Sir, Can I Please Blow My Nose?

These days police officers can't blow their noses without authority from an inspector or chief inspector. The micromanagement continues and the Metropolitan Police senior officers go on rewriting the rules as if they think the law doesn't apply to them.

They're like bonobos in a cage - throwing their excrement at one another.

There's currently a serious problem with the decision to grant bail to a suspect. Let me explain.

After a person has been arrested and interviewed she will probably enjoy a custody meal – perhaps a delicious gluten-free chicken korma or a low salt all-day breakfast, usually accompanied by a cup of tea containing three or four spoonfuls of sugar.

Then, one of several things will happen. If there is outstanding evidence to be collected (CCTV, statements, phone records, bird entrails consulted), the suspect should normally be released on police bail. This means that she is given a date to return to the police station three or four weeks in the future, during which time the investigator will have hopefully obtained all the remaining evidence.

After the interview the custody sergeant can decide to keep the suspect in custody during the rest of the investigation. The sergeant has to believe there's good reason, for example, that the suspect has a history of threatening witnesses.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) and the Bail Act designate the custody officer (usually a sergeant) as the person who makes this decision. Not the inspector, not even the Commissioner on a day when he's eaten three shredded wheat can overrule the custody sergeant.

If the suspect is bailed and there's still outstanding evidence when the suspect returns, she can be bailed again. ('Rebailed').

This bail/remand decision used to lie within the auspice of the custody sergeant – the officer who meets every prisoner, evaluates her welfare issues and learns the nature of the criminal allegation.

Since a few months ago however, senior officers have decided to ignore the Bail Act and PACE.

The bonobos in the board rooms of New Scotland Yard took it upon themselves to decide that a suspect cannot now be bailed without an inspector's authority.

Seriously do these dudes just make it up as they go along?

This is unlawful because it's contrary to PACE and the Bail Act. Bail/no-bail is a decision for the custody officer only. Keeping a person in custody cannot be legally justified if the custody officer has made the decision to bail.

It's also completely impractical. During a night shift it might be impossible to find an inspector. They are very busy people and not usually very approachable. Running around trying to find an inspector is one more hoop to leap through, in addition to the hundred an officer already has.

And if evidence that might take weeks to collect is outstanding, and there is no clear justification for keep the person locked up, shouldn't the prisoner be released? It's ethical and it's what the law tells us to do.

Charging someone quickly is thought to be good for the performance figures and the bonobos believe that the only way to achieve this is by making it difficult for officers to grant bail.

Instead of creating resistance, they could have decided to make it easier to charge prisoners – to actually assist constables by providing resources: perhaps detectives to help uniformed officers with their investigations.

But no. As usual the carrot wasn't offered. It's all about the stick.

This isn't the first time that Met police bosses officers have created unlawful policy. For example they are still trying to pressure constables to arrest at domestics, insisting that we MUST arrest because there is a 'positive arrest policy'.

There is no such thing and there never has been. The original ACPO policy was for 'positive action', i.e. separating the two parties. 'Positive arrest' and 'positive action' - similar wordings. The bonobos believe that if they say it quickly enough the constables won't notice the difference.

So, back to bail and this policy of pressuring constables to charge. Suspects are now being charged in a panic before the investigating officer has obtained all the evidence and concluded his investigation.

The problem here is that (1) suspects are being tried in court without all the evidence available, (2) some of that evidence might exonerate the suspect, and (3) again this is unlawful.

PACE states that charging (or issuing a ticket, caution or unconditional release) must take place AFTER all the evidence has been gathered and considered.

Ahh, the obsession with centralising control.

It's only a matter of time until this bail policy is the subject of a civil court case against the Met. I look forward to that.

Change The Light Bulbs

During a recent training day I was given a three hour input on 'customer satisfaction'.

Apparently the senior managers have noticed that the Metropolitan Police Service is the worst in the country for customer approval. No great surprise.

The people who were contacted by the Public Attitude Survey told the pollsters that it often isn't what police officers say, but how it's said that upsets people. People will report a crime and sometimes the officer taking the report will say something like “You'll be ripped apart in court.”

Another common complaint is that officers don't regularly update the victims.

