Next month we will meet for our annual conference under the title, ‘The Courage to Lead, and the Changing Face of the Scottish Police Superintendents’ and ahead of that, I’d like to look at the diversity of our workforce and the challenges facing the service in the current political climate.
I recently met with the Scottish Police Authority on Police Scotland’s Policing Together initiative, which is about becoming an anti-discriminatory service. It feels like we have a huge opportunity right now as a service. We’re moving forward and as superintendents, we see greater numbers of women colleagues and more black and minority ethnic members coming through, and that’s a hugely positive thing. We have become more representative of the communities than we’ve ever been before. At this point in history, policing by consent is the underlying model in everything we do. In order to have that trust and confidence from the public we really do need to be representative of them.
But we are doing this against a challenging backdrop. If we look at the state of public discourse and debate around topical issues right now, it is lamentable how divisive it has become. The reaction to the new hate crime legislation, for example, shows how difficult it is for police in these circumstances. We have to take account of the new legislation, the protections around expression that it allows, and determine at what point does something which is perhaps merely offensive but non-criminal become abusive and criminal. There’s challenges in there for the service as we try to do that and we ourselves try to better reflect society.
It is also important to point out that it is not just the public that are subjected to hate crime; our members and police officers of all ranks are exposed to it too; both on the front line and those that are really visible and fronting campaigns about it. Any backlash against new legislation can be either directed at the officers that turn up on duty or directed at the most senior officers who have been the face of campaigns. I would like to see the different arguments emerge without the name-calling and personal attacks. These can have a significant impact on those officers who are attacked online, especially those from minority communities who are more visible. It is affecting officers’ welfare and wellbeing – as well as their families.
And there is also the fundamental question for the public about what sort of police service it wants. There’s enough bile and hatred on the internet that would have the entire service engaged from now until the end of time. But do the public want the police to be out there and on the streets? Or do they want us to be online?
New legislation unfortunately doesn’t come with new resources to deal with the new offences. We only have a finite capacity, so staff associations have to advocate for the service and show the public and the Government how we need to prioritise crimes that cause the greatest harm to public safety.