postpone taking action until he has had time to turn up the necessary legal reference— but the work of memorizing can be made simpler and almost pleasant. Instructors illustrate each section of the law with a

practical case and then dictate a summary of the law involved for transcription into the recruit’s permanent notebook. The

TRAINING

211

story of the actual case ensures interest; the dictation helps to fix the law in the recruit’s mind. The technical aspects of police work are more easily learnt by the recruit. They are, briefly, how to work a beat, how to use eyes and ears properly; how to recognize a man from a written description; how to carry out an arrest; how to search

a suspected person; how to control traffic on point duty; how to control crowds; a knowledge of criminal tricks and frauds;

first aid; unarmed combat; and, almost the most important, how to write a report. Each feature is made the subject of daily exercises. Practical demonstrations are put on by the instructors and later - repeated by the recruits. Realistic street scenes.are acted and a recruit is singled out to deal with the ‘offence’ or ‘incident’. The whole class watch out for mistakes or illegal action by the recruit under test and then later write a report on what they have observed. A wide selection of the ordinary events in which a constable on the beat might be concerned is described and analysed from the event itself to the appearance in Court. There is very little fault to be found with this part of the training. It is dramatic and forceful, and it drives home to the recruit better than any other method the sort of work he will have to do. Indeed, most of the instructors whom the author has seen in such demonstrations play their parts so well as to be almost indistinguishable from the criminals they simulate;

their sleight of hand and their ordinary types of crimes would of the most frequent guests at The following extracts from

skill at carrying out the more have aroused the envy of some Her Majesty’s prisons. an actual syllabus of a training

|

CRIME

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centre! give some idea of the range and nature of the demonstrations.

ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS (First Scene). A person drunk and incapable is found in the street by a civilian, who calls a police officer. Examination of drunk, arrest, conveyance, and establishing of identity demonstrated. (Second Scene). A drunken person enters the bar of fos premises and causes disturbance which results in publican calling a police officer. Drunk refuses to quit and is ejected. Disturbance caused in street and officer arrests. Bystanders used.

‘

LARCENY (Witnessed). Police constable sees man loitering in street and watches him take raincoat from unattended cycle. Detains him under Common Law and returns to cycle. Traces owner and asks questions in presence and hearing of thief. Arrest completed. (Judges’ Rules demonstrated with method of questioning and points of proof required in case of larceny.)

COMPLAINT (Scene — Police Station). Wife enters and complains that her husband is always hitting her. He has just hit her again and told her to clear out. Full details of action taken and advice

given.

ANIMALS. Horse in cart slips and breaks foreleg in main street. Minor employee driving horse; owner not available. Police officer telephones for knacker and Vet. Knacker arrives first, so instructor stresses procedure by delaying slaughter until Vet. arrives and gives certificate.

BURGLARY. Breaking into public-house staged. Breaking discovered by barman; police officers called; nothing to be touched, particulars for Crime Complaint telephone; C.I.D. arrive; search of scene; finger-prints, foot-prints, etc.; seizure of evidence; inquiries

Hl 6 IGS Had eSp eA AE SOLA AR OF

aunt

bin

1. No. 5 District Training Centre, Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire.

negia nath Mih dei Last

TRAINING

21

to arrive at suspect; use of photographs for identification and value &

.

5

.

.

of scientific evidence demonstrated; completion of Crime Report.

SUDDEN DEATH. P.C. on patrol is told that, at a certain house, milk, newspapers, etc., have been left outside for the last two days.

An elderly man lives on his own at that address. House entered and man found dead. Full action to be taken is demonstrated.

The recruit’s preliminary training is completed by an examination, and a report on his three months’ work at the training centre is then sent on to his chief constable by the “Commandant. The recruit is obliged to pass the tests in first aid only; the examination simply serves as a guide to his ability,

and is not a qualifying test. The training centre is meant only to provide a basic training in police work. Each force has its own way of carrying out police duties, and, although many things are common to them all, there are also many variations in details. A recruit of the Aberdeen police — to take an extreme example — would have to be taught the Aberdeen system of patrolling beats. Such things as local communications, local procedures for summoning ambulances and fire brigades, and local methods of making reports are naturally peculiar to each individual force and can only be learnt by the recruit in his own force. This, the second part of a recruit’s training, is done in a number of different ways; some have small training centres of their own where the recruit is given a week’s ‘indoctrination’ course, the outlines of which are the same in most forces, immediately after he has finished his basic training. i

Similarly, there are many differences between the forces in

_the subsequent careers of recruits during the rest of their pro-

214

CRIME AND THE POLICE

2| Pe 4

bationary period. Since there is still a severe shortage of policemen in most parts of the country, not many forces are able yet _

to send their probationers back to the training centre for the refresher courses at the end of the first and second years. One county force has an excellent system under which each recruit

is required to serve a tour of duty on each of the many police _ tasks undertaken by the force. He serves a few months on beat duty in a seaport; he then goes, say, to a mining town; then to a country district; then as an observer in a patrol car; then to

the headquarters of a division where he works on internal _ police duties; and then — most important of all — he is given _

six months in plain clothes with the detective branch. The | order in which the tours of duty are carried out varies with . each man, but a record is kept of each recruit showing which duties he has carried out and how much time he has spent on >

each. Moreover, senior officers under whom

he serves are

required to report on his progress, and as a result, at the end of | each man’s probationary period, the Chief Constable should have an accurate estimate of his ability and should be able to fit him into the work he is best able to do. Such a variety of tasks is possible only in a few of the larger forces, but it makes a big difference to the continuing keen-— ness of the recruit if he is given as great a selection of tasks as | is possible in his own force. It prevents much discontent later | on, for, as in most employments, the beginner often thinks he would be happier if he were doing any other job than his own, | All police duties have their monotonous sides; but the man on. the beat, for example, tends to think that he would find detec- | tive work more interesting than his own unless he has actually ; experienced detective work and known the almost unbearable: | | |