We all know that people remember when things go wrong, not when they go right. I'm not excusing it, but I understand why some officers might casually say things that upset victims – we are under pressure and harassed by our sergeants and inspectors for performance figures.

Also our perspective of the job is the mechanics of investigating the crime. For us it's a process – a flowchart of activities to carry out before the crime can be closed down. A detective might have forty crimes that she's working on simultaneously. Updating every victim weekly would mean forty ten minute conversations. How can the officers therefore keep every victim regularly updated?

People need to have reasonable expectations. A weekly update isn't going to always be possible.

Anyway, I'm off-track already. So the Met senior management have decided that this three hour teaching package is the answer. This will solve the problem and turn every conversation with the public into a positive experience for them.

The point made was that retail businesses can do it, so why can't cops? (I don't mean to undermine every officer who, like me, strives to spread a little joy during the day. There are plenty of us, but apparently the Met senior management expects perfection).

Well, John Lewis is a bit different from the police service.

John Lewis and Waitrose are renowned for enthusiastic and helpful staff. If you ask the employees (who are all also partners in the business) about their jobs, as I have done, they embrace the organisation. They are treated well and know it.

Thing are a little different in the police.

On my first day in the Met my new supervisors weren't expecting me, I wasn't given a locker and waited weeks for my kit to appear. I had to find my own locker and organise my own access to the computer systems. There was no guidance, no instruction, no induction, no tour of the building, no explanation of Met systems or policies. I wasn't introduced to my inspector, borough commander or any other bosses.

In short, the organisation didn't give a shit.

I met my new team-mates and they looked after me. But no representative of the Metropolitan Police took any responsibility for settling me in.

That's one example, but the point is that in the police you are tacitly made to understand from day one that your welfare means nothing at all to the organisation. This message is hammered into you again and again.

You're a pair of hands. Nothing more.

Quite different from John Lewis.

There's also something else. Police culture has an innate meanness about it. You're often treated by supervisors with suspicion or contempt. It's unpleasant at times, and difficult for a normal, intelligent or sensitive person to accept. And I'm not referring to dealing with the offenders, but the way you can be treated by sergeants and inspectors – your own colleagues.

The dysfunctionality of the system means that you are continually banging your head against brick walls. Any time you need something from somebody, there are always unnecessary obstacles.

There's a feeling of defeat that you have to overcome every day, just to keep going.

Not great.

My point is this: with this context – so different from John Lewis – how can we easily spread joy to the public? Every officer could certainly be positive, energetic and giving of themselves towards the public...if they felt some regard from their employer other than pure contempt.

And I'm not referring to the changes made during the last few years – Tom Winsor's retrospective changes to police pensions, the cuts, the calamitous Local Policing Model, and so forth.

The friction and exhaustion from simply trying to do your job, has been the case for decades both after and prior to Winsor's reforms.

The police service contains officers with a range of personalities, and friendliness doesn't flow naturally from everyone. But there are simple techniques officers could be taught, to avoid complaints.

However, a few hours of teaching 'customer service' won't remedy the problem. We need a total change of culture. We need the constables to start to feel that their careers and and welfare actually matter to the organisation.

Such a change would have to originate with the Commissioner, because a manager is more likely to treat his subordinates with concern and respect if he feels the same positive regard emanating down from his own boss.

I know it will never happen, but I say it anyway. If only to undermine the ineffectiveness of thinking that the poor customer service problem will be solved by merely making constables watch a Powerpoint.

I'm reminded of a friend telling me about a company she worked for. Morale was extremely low because of the management culture – the supervisors were perceived as idle, feathering their nests and benefiting from the hard work of their subordinates.

Staff were leaving in droves, and so the senior management discussed the problem with Human Resources.

HR interviewed employees and looked around the building. They decided that people were leaving because there wasn't enough light.

They changed the light bulbs.

A New Year – Moving Forward With The Metropolitan Police

I've been running this blog nearly a year and a half and we're now well into 2015. It's probably time for a recap and to remember where we're trying to go with this. Perhaps even to work up a statement of basic goals. This post is a bit miscellaneous, with a kind of list of points.

My motivation: within two weeks of probation I realised the job was nothing like the fiction that was peddled to me in the promotional literature. Instead of catching bad guys it was all about targets; all about managers hounding you for performance figures, using the public like a resource to hit their targets.

