The president of the Association of Chief Police Officers is calling for forces to be given ‘foundation’ status, claiming that police officers spend too much time dealing with democratic red tape.
Ken Jones, who represents police chiefs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said that forces should be able to set their own priorities, adding that it was time to take “a few more risks” with the organisation of policing.
“Police officers, and particularly very important police officers like me, waste far too much time tied up with tiresome chores, having to read through boring documents like the statute book and waste our valuable time defending our actions to meddling public bodies like the courts,” complained Mr Jones. “The dead hand of petty democracy is upon us.”
Mr Jones acknowledged that police forces have been accountable to society since they were first set up, but argued that modern officers spent too much time having to conform to rules and regulations.
“Too much police time is taken up with meeting targets,” he argued. “These busybodies tell us to keep more suspects alive in our cells, and make us present hard evidence and convincing arguments to convince idiot juries and bumbling magistrates - and when, in all good faith, we blast some foreign johnny to kingdom come, we can’t even say, ‘OK, so he wasn’t a terrorist after all - but he sure had us fooled.’ At the end of the day that’s one less potential lawbreaker roaming the streets, and that’s good enough for me.”
“Criminals don’t answer to the community,” said Mr Jones, “So neither should we. Criminals don’t care tuppence about the public. Neither should we. And criminals have no respect for the law. Neither should we.”
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