TRAINING

215

_ Mmono*ony of, say, checking all the visitors’ books of every lodging-house in a town in an effort to trace one petty offender. Furthermore, it is a complaint against the training centres that by compressing so many aspects of police work into such a short period they give a false impression of the variety and interest of a policeman’s life; the recruit is often deeply disappointed when he finds — as indeed he might — that for weeks his most exciting task is to help schoolchildren across the road. ‘The disappointment would be much less if he was absorbed more gradually into his force. But probably the most important reason for giving the re_ cruit a variety of duties in the beginning is the essential need for all policemen in the force to understand the different re_ quirements of each of the three chief branches. The man on _ the beat, the man controlling traffic, and the detective must all know what each of the other two does. Such knowledge is best gained by actually doing the different jobs, and the most _ favourable opportunity for this is at the beginning of the policeman’s career. Even in small police forces it should be _ possible to give the recruit a spell in each branch before he ~ settles down to his own particular duties. It may be fairly said, however, that the present system of ~ training police recruits is excellent as far as the legal training e and practical sides are concerned. Does it also achieve the ~ other two purposes of encouraging tact and steadiness and of _giving the recruit time to absorb the abstract qualities of police

work? It is difficult to answer either of the two questions very definitely. Two years is certainly long enough for men or -? women to make up their minds, but the experience of most

4

216

3

CRIME

AND

i

THE

4

é

“Te

if

i.

|

POLICE

da |

policemen is that the first year is far and away the worst, : and | || | that if the recruit is given duties during this year which sh ; “| only a narrow aspect of police work, he is likely to form se; wrong opinion and to resign long before the probationary — } 4

Ve

period has ended. The unfamiliarity of the uniform and the

responsibility of the work weigh heavily on him. The present

system gives a recruit sufficient time, but it does not guaran-_

tee that he will be given sufficient opportunity to weigh up the pros and cons of the police. The new schemes for inter= _ mediate and final training during the probationary period may correct this weakness. . : ‘The question of to what extent the system fosters tact ae steadiness is even more difficult to answer. If the recruit 4 | naturally gifted with these qualities, then it is certainly true _ that the training will not impair those qualities. But if the | recruit is gauche or highly strung, then he is not likely to be | changed by the present system. Such a man should not, of course, be accepted into the police in the first place, but there . are many border-line cases who could, with proper training, . acquire these necessary qualities of a good policeman. More could be done by example and by keeping firmly alive the ) traditions of the police. The instructors at the training centre are the first policemen any of the recruits are likely to have ) met, and it is on them that the recruit will automatically mo= del his own behaviour. They should mingle more with the recruits outside the lecture rooms, and they should be en= | couraged to spice their lectures with tales of their own 4 experiences. It is only in this way that the recruit will come to understand what sort of man he should try to become. Good.

— though not harsh— discipline will also help.

2th

d .d-fast ele Gieienolie it neal goodas it can be. All the major faults on.

Pearyes

CHAPTER

THE

TWELVE

SENIOR

OFFICER

Tue police service requires very few senior officers, but those few need to be outstanding men. The ideal senior “police officer would be a man with the mental agility of a first-rate barrister, the organizing capacity of an under-secretary of state, and the tact of a family doctor. If he is a chief constable, he is responsible for the administration of his force, for ensur=_ ing that police duties are carried out as efficiently as possible, and for helping the society which his force serves. He should be constantly developing new methods of combating crime; he is responsible for organizing the control of traffic, and he has to deal with such matters as calculating the financial cost of his force and persuading his local police authority to accept his ideas. He should also supervise the welfare and housing of | his men.

Aboveall,

he is responsible for seeing that the

Queen’s peace is kept in his area. At the same time, every senior police officer must be able to help and advise his immediate subordinates on any police. question which they may refer to him. It is not enough for him to be an administrator and a responsible figure-head,

simply making decisions on the technical advice of the experts under him. He himself is, or should be, the principal _ expert. A chief constable, for example, ought to be able to | guide his detectives in a difficult investigation or to be able to” settle such technical matters as the size and locality of a beat.

THE SENIOR

OFFICER

219

) ‘There is very little doubt that the work of a chief constable is fascinating in its variety and in the scope for personal ability which it provides. It involves, however, heavy responsibilities and long hours fora comparatively low salary, so that the work itself and the authority that goes with it must to some extent be its own reward. The annual salaries of chief constables are as follows: Number of men in the Force Less than 40

.