The tail wagging the dog. I found that constables had the lowest imaginable status in the organisation, lower than the most junior clerk.

I'm in the Metropolitan Police Service and the management of this shambolic force is riddled with broken thinking. The problems don't start between the inspectors' and chief inspectors' ears, but those guys certainly buy into the target-chasing and all the rest of the lazy management techniques.

We all need to keep working to raise awareness of the dysfunctionality that saturates the UK police service.

I applaud the awareness-raising work of passionate people like Tony Munday at Police Choice (Police Choice), working to reform the system.

My aim is to serve you – to serve the community of people who care about policing.

When you read a post, please do leave a comment, good or bad. Blogger doesn't allow me to respond, but I'm trying to work around that. As soon as I can, I'll get back to you.

If you want more of something – more facts, less whining, or whatever – do let me know, and message me with any suggestions.

When I write I assume you probably aren't a copper, and so try to show you the reality behind the soundbites and journalistic speculation. I hope I hit the right level of detail. I don't tell you everything, because that would tend towards unreadability. So there is simplification involved, but the facts are there.

As for tone, the distressing state of the police service and the management thinking, in particular the Local Policing Model, makes me very angry indeed. You are probably angry too, and that's why you are reading my blog.

I want a really effective criminal justice system – we're paying £3billion a year for it, so let's start asking for one. And let's keep on asking until our government starts to listen.

I want a criminal justice system that functions properly, instead of decisions made on the basis of optimising managers' promotion prospects and protecting them from criticism.

We need a happier organisation, with trust, good regard and loyalty between the managers and the constables.

How about the officers' careers and welfare featuring somewhere on the force's list of priorities? Will managers please stop mistreating them simply because you can – because they aren't protected by employment law and can't withdraw their labour. Better morale will feed into a better service for the public.

I want a better career for my colleagues and myself, but also for the public (which includes all cops).

The spirit of policing in the UK is hideously perverted by a management whose management decisions seem to be dictated solely by their desire to protect themselves from criticism and gain promotion.

It is never my intention to criticise the rank-and-file officers, who tend to be normal folk doing a difficult job. They are working to pay their mortgages, and trying to make the job work as best they can, despite the barriers put in their way.

My commitment to you for 2015 is that I will keep blogging and updating you with relevant information that enters my awareness. I don't always have the most interesting or well-written material, but I'll do my best.

I really think we can eventually remedy this disgraceful state of affairs, but it has to start with full awareness of the true picture. It needs a public with their eyes fully open – which is where bloggers come in. Not only me, but the many other wonderful police bloggers.

If we persist we can cause a gradual evolution of attitude. We've seen this already, in that the public distrust claims that targets have been banished.

I hope that it won't take a national disaster to prove the full extent of the travesty. If something happens, for example a plague like several we have narrowly averted during recent years - such as bird flu - what if we can't adequately respond because we're too busy ticking boxes and chasing targets?

History shows that it will happen. Commissioners' knighthoods won't protect them from fatal viruses.

Let's stop the senior officers from treating British policing like it's their own personal play thing.

Here are some goals we might try to work towards:

1. The creation of a government committee working on a plan to reboot the UK police. Such a committee must include experienced serving constables.
2. Legally-sanctioned media access to constables without fear of disciplinary proceedings against those officers. At present no journalist can speak with a constable without exposing that constable to threat of dismissal. Sir Bernard has clamped down on journalists' access to cops - what is he afraid we'll say?
3. A government investigation into police promotion methodology (inspector rank and upwards) and a programme to redesign the promotion process.
4. Explicit inclusion of officers' careers and welfare in force policies.

We have to keep going; there's no other choice. I intend to start regularly Tweeting though I prefer spending my limited time and energy working on my book, which still isn't ready for publication, but should be up on Amazon in the summer. The book will be the story of my career experiences. You'll enjoy it.

Here's to the next year, which will hopefully see more eyes opened, and will I'm sure yield more amusing yet sadly predictable police mismanagement.

And thank you so much for your support since August 2013.

Together perhaps we can save the criminal justice system, one blog post at a time...

