Policing the police
AT long last, the top echelons of the police appear ready to accept that not everything their subordinates do in the name of law and order is acceptable behaviour. We report this morning that senior officers are tentatively backing a review of the procedures for investigating complaints against policemen. By making it easier to substantiate a complaint, a review would help make the force more accountable to the public it is supposed to serve.
The credibility of the Complaints Against the Police Office (CAPO) and its supervisory body, the Independent Police Complaints Committee (IPCC), have long been undermined by a system which stacks the odds heavily against the victims of alleged misconduct. A system which in a single year substantiates only 70 out of a total of 4,148 complaints encourages officers to believe they are above the law and beyond criticism. That feeling of invulnerability breeds arrogance and rudeness towards the general public. It also persuades officers that they are free to mistreat and bully suspects into false or exaggerated confessions.
Proving a complaint has been well-nigh impossible. Not only is CAPO made up exclusively of policemen - whose impartiality is necessarily suspect - but it has been constrained to reject any complaint that could not be supported by sufficient corroborative evidence.
In the past Security Branch has fought reforms on the dubious grounds that it would undermine force morale. If the IPCC, under Executive Councillor Dennis Chang Khen-lee, can now push through changes which allow verdicts of 'partially substantiated' or 'credible complaint', and permit disciplinary action to be taken against the officers involved, the public will have more respect for both the system and the force.
At a time when the conduct of the police is under particularly close scrutiny, strengthening the complaints procedures against officers could actually improve morale, not undermine it.