40-74 ; |

¢

Salary per annum £700X £50-£850

:

£850 x £50-£1,000

75-125 126-200 201-300 301-400 401-600 601-800 801—-1,200 I,20I—1,600 1,601-2,500

£1,050 £50-L£1,200 £1,200 X £50-£1,350 £1,350 £50-L1,500 £1,450xX £50-£1,600 £1,570 X £60-£1,750 £1,690 x £70-£1,900 £1,890 xX £70-£2,100 £2,300 £2,500

Over 2,500

£2,700

_ A chief constable is also provided with a house and one or two - other emoluments which somewhat increase the real value of his salary. A day in the life of achief officer ofpolice ofalarge county _ force begins at about 9.30 in the morning and more often than ~ not does not finish until 9 or 10 o’clock in the evening, but during those twelve or thirteen hours there is no time for boredom or apathy. No two days are alike, but the following "page from an imaginary diary of a chief constable of a county

Rice will give some idea of the sort of things he 1as with: N

9-30-10.30 a.m.

Read and answer correspondence. Letters include a reques _ member of Royal Family, memorandum from local representati of Police Federation on subject of housing, :a circular from Ho lations, and an advance notice of a cup-tie football match.

—10.30-11.30 a.m. ‘

measures by C.1.D.; precautions to be taken in view of threat strike in a mining area; a suggestion for reducing accidents on the main arterial roads through the county; progress of new tr scheme.

II.30—-I1.45 a.m. Interview with probationer who had resigned and now want: ‘Tejon force. a II.4$-11.50 a.m.

i

mt ee e

Approving details for month’s sporting activities of the Fcorce. | 11.50 a.m.—12.30 p.m. Inspection of motor transport section and discussion with C. Inspector (Traffic) on need for replacements.

12.30-I p.m. Sign letters and prepare for Council Committee meeting |tha afternoon, =

I-2.15 p.m. Lunch and short rest.

THE

SENIOR

OFFICER

221

—-2.30-4.15 p.m. Mn Meeting of traffic committee of County Council. Subjects disiycussed included new parking regulations; need for more one-way streets in the county town; high rate of accidents on arterial road _A—-; police request for stricter regulations governing carriage of a

_ abnormal loads in certain parts of county: report of road-safety lec-

- tures to schools.

.a 30-6 p-m. Ge

Visit headquarters of Y Division to gauge temper of threatened

strike and discuss measures with superintendent in charge. While there, look over new police cottages, visit hospital to see P.C. Smith

who was injured in pub brawl the previous Saturday, and call on new sub-divisional inspector.

6.30-7 p-m. Back at headquarters to clear up any loose ends.

7-15 p.m. Home

for dinner.

8.45 p.m.

_ Superintendent of Y Division reports miners decided to strike following day. Orders sent out for extra men from X Division to be _ sent to area, and prearranged plans to avoid trouble put into opera-

“Such a day would perhaps be an abnormally full one for most _chief constables, but it is not too great an exaggeration of the “daily work involved in running any of the five or six very large ee

forces in the country. The chief constables of smaller forces

_ have much the same sort of things to do, but not on such a _scale or concentrated into such a short space of time. *%

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CRIME

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Up to the last ten years or so, appointments to the posts of >| chief constable or, in the Metropolitan Police, of Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner, were often made from outside the police force. Some police authorities preferred to choose retired senior officers from one or other of the three fighting services rather than from their own forces. This policy was adopted partly because it was only very rarely that a man with suitable qualifications appeared in the normal ranks of the police, and partly because there was no scheme for training promising young policemen in the extra duties and responsibilities of a chief officer of police. The

result

was that each successive rung on the ladder of promotion which

were

men

in these forces climbed

heading

meant

not

that they

for the highest posts of all but only that

_ they had attained a certain status as experts in their own particular branches of police work. Their abilities as administrators or as leaders were regarded as of secondary impor= | tance. The policy of selecting men from outside the police for so many senior appointments, however, was not satisfactory. Many excellent men have held these posts, but there has also been too large a number of failures. The lack of expert police knowledge was a severe drawback for many of them, while a few tended to regard the appointment as a sinecure awarded them for their service in other walks of life. The preponderance of military men in an essentially civilian service was also regrettable, but more important still, the keen young policeman in a force where this policy was followed was discouraged | because he knew that he could rarely get to the top, and ever | since the beginning of the social revolution at the end of the

an

THE

SENIOR

OFFICER

223

_ First World War there has been bitterness on this score among most policemen.

Police authorities are still allowed to choose their chief constables from outside the police service, but it is some years ‘now since any chief constable was appointed from outside the police service. The Home Secretary discourages the practice, and a police authority to-day would have to show good reasons - for selecting, say, a retired colonel from the army rather than a candidate with long police experience. Promotion to the rank of chief constable or assistant chief constable depends nowadays, first, on the initiative of the _ police officer in putting himself forward for the post, and second,

on his ability to prove to the police authority con-

cerned that he is a better man than any of the other candidates. Senior police officers who aspire to the rank of chief constable usually put in first for posts in the smaller forces and hope to work their way up from there to the large forces as vacancies in those forces occur. There is in fact a surprising amount of ~ movement of chief constables from one force to another, and a police officer who reaches the rank of chief constable of one . of the smaller forces has by no means reached the summit of -_ his career. ‘ Promotion to what might be called the ‘middle’ ranks, on _ the other hand, is much more complicated and has always been _a difficult problem in the police. Promotion is regarded by “nearly all policemen as the only criterion of success in their careers; it is, however, possible only for a few men.

