[Militant No. 573, 16 October 1981, p 7 and 11]
What do the police chiefs really mean by “fighting crime“? Two weeks ago Militant 571 made the case for democratic accountability of the police and trade union rights for police ranks. Now we investigate the “fight against crime“.
„Law and order“ has long been a favourite electioneering slogan of the Tories.
The Tories try to represent any criticism of the police as an attempt to undermine „the fight against crime“.
Calls for democratic accountability are portrayed as „politically motivated“ moves to undermine the police’s „neutral“ and „impartial“ role.
At the 1977 Tory Party conference, Whitelaw claimed that it was „part of a left-wing mythology“ that “there was something despicable, almost immoral, in discussing the prevention of crime at all.“
Contrary to Tory mythology, however, Marxists are not opposed to the police taking action to catch criminals and to protect people’s safety and personal property. Working-class people are naturally concerned about crime, and especially alarmed about increasing violence.
But the Tories , by elevating the „moral“ issues and the abstractions of „law“ and „legality“, want to turn attention away from the social roots of crime.
What better answer to the Tories than the comments of the Boston Police Commissioner, Robert Di Grazia? „We are not letting the public in on our era’s dirty little secret,“ he wrote: “that those who commit the crime that worries citizens most – violent street crime – are, for the most part, the products of poverty, unemployment, broken homes, rotten education, drug addiction and alcoholism, and other social and economic ills about which the police can do little, if anything.“
Di Grazia does not draw any radical conclusion about the problem of upholding „justice“ in society divided by extremes of wealth and poverty – within a system based on the legalised expropriation of workers‘ surplus value by the capitalist class.
Nevertheless, Di Grazia eloquently denounces the „politicians (who) get away with law and order rhetoric that reinforces the mistaken notion that the police – In ever greater numbers and with ever more gadgetry – can alone control crime. His criticisms certainly and the apply to Thatcher’s government. Unemployment, Mrs Thatcher said after Brixton erupted in April, was not the cause. The real cause, she implied, was the breakdown of „respect for the law“ and the erosion of „moral values“.
The Tories cannot accept that their economic policies, which have had a shattering effect on the youth, have helped create the conditions for conflict on the streets. If there has been a breakdown of previously accepted social norms of behaviour and of traditional morality, they cannot see that the terrible alienation of young people created by the profit system is a powerful contributing factor.
Like the politicians Di Grazia criticises Thatcher and Whitelaw simply back the arming of the police with more powerful equipment: riot gear, water cannon, CS gas, plastic bullets, and, increasingly, firearms. They also support heavier sentences in the courts, and a tougher regime in prisons and juvenile detention centres.
Anderton’s „iron fist“ approach
The Tories‘ approach reflects the thinking of the professional police chiefs themselves. Some, it is true, have spoken out against the crude, hard-line stance of the Andertons and Oxfords. John Alderson, Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall is a notable example. Although no supporter of democratic police accountability, Alderson said after the riots: „One thing is certain, it is no answer to resort to brute force to control people.“
Alderson advocates „community policing“ to gain the support and cooperation of the public for effective policing and law enforcement.
But the new breed of hard-line police chiefs, like Anderton, McNee, and Oxford, regard Alderson’s views as quaintly old-fashioned. Unlike Alderson, who heads a predominantly rural force, they are not primarily concerned with fighting crime of the traditional sort. They are now preoccupied with the task of defending the status quo in an industrialised, capitalist society increasingly torn by economic crisis and class conflict.
The statements of Anderton and the others make it clear what they really mean by upholding ‚law and order‘: not the protection of ordinary people from violent assaults, burglaries, etc., but the defence of big-business property and the capitalist state from the growing threat of an increasingly radicalised and militant working class.
Speaking on ‚Question Time‘ (BBC-1, 16 October 1979) Anderton said: „I think that from the police point of view that my task in the future … that basic crime as such – theft, burglary, even violent crime – will not be the predominant police feature. What will be the matter of greatest concern to me will be the covert and ultimately overt attempt to overthrow democracy, to subvert the authority of the state, and, in fact, to involve themselves in acts of sedition designed to destroy our parliamentary system and the democratic government in this country.“
„Fighting crime,“ for chief constables like Anderton, is not the same thing as catching criminals at all.
Listening to this and other of Anderton’s statements, what doubt can there be that by „democracy“ he really means the capitalist system? In practice, „sedition“ and „subversion“ mean any attempt by workers to use their democratic and trade union rights to defend their interests.
Routine erosion of democratic rights
For example, the Association of Chief Police Officers complained to the parliamentary Home Affairs Committee (February 1980): „Today the right to demonstrate is widely exploited, and marching is the most chosen form of demonstration adopted by protestors. Irrespective of the peaceful nature of the procession the numbers involved bring town centres to a halt, business is disrupted and the public bus service thrown out of schedule. In short, a general annoyance is created to the normal process of daily life.“
How readily have police chiefs resorted to blanket bans on marches under the 1936 Public Order Act, in reality to prevent antifascist demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. On a number of occasions, however, Anderton and McNee were prepared to muster an enormous number of police to escort a handful of fascists through the streets, supposedly to defend their democratic right to demonstrate!
Police chiefs are also seeking through parliamentary. Bills to extend their control of marches, requiring advance notice and seeking to impose their own “code of practice for demonstrators“ which would virtually have the force of law.
The police chiefs have been cautious in supporting legislation which would inevitably mean head-on collision with mass trade union forces. They learned some lessons from Satley Gates and Edward Heath’s ill-fated Industrial Relations Act.
However, the police have steadily stepped up their harassment of labour-movement activists.
In a ‚field manual‘ produced by a senior London officer in 1977, new recruits were advised to watch out for people who „although not dishonest in the ordinary sense, may, owing to extreme political views intend to harm the community you have sworn to protect.“ It goes on: „while there are subtle differences between these types of extremists and thieves, it is difficult to put one’s finger on material distinctions.“
This is the attitude which increasingly underlies routine policing. Clearly, the simple catching of criminals is much less important to the police chiefs, despite the Tories‘ law and order demagogy, than protecting the system against anyone who has the temerity to defend their interests or propagate their views.
The labour movement does not condone crimes of violence (but it equally condemns the appalling ‚cult of violence‘ fostered by business interests through films, television and other media).
Nor can the movement, while understanding the social causes of crime, support robbery as an „individual way out“ of the problems facing workers. We have no sympathy with vicious criminal elements, who are as much a menace to the workers as to big property owners, and whose activity provides the state with the excuse for strengthening repressive powers.
But the need to counter criminal activity does not give the ‚guardians of the law‘ the right to act as though they are a law unto themselves.
Fighting crime does not justify the harassment and ill-treatment of suspects; denying suspects adequate legal defence or the twisting or fabrication of evidence; it does not justify savage sentences or brutal, inhuman conditions in prisons; and it does not justify racial bias or arbitrary and oppressive policing.
Overcoming crime, for socialists, means fundamentally the eradication of the social conditions which produce crime. But within the present society, democratic accountability of the police, far from undermining ‚the fight against crime‘, would remove the obstacles created by an undemocratic, unaccountable and increasingly repressive police force.
The Tories are not concerned with the social roots of crime: „Law and order“ is aimed against the labour movement and democratic rights.
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