– Justice and Chaos

Blue Cards

This article by Justin Davenport appeared in the 29th January Evening Standard:

Evening Standard: Hundreds more gun police to be trained to combat London terror threat

In the current atmosphere of hostile terrorism, Sir Bernard, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, wants to create a 'reserve' of more firearms-trained officers. He intends to bolster the Metropolitan Police's firearms-carrying officers, presently numbered around 2,700.

Now to the point of this blog. Let's imagine we had, say, a thousand officers on London boroughs trained to carry the standard Met firearms – MP5 carbine, Glock pistol and Taser. Those officers might work in normal borough roles but would be available when needed.

What a valuable resource that would be?

Sir Bernard, in this Evening Standard article, fails to mention that until September 2012 we already had exactly this resource. Let me explain.

During the decades up to the 2012 London Olympics each of the 32 London boroughs had dozens of firearms-trained officers. They were experienced coppers who had spent time in the past on armed units, working in areas such as royalty or diplomatic protection, airport security, close-protection or armed response. They moved to borough teams but were encouraged to keep their firearms status.

The 'borough AFOs', as they were called (AFO – authorised firearms officer) were used heavily throughout the 2012 London Olympics, working twelve to sixteen hour shifts in the Olympics venues.

The moment the Olympics finished the AFOs were all dropped.

All AFOs carry small blue cards showing their firearms authorisations. A decision was taken to save money by losing the borough AFOs.

“You still got your blue card?”
“Nah. They've taken it. And you?”

This was the typical conversation between borough AFOs in late 2012. Maintaining firearms officers' skills costs money. To be precise – eleven pence.

£0.11 per bullet. That's roughly what a bullet costs.

So, for each Borough AFO you're looking at roughly two hundred bullets each year – £20 a year. All the Borough AFOs – let's guess a thousand – lost their blue cards, so the Commissioner probably managed to save the Met £20k, ball park figure.

That seems cheap to me, for the cost of maintaining an armed anti-terrorist team who usually work on normal police duties.

Management's thinking:

They've been useful, but we can't afford to think more than a few months into the future. There might be a terrorist catastrophe in the future, but the important thing right now is that we save a little bit of money. 

Now, paraphrased in the Evening Standard article, Sir Bernard says we need more AFOs and he's going to train some up. Has he forgotten that he already had a thousand Borough AFOs, but casually discarded them after the Olympics to save a few thousand pounds?

People! Why do we allow these police decision-makers (Initially I had a pejorative word here, but substituted 'decision-makers'), like the Commissioner, to think this way? Always looking only to the short-term?

That's my criticism here – always always short term thinking.

Ooh we can save a few pennies by doing this. When I've left this job – my knighthood intact – it'll be someone else's problem. 

Instead, we should be future-proofing the police, buying decent equipment and buildings. If we have a resource, such as thousands of expensively-trained firearms officers – why throw that away simply to save a few quid now?

I could go on, and describe how all the police buildings on my borough are unfit for humans, and that raw sewage leaks into my locker room from the toilet next door.

But that's another story.

A Police Force Stressed

Guardian: Met police stress-related illnesses

This article by Ashley Kirk follows the usual media tendency to assume that the 'stress' police officers are suffering is a consequence of staff reductions and changes in pay & conditions.

If that were true it would nicely lets the Commissioner off the hook – placing the blame upon the financial crisis and Tom Winsor.

Unfortunately this 'pay and conditions' excuse isn't the main reason cops are now falling sick with stress and resigning in three times the numbers they used to.

We might complain from time to time about retrospective closure of our pensions, increased retirement ages and pay cuts, but we always get on with the job.

Policing is necessarily a stressful career and is so intrusive that a normal life is barely possible. It's always been a hard career, but the additional 'stress' of the last couple of years flows from Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe's Local Policing Model (LPM), under which we have now been struggling since 2013.

The LPM has created a system that almost seems designed to fail the public and make officers miserable – and that's quite an achievement because, despite everything you might think, cops like to work hard and play hard. Ask any copper and she will tell you she joined up to 'make a difference'.

Teams have drastically shrunk, but that is because of the LPM, not because of staff cuts. In fact the total number of Met officers – around 31,000 – is within a few hundred of what it was in 2011, and large numbers of recruits are coming through every few weeks.