As has

already been pointed out, 80 per cent of all policemen are constables; if sergeants are included, the percentage 1s as high as 92. Although promotion is not so bad as these figures

224

CRIME

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imply,} the facts that opportunity is limited, and also that an |

excellent constable may not necessarily make an excellent — administrator, make a regular system of promotion ae | difficult. Any solution to the problem must satisfy two ws| quirements: it must be acceptable to the lower ranks of the _ police — that is, in practice, to the Police Federation — and it.) must guarantee that the right sort of men reach the right sort _ of positions at each successive stage of their development as __ police officers. | More often than not, the two conditions are incompaliiiaaal Few policemen are willing to accept the plain fact, inseparable _ from police work, that promotion is possible only for the small | number, which in fact it is. Moreover, any scheme which does not acknowledge their deep-rooted belief in seniority or experience is bound to be resented. The pitfalls in the way of police work and the cunning of criminals demand far more of a police officer than academic ability or the sort of intelligence enjoyed by military staffs. Yet, of the qualities required by a| senior officer, one at least —mental agility —is best brought out: by an academic training, and, in the police as in every other . walk of life, mental agility tends to decrease with age unless ) it is constantly exercised.

. |

‘The university graduate and the recruit from the ‘acadeuae x >

1. Lord Oaksey’s committee stated the prospects in fairly exact terms 2 ‘If a man stayed in the service for 244 years, he had ar in 3 chancei of becoming a sergeant or above by the end of that period, a r in 7 | chance of becoming an inspector or above, and a slightly better than 1 in 50 chance of becoming a superintendent. It should, however, be

borne in mind that ... a number of promotions to the higher rank particularly to the Pak of superintendent, are made after completa of 24% years service.’ fF |

Bs a

~

|

; 8

THE SENIOR OFFICER

26

__ic’ professions — the law, the civil service, and even journalism should, therefore, have been welcomed by the police. But

#the resentment against the appointment of such men direct to i the middle ranks without first going through, as it were, the _ ‘lower deck’ was particularly strong; their enrolment was re3garded as making promotion for the ordinary policeman more _ difficult than ever. Chief officers of police were accused of favouritism and nepotism if they brought such men into their _ forces. Unfortunately, in not a few instances, the accusations were justified, and in the inter-war years promotion continued to be a source of bitterness and jealousy. ~The Metropolitan Police Force, because of its size, has ~ always suffered most from promotion difficulties; it has, as a ‘result, led the way with various schemes to overcome these ‘difficulties. Two deserve notice. The first, introduced shortly after the First World War, was a system of promotion by competitive examinations. Subject to qualifying periods of ri

" service in each rank — five years for a constable and three years

for the rest up to sub-divisional inspector — any officer, up to

and including the rank of inspector, could sit for an educa‘tional test and a technical examination in police subjects graded according to each rank. Successful candidates were posted in order of merit as vacancies occurred. In special cases — that is, for sergeants and above of outstanding ability — the _ qualifying period of service could be and was reduced. The scheme suffered from the disadvantage that those who

that actual promotions —as distinct from passing the examinac.p.—8

226

CRIME

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POLICE

among those men who had not only passed the examinations but who had also been recommended for promotion by their superintendents.

|

_

_Promotion, however, continued to be slow, and in an effort

to speed it up a second scheme was introduced in 1937. This scheme set up two new hurdles for the ambitious policeman to overcome. In addition to all the features of the previous scheme, a ‘field of promotion’ and a ‘zone of selection’ were created. The policeman could now take the examinations only while he was in the ‘field of promotion’ — that is, during a specified interval of years in each rank — and could be promoted only while he was in the ‘zone of selection’ — a shorter interval of years which followed his success in the examinations. The result of the scheme was that those who failed in either stage were deprived of all chance of promotion long before they had completed their pensionable years of service. A body | of men was created with nothing to look forward to except their retirement. Keenness and efficiency noticeably declined, | and offset the advantage of securing a more rapid flow of comparatively young men into the middle ranks. The scheme was therefore amended, and finally, in 1947, the various ‘zones’ were abolished altogether. Promotions are now made according to the earlier scheme, except that the qualifying period for constables has been reduced, at Lord Oaksey’s suggestion, to four years and that for sergeants to two

years. Theoretically, therefore, the bright young policeman | can now reach the rank of inspector after only six years of | service, but in practice few men obtain promotion as early as this. At the other end of the scale, there is now nothing to stop

THE

SENIOR

OFFICER

227

a constable with, say, twenty years’ service from being suddenly promoted to sergeant, and the feeling of hopelessness induced by earlier schemes is largely disappearing. The system now in force in the Metropolitan Police is —by all other forces. The Home —with modifications followed Secretary lays down the length of the qualifying periods, but the holding of examinations and the subsequent promotions __ are made at the discretion of chief officers of police. In larger - forces promotions are made virtually by boards of senior officers, in smaller ones directly by the chief constable. In borough forces, the watch committees have to approve the _ promotions, but in all other forces the chief constable has the

last word. A further weakness of the pre-war schemes was that the qualifying examinations and selection boards only selected suitable men; they did not ensure that the successful candi-

dates would be able to carry out their new duties. The lack of _ advanced training in police administration and responsibilities was in fact one of the chief reasons why men had to be brought

in from outside the police to fill the highest posts, The first attempt at starting a scheme for higher training _ was made in 1933 by Lord Trenchard when he was Com“missioner of the Metropolitan Police. He was concerned then with creating a cadre ofsenior officers in order to improve the

efficiency of the Metropolitan Police and to encourage young __ men from the universities and public schools to join the police Z by giving them some sort of guarantee of a career comparable

with the fighting services. He therefore set up a Police College _ at Hendon with the object of giving promising young police-men a thorough training in police work and a sufficient

