NCJ Number
95211
Date Published
1984
Length
250 pages
Annotation
A review of the role of police in Great Britain, from the 1962 Royal Commission to the 1983 Scarman Report and Police Bill, concludes that current policing problems are due to the moribund characteristics of contemporary society. The study argues that remedies lie in education and greater civic consciousness.
Abstract
The remedy to crime and lawlessness is not in greater emphasis on police power and penal severity, but in educating people to create a more comprehensible, just, and participatory democracy. Community forums concerned with housing, planning, social services, and criminal justice are needed to work on neighborhood youth problems and needs of the aged, the disabled, and the unemployed. Community forums could propose initiatives to improve neighborhood services such as transportation, launderettes, day nurseries, trading posts, and exchange marts. In ghetto areas where the prospects of extending participatory democracy are dim, teams of official and volunteer helpers could help organize the demoralized poor. A communitarian society would encourage responsible civic attitudes through youth service and political, social, and moral education. A network of thousands of community forums could exert informal social control and stop the drift toward greater reliance on the formal system of police and the criminal sanction. Community forum representatives should be present at all juvenile offender hearings. Although probation officers and social workers represent the state's interest in the welfare and punishment of the offender, the community is the front line in 'the war on crime' to protect its own values. A table of contents, an index, evidence in the Brixton riot inquiry, and security rules and regulations in the People's Republic of China are provided.