A news report in the Birmingham Mail http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/hope-you-enjoy-show-outrage-9753875 tells of outrage amongst serving Police about the use of ticketing website "eventbrite" to manage public access to West Midlands Police misconduct hearings. Whilst the text on the website isn't really entirely appropriate ("We hope you enjoy the show"), what do we think about the idea of Police misconduct hearings being made public?
Here's a selection of recent misconduct hearing outcomes for the same force: https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/keeping-you-safe/misconduct-outcomes/index.aspx
And here's a story from the same paper about a misconduct hearing that doesn't automatically fall under the new rule, which only came into effect on May 1st this year: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/new-backing-kingsley-burrell-police-9440245
My personal thoughts: the Police do not appear to enjoy an awful lot of public confidence which, considering the concept of "Policing by consent", seems to undermine their position somewhat. The public are reasonable in expecting the very highest standards of behaviour from the Police and in order to bolster public confidence, it makes sense that misconduct hearings must be seen to be stringent and effective. Opening them to the public is certainly one way that this goal might be achieved, but there could well be other means too. The associated risk of opening these hearings to the public is that they become the modern-day equivalent of witch hunting and serve to drive people away from becoming Police officers.... but as the Police themselves are so fond of saying "If you have nothing to hide, then you have no reason to worry."
Here's a selection of recent misconduct hearing outcomes for the same force: https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/keeping-you-safe/misconduct-outcomes/index.aspx
And here's a story from the same paper about a misconduct hearing that doesn't automatically fall under the new rule, which only came into effect on May 1st this year: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/new-backing-kingsley-burrell-police-9440245
My personal thoughts: the Police do not appear to enjoy an awful lot of public confidence which, considering the concept of "Policing by consent", seems to undermine their position somewhat. The public are reasonable in expecting the very highest standards of behaviour from the Police and in order to bolster public confidence, it makes sense that misconduct hearings must be seen to be stringent and effective. Opening them to the public is certainly one way that this goal might be achieved, but there could well be other means too. The associated risk of opening these hearings to the public is that they become the modern-day equivalent of witch hunting and serve to drive people away from becoming Police officers.... but as the Police themselves are so fond of saying "If you have nothing to hide, then you have no reason to worry."