228

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

grounding in the broader aspects of administration and leader- ? ship to fit them for senior appointments. He also opened the —

college to specially selected ‘direct entrants’ without previo 1s f police experience; they formed about one-third of the tota;: number of students. The course at Hendon Police College lasted for two years _ and covered a wide range of subjects at university standard. ] The quality of the technical police training was also excep- _ students for their lack of actual experience. At the end of the e

i

course, the students took an examination which automatically /

qualified them for the rank of Junior Station Inspector and

:

service. Of the 189 men who passed through Hendon College, 4 only 92 have remained with the Metropolitan Police, althoug h the scheme was originally designed exclusively for that force.

The constables and sergeants resented the young Hendon _

graduates who were placed over them as inspectors, and eventually the approach of war brought Lord Trenchard’s experiment to an end in 1939. ey The lower ranks of the police objected to the Police College | because they believed that it slowed promotion for everyone _ idea of young men ;| else, and because they intensely disliked the

THE

SENIOR

OFFICER

229

and sergeants. They also disliked, though not so strongly, the creation of an ‘officer’ class, for, while they were to some extent prepared to accept a chief constable appointed from _ outside the force, they were not prepared to accept ‘officers’ — in the military sense of the term — in the middle ranks. While part of the objection of the Police Federation was unreasonable, they were altogether right in insisting on ex2perience and in rejecting the creation of military characteri istics in the police. Good as the training at Hendon was, it

"was not quite good enough to make up for the lack of hard experience on the part of the students. An inspector, for ex_ample, must be able to direct and advise the policemen under _him in their day-to-day problems and work. No amount of artificial training can give him the necessary knowledge to do -this well. Moreover, it cannot be repeated too often that the :“police are a civilian organization; there is, and should be, dises cipline and obedience to superior officers, but the superior

_ officers should not form a separate and totally different ‘class’

as in the army. The inevitable common outlook and comfe munity sense of the Hendon graduates was a definite trend in this direction and was rightly resented. *

z

_ There was no training at all of senior officers during the war, _ but shortly before the war ended a committee of chief officers

of police and Home Office officials was formed to examine

and suggest schemes for the higher training of police officers, for all the police forces in the country as well as for the Metroprolien Police. This committee went almost to the opposite extreme from Lord Trenchard. ‘They showed themselves

230

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

eu

a

particularly anxious to meet the objections of the lower ranks _ of the police: they did not recommend ‘direct entrants’, and they suggested instead that no policeman should be sent to the new college unless he had attained the rank of sergeant anda |

had passed the examinations for promotion to inspector. In exceptional cases constables who had passed the qualifying” examinations for promotion to sergeant and inspector could _ also be nominated. All nominations should be at the discretion

of chief officers of police, who should select those men who

—

they thought would benefit from the courses and who would — be likely to go far in the police service. :

The recommendations were accepted, and a new college at _ Ryton in Warwickshire was formally opened in October . 1948. It is housed in emergency buildings which were the most suitable that could be found at the time, but which lack

any pretence at atmosphere. A strenuous effort has been made to improve its appearance by laying out lawns and gardens, but nothing can conceal the war-time design of long rows of single-storied buildings obviously meant as temporary billets | for a large number of people in a small space. The rooms themselves are comfortable, with central heating and other modern conveniences, but the buildings as a whole are decidedly ugly, and it is to be hoped that something more suit= able will in time be found to house the senior training college of the finest police in the world. : A second disadvantage of the college is the age of the stu-

dents. As the purpose of the college is to instruct men who have already been marked out as probably worth promoting, the students are of an age and experience at which promotions to inspector are normally made in the police — that is, between

| _

THE

SENIOR

OFFICER

231

thirty-five and forty-five. The average age of the first two courses was thirty-eight. But apart from these disadvantages, the college is experimenting with a number of excellent ideas. There are two courses: a senior course lasting three months and a junior course lasting six months, as compared with the single course lasting two years at Hendon. Success in the tests at the end of the courses does zot automatically qualify the student for promotion — this remains entirely within the province of his chief officer of police. The new college is, therefore, only in_ cidentally a sorting house. Reports on each student are sent back to his force and may influence his future, but the courses are meant to do no more than to give those policemen who have already been earmarked for promotion a broader outlook and something of the technical knowledge of police specialists. The courses are divided roughly so that a third of the time is spent on general subjects and two-thirds on police subjects. The general subjects are dealt with for the most part by eminent men in the different professions. There are some thirty-five speakers, far removed from normal police work, who lecture on such varied subjects as current affairs, atomic energy, economics, and the work of the Arts Council. The object of these lectures is to give the student an insight into matters about which he has probably seldom thought, and so to shake up his ideas and to give him a keener interest in the world outside police matters. The lectures also serve to introduce the students to many outstanding men and women in English public life. This is one of the best features of Ryton. Policemen as a whole tend to be thrown back on their own company far too

232

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

.

much, and as a result there is a lack of interest in things with which they are not directly concerned. They are banned from

taking any part in politics, and they lack the opportunity —and the leisure — for developing wider interests. Their own ‘shop’ is, of course, absorbing, but too much of it blunts rather than sharpens the intelligence. | The result of such ‘outside’ lectures cannot fail to be good. Spread over a longer period and delivered to younger men. their effect could be of lasting benefit to the police. As it is, _ there is some danger that among the older men who form thal bulk of the students at present, the memory of what has been seen and heard and the interest which has been so sharply aroused may fade after a few months.