From the inside, it's quite clear that the restructuring of teams has halved the resources. Additionally, the way the officers now work under the Local Policing Model, they are working in what I can only describe as extremely joyless circumstances.

For more details feel free to read some of my posts decrying the LPM:

Only Five Minutes Left On The Clock!
A Convenient Bottleneck
Your Local Station Has Closed? Hey Presto! – A Reduction In Crime
The Figures Prove It's Working!

The Local Policing Teams at my police station are formed from a mixture of brand new officers and officers with twenty to thirty years service. Officers with tremendous specialist expertise have been forcibly moved to the Local Policing Teams and all are now expected to be Jacks-of-all-trades, instead of being used for their specific experience and skills. They are under pressure to attend calls, deal with prisoners, investigate crimes and mentor new officers, and do all this on the rare occasions they aren't dragged off to fill in behind desks or stand on crime scenes.

Members of the public rightly ask, “This burglary hot-spot is a local problem, and you're the Local Policing Team, so why aren't you doing something about it?”

The LPT is 'local' in name only. It's actually a mini response team and a general pool of officers available for crime-scenes, prisoners and filling-in.

Even the highly pro-active cops are disillusioned because they no longer have time to go out looking for crime. Our bosses don't support that type of policing now – when cops stop-search ethnic minorities the Commissioner comes under criticism. He then passes the punishment down through the hierarchy.

As always, every LPT officer is under pressure to produce the performance figures to make the inspectors and chief inspectors look good. They use us to achieve their promotions.

Several of my former colleagues have quit this year, saying they could no longer stomach the way the organisation is lying to the public, the demoralising solo working and the constant pressure from supervisors frightened of criticism from their bosses.

Since days of yore, officer's careers and welfare have been low priority. But now they are completely irrelevant. My welfare means nothing to my sergeant, inspector or chief inspector. Our careers and health have never interested our employer – the great Metropolitan Police Service – but it's now worse than ever. That again is part of the real reason why officers are stressed.

'Pay and conditions' is simply an easy excuse grasped at by journalists' and police bosses.

There's so much stress in the system now because of the LPM. Shortcuts are constantly taken. We're all under pressure and pass it on to others whenever we can.

For example CID officers often have to carry out some enquiries that response officers should have made at the initial incident. But they can't be blamed – the response team are under enormous pressure to reach every call within 15 minutes (immediate grades) or one hour (slow grades), no matter what.

But this means extra work for detectives. A detective with twenty-eight years service told me last week:

“This Commissioner has destroyed the force with his Local Policing Model. I'm carrying twenty-five investigations and my sergeant is breathing down my neck to clear these – because he has been told there are too many outstanding crimes. How can I give any of my victims a decent service?”

She added, “Thank God I'm leaving in less than two years.”

If you read the Guardian article you'll see it finishes with quotes from a Met mouthpiece giving the party line. Here's my response:

Reducing red tape: Year on year the layers of duplication multiply. See my most recent post about a new 'streamlined' system for issuing dispersals:

Slash That Red Tape

Targets: Theresa May might have scrapped targets but Met officers at the inspector and chief inspector level have ignored her:

Channel 4: Police arrest targets do exist despite denials

Police managers don't know any other management styles, so they invent their own targets locally. This is in addition to centrally dictated targets. In effect, the local chief inspectors are trying to 'add value', and boost their hopes for advancement.

Targets In Through The Back Door

Discretion: When since the 1980s have we been allowed discretion?

New Streamlined Dispersals

Merry Xmas my friends.

A short post for you today, to convey the most recent amusing 'slashing of red tape' in the Met.

My supervisor today showed us a little red book with 'Police Dispersal Power' marked on the cover. It is the latest new piece of Met Police paperwork.

The background is that under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, police officers can disperse people from a public place for up to 48 hours to prevent ASB. Until recently the exercise of dispersal powers involved handing out a plan of the dispersal area and writing the person's details in my pocketbook. This new booklet was intended to 'streamline' the paperwork for issuing dispersals, but as usual, the tail is firmly wagging the dog.

"The process now involves simply giving them a ticket from this booklet," said my