Unaccountable, unapologetic, unwilling to compromise. Welcome to Scotland’s police state.
Here we have a system where officers are stretched to breaking point, where vital backroom staff are dispensed with to save money and where anyone who dares ask questions is dismissed out of hand.
It can’t have been easy transferring from eight regional police services to one single entity. In fact, it was very difficult with a number of the legacy forces simply not getting themselves prepared quickly enough.
Should things have been this rushed through, then? Well probably not but let’s not forget there’s a referendum happening in six weeks so any major political changes had to have enough buffering from that.
Except this one hasn’t. Here we are, 16 months on from the forming of this new, wonderful, streamlined service and what do we have to show for it?
For a start we have an IT system which isn’t going to be operational for another two years and is nine months behind schedule. Hooray! It only cost £60 million, what should we expect?
A report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, which monitors operational capability, said frontline officers have raised concerns that their efficiency is being hampered by the failure to integrate the previous systems.
It also highlights a reduction of support staff as adding to the problems. What a surprise, you get rid of the people who know what they’re doing and suddenly there’s an issue.
Culling backroom workers is having a negative effect across other areas of the force as well. Take control rooms, for a start. Not content with closing all bar four of Scotland’s, local knowledge isn’t all that important after all, police officers will make up 45% of the workers under new targets.
Remember that every time Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill stands up and lauds the “extra 1,000 officers on our streets”. They’re not all on our streets. Many are answering phones or doing desk jobs that better trained people used to do for less money. How’s that for a saving?
So what’s the ultimate consequence of this? Overstretched officers. People who put themselves in potentially dangerous and delicate positions every time they clock in are being pushed to the limit.
In the last 10 days I have heard from four separate sources within Police Scotland that the Commonwealth Games is leaving them without a paddle.
They say there are considerably fewer officers on the streets locally, those making their way to and from Glasgow are working ridiculous hours only to have to go and do it all again the next day, and there are serious worries about safety.
Police Scotland dismiss this. They say things are all fine. When I have put numbers to them about the reduction of local policing I have been told my sources are “wildly inaccurate”.
This may well be the case, it’s fair to say I have had varying accounts, but the public is not being given any accurate information from those at the top about how big the reduction is. Believe me, there is definitely a reduction.
What probably best reflects the attitude of the force, though, is the furore over its stop and search policy and the sight of armed officers carrying out routine duties.
There is no willingness to accept there might be genuine public concern here. Stop and search, where pensioners and primary school aged children are targeted and officers admit to fiddling figures to hit their quotas, is said to keep crime down.
That it has a four in five chance of coming up with nothing, according to official figures, is ignored.
On armed officers, it is interesting that Tayside’s old model is often cited as this merely being a continuation of previous practice.
Except that isn’t quite right. In the old Tayside force, the weapons were kept concealed. What’s the difference? It’s all in the perception.
I understand the practical benefits of not needing to go and sign out a gun in an emergency situation. I don’t actually have much of a problem with a small number of specially trained officers carrying weapons, nor a worry about them aiding with routine incidents.
But who really wants to live in a society whereby you can see police carrying guns when they pull over a car? Or shop in Tesco? Or break up fights in fast food chains?
I know I don’t, especially as gun crime is falling, but it is an intimidating sign. Sadly, that seems to matter more to Scotland’s “public servants”.