>

The method of teaching police subjects follows the lines a university y seminar, ’ and again ga is not q quite suited to the

&

of _ special |

divided into ‘syndicates’; each syndicate is then split into two —

groups, and each group is under an instructor. Each subject 1 Ss introduced first by a lecture from a specialist. The instructors F,

necessary

facts and

guidance for the discussions, 5 they SCY PBprefer Ris to

4

create the atmosphere of, say, a committee of more or less — equally qualified men investigating a particular problem. 4 This system would be very effective with young men. The 41"I older students, however, find some difficulty in adjusting themselves to it; they neither expect nor like to play such an active part in their own instruction. The object of the system, _

like that of the general lectures, is again to stir up the minds — concession beyond a small reduction in the height qualifica-

) tion has been made to the present difficulties. This is right; whatever lessening of standards may be acceptable in other ‘walks of life, in the police it is of paramount importance that _ they should be maintained at as high a level as possible.

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CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

‘

i

| THE FUTURE OF THE POLICE © 3 | Tue one thing which is not possible for the police — much as :| it may be desired — is for them to remain as they are. The changes during the past five years alone have altered the shape of society so much that there can be no question now of trying — to undo what has already been done. Nor is the force of those

changes yet spent, and there will be many more alterations |

before society finally settles down in its new form. For better or for worse the old days and the old ways have gone for good. = | The sort of police which the new society will have is | paramount

importance,

and in the midst of all the other —

changes which are taking place, changes should not be made in the police service without thinking out carefully what th effect of those changes is likely to be. It is particularly danger-

ous in the police to drift haphazardly from one policy to an-_ other or to allow expediency to overcome principle. For the police service is one of the two or three dominant organizations which can create or destroy the happiness of the com=

munity. 4 What effect will the post-war reforms of the police have on. the police service? Will the police forces of this country be better or worse suited to the new society which is emerging? Are any more major reforms required? In short, what is the future of the police? No more than a rough attempt to answer |

THE

FUTURE

OF THE

POLICE

247

these questions can be made here. The reforms are too recent for their effect to be judged adequately, and it is always dificult to project the lines of present developments into the future. Some obstacles can be foreseen and avoided; others —

_ remain hidden until one is suddenly upon them and all that can be done is to keep the organization sufficiently adaptable to be able to meet such obstacles when they arise. Under ‘severe strains, it is the rigid system which cracks first.

‘The most important of the post-war reforms has been to _ make the training of recruits a national rather than a local . matter. Designed at first as an emergency measure to deal with _ the big increase in recruits immediately after the war, the - scheme has now become a permanent feature of the police | service. It ensures a uniform standard of police training i _ throughout the country, and makes it possible for recruits of the smallest forces to get as good a training as those in the largest. It also makes it much easier to spread new ideas throughout the police service. But perhaps the most valuable —and least obvious — feature of the new scheme is that, for the first time in the history of the police, it has created a number of small groups of skilled police officers—the instructors — with | the leisure during their two years at the training centres to sit _ back and think about the details of the theory and practice of | police work. Given encouragement, these groups could be’come a certain and sure guarantee of continuing flexibility and _ progress in the police force. The effect, therefore, of the new training ae henre should _ be to increase the efficiency of the police service throughout the country, to make it more lively and enterprising, and to keep it flexible. The facts so far bear out this forecast of

248

CRIME

AND THE POLICE

results. There has been a noticeable stirring up of new ideas

among the police, a greater desire to take the initiative, to put forward new suggestions, and to think more deeply abou their work. There is a spirit of enthusiasm and drive among all younger police officers, and one gets the impression of that | cheerful

keenness

and gusto which hitherto seem to hav

been the prerogative of the Royal Navy. It is a development _ which is all to the good, and which places the police in the van —

of civil organizations. | The next major reform in the police has been the onl gamation, under the Police Act of 1946, of a number of small county and borough forces. There is again much to be said for this reform. It has got rid of a large number of anomalies, standard of police services throughout the country. Tiny forces of less than fifty men could not hope to provide the same facilities as their larger neighbours, and the amalgama= tions have removed many of the difficulties and expenses of operating small forces as independent and often rival organizations. The danger of this development leading to the creation of regional or national police forces has been met by special

cases. An argument which can be put against this reform is that. the gain in economy and efficiency might be more than offs J by the loss of local ties between policeman and citizen. All the | amalgamations so far, however, have been carefully carried out, and most of the smaller forces have been allowed to retain

THE

FUTURE

OF

THE

POLICE

249

_ their local identity, uniform, and traditions. It might also be said that there is a risk that some amalgamations may be car_ ried out simply as a matter of rationalization — to make the _ police system of the country look tidier on paper — and not, as _they ought to be, primarily and solely as a means of improving a particular police force. The facts, for example, that the i Cambridge Borough police force is larger than the Cambridge County force, that Cambridge is the natural headquarters of : the county, and that it would clearly be ‘neater’ if both forces - were combined into one, are not in themselves sufficient _ reasons for amalgamation. It could even be argued that, since _ the borough is a large university town and the county is entirely agricultural, the police problems involved in each are _ so very different that, if there had been only one police force _ for the lot, it would have been necessary to divide it into two. ‘The Police Act of 1 946, however, does provide for a full discussion of such arguments, and the risk of paper plans being substituted for practical requirements is very remote. From the point of view of the police service as a whole, the amalgamations tend to make the service more competitive and hence to raise the standard of policemen. While this may adersely affect a few policemen, the public must benefit; for policemen themselves, the smaller number of senior posts is more or less balanced by the higher salaries which those posts

‘now carry. The third set of important reforms are those to do with the ‘pay and conditions of service of the police. Most of them were introduced as the result of the recommendations of the Oak_ sey Committee; their effect has been to reduce the difference

:between the lot of the policeman and that of his fellow= aN +

Bas

as

250

CRIME

AND

THE

POLICE

\

‘

citizens. The increase in salary, the slight improvement in the : chances of promotion, and the attention which has been called j to the need for better housing and welfare facilities, have all i contributed to a general raising of the living standards of — policemen. The police service can now offer material attractions as well as an interesting career to would-be recruits; while this has not yet led to an overwhelming rush of young — men anxious to join the police, the intake of recruits has been - |

noticeably steadier, and there has been some reduction in the © number who resign during their probationary period. These reforms are not spectacular, but they have been long overdue, _ and they are now helping to make the police a more contented | service. :| Finally, of the major reforms, there is the great improve-_ ment in the role and conditions of service of policewomen._ There are now no restrictions on the duties which voliced women may be asked to carry out, and marriage is no longer a bar to service with the police. Indeed, the acceptance at longi| last of the principle that a police force which has to deal with men and women should 7pso facto consist of men and women may prove the most far-reaching reform of all. So far, from| my own observation of the forces I have visited, it has undoubtedly played its part in the general livening up of the police service and, according to the chief constables of those forces, it has led to a noticeable improvement in relations with the public. The probable result, therefore, of increasing the number of women in the police and of using them without restriction over the whole range of police duties should be to. widen the scope of police work and to make it clearer to the public that the police are, in fact as well as in theory, their|

THE

FUTURE

OF

THE

POLICE

251

fellow-citizens and not an alien, para-military organization _ serving some abstract power such as ‘the State’, The technical progress of the police during the past five years has been little more than a continuation of the scientific

advances which were begun towards the end of the last cena tury and which have gone on steadily ever since. The notable

recent developments have been in radio communications, in _ the use of police cars, and in the improvement of scientific _ aids for detectives. All these developments help to make police _ work easier, but none of them have brought about any fundamental changes in the established conception of the police_ man’s role in society. No one need fear that they will lead to

the terrifying possibilities envisaged in George Orwell’s 1954 _ =the ‘telescreens’ in every flat and house, the ‘thought police’ —so long as the law remains what it is and liberalism, with a small ‘I’, continues to flourish. *

It is difficult to give a general picture of what the post-war reforms have meant. The character of the police has been developed rather than changed. The latent possibilities in the British police system have been brought out. The old skin has been cast off, and what we are seeing now is a new skin, not a new animal. Sir Richard Mayne, one of the first two ‘Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police, said in about

Every member of the Force must remember that his duty is to " protect and help members of the public no less than to apprehend _ guilty persons. Consequently, whilst prompt to prevent crime and to

wG2

CRIME AND THE POLICE

.

- ta

arrest criminals, he must look upon himself as a servant and guardian of the general public and treat all law-abiding citizens, irrespective bd

“4°

er

.

.

7

of their social position, with unfailing patience and courtesy.

- These objectives have never altered; the recent reforms, by_ ee . ea . . a. raising the standard of police training, by improving the

towards their attainment. The police are more contented and _ even more competent than they were before; but the funda- _ mental principles underlying their control, their organization, and their methods are still the same.

last three decades. The role of the police in the welfare sta is no different from what it has been in Britain under oth ' tion as impartial administrators of the law becomes an essen= —

tial safeguard against possible excesses of State authority. The police cannot prevent Parliament from making what laws i wishes, but they can see to it that Government servants do not : exceed their legal powers and thus they should be able to pre-_ vent the petty tyranny which, to the private person, is the chi danger of the welfare state. ea While this may seem an unorthodox and possibly dange ous conception of a new task for the police, it is wholly in li with the development of the police as the friends, guardian and servants of law-abiding citizens rather than of governments. I am not suggesting for one moment that the police”

nd p

century under the difficulties which these ee npose upon their work. Asa result, they know and

hose laws much better than the layman. Let them 10 ledge, if the need arises, for the benefit of their

INDEX Aberdeen, system of patrols in, 58 et seq. Alness, Lord, remarks on in-

sanity, 168

Constables, proportion of in police)

16; village, 50 et seg.; varied dunes of, 59

County Councils’ Association, 29

Ambulances, 60 Arson, detection of, roo

Crime passionel, prevalence of, 16

Ballistics, 96

Criminal

Criminal

64

77-8; detection of, ror—2 Branch Boards, organization of, 28

Office, 36, 379 : 4

Criminals, types of, 72-3

Committees,

28.

See

Office

(Scotland

Death, determining time of, oo Desborough Committee, 25 Detective School, Hendon, rr museum

help from amateurs, 87; equip ment of, 104; methods of, 1 = ' seq.; in Flying Squad, 182 ef seq. Diminished responsibility, plea %

Yard), 128

168

Chief Constables, 18; appointment of, 24; Association of, 29; et seq.;

salaries

Director of Public Prosecutions, 177

of, 219;

of from outside police, 222

Children and Young Persons Act (1933), 191, 201 City of London Police Force, 19 Clues, fragmentary, 74, 953 Pree servation of, ror Communications, radio, 55 et seq., 103 -

Emergency calls, 55 et seq. Evidence, 80; presentation of in court,

example

113

Eynsham Hall, training centre, 201 Financial swindles, detection of, 127 et seg.; example of, 127 ‘et

Confessions, false, 8 5—6

tricks,

‘a

Divisional headquarters, 49 . { Durham County Constabulary, ia

work of, 219-21; appointments

Confidence

at, 70 ef seq.

Detectives, part of normal police forces, 33; types of, 66 et seq.

duties of, 35 Cheques, accommodation,

WH

a

also Police Federation

218

Record

DLO, DEY Crowds, control of, 61-2

Birmingham, false calls in, 56 Blackburn, murder in, 89 Blood stains, characteristics of,

Central

Depart-

32 et seq., 176

Beats, value of, 50 et seg.; method of working, 51 et seq.; size of,

Central

Investigation

ments (C.I.D.), organization of,

of,

seq. $ Finger-print departments, 40 et seq.

I20-I

254

255

INDEX

_Finger-prints,

use

of,

39-403

classification of, etc., 93-4

' Flying Squad, organization and duties of, 122 et seq.

_ Forgeries, 72, 102 Fraud

Squad,

formation

and

composition of, 126 et seq. ‘Frauds, types of, 120

- Haigh, J. G., 82, 164

~ Hendon Police College, 227 _ Heys, Arthur, 152 et seq. _ Holmes, Sherlock, 77 _ Home Office Laboratories, 40-1 - Home Secretary, powers of, 23 et 63, 65,

|| 242 et seq.

._ Indecent

1713;

appeals

Map rooms,

106

Mayne, Sir Richard, 14; on duties

of police, 251 Methods Index,

system

of, 37

et seq.

Metropolitan

Gross, Dr Hans, 77

ws seq.,

Macnaghten Rules, 167, 171

to,

exposure, 198

Police, size of, 17; use of statistics in, 105 et seq.; organization and administration of, 174 ef seg.; expenditure, 178; control of crowds, 179 et seq.; lack of recruits for, 186; promotion

seq.

schemes

- Information rooms, use of, 55, 176 | Information, sources of, 87 et seq.

et

Municipal Corporations, Association of, 29

Murder,

138 ef seg.; motives for,

165; insanity in, 167 et seq. Oaksey Committee,

Infanticide, 166

in, 227

See also Scotland Yard

on promotion,

9, 16, 187.;

2247.; on pay,

237

Observation, deductions from, 74

: Informers, 88 ef seg.

‘ Inks, invisible, 102

» Inspectors of Constabulary, duties ) ~ of, 27-8; policewoman Assist-

;

ant, 192

} Interrogation,

methods

of, 79 et

Ei seq.

; Investigations, methods of, 73 et

|- seg.; routine, 89

Judges’ Rules, the, 90-1 | Juvenile delinquency, 198; statis-

|

tics of, 198-9

| Lancashire County ’ lary, size of, 19

|

Constabu-

Larceny, 115 et seq.

*Lawing’, 183 London, distribution of crime in,

106-7; difficulties of policing, +172 et seq. Lynskey Tribunal, 128

Pathologists, 95, 98—9 Peel, Sir Robert, 13, 22

Police Act of 1919, 23, 25, 28 Police Act of 1946, amalgamations under, 248 Police

authorities,

17,

18, 23 et

Seq. Police cars, use of on patrols, 55 et seq.; method of operating, 57, 58 Police Council, composition of, 26

Police Federation, organization of, 28, 29; objections of to policewomen, 192; attitude to promotion, 224, 229, 235 Police Forces, numbers of, 173; county and borough, 17 et seq.; organization of, 18 ef seq. Police funds, 24 Police Gazette, 118

\

256

INDEX

Police, principles of, 14 et seq.; ranks of, 21; and trade unions, 28; control of, 31; training of

drivers, 56 et seg.; use of specialists, 59; numbers of re~ quired,

morals,

64 et seq.; and

private

201; ideal qualities of,

204; promotion of, - 223-4; senior appointments in, 234; pay and allowances, 238-9; wives, 240; discipline, 2413 housing, 244; shortage of recruits in, 245; and the govern-

ment, 252 - Police Regulations, the, 25-6, 239 Police training, outline of, 203 et

Scotland Yard, 18, 19, 20, 34ctseq-5

56; organization of, 1753 : Department, 1753 “B’ Depar ment,

175;

‘C’”

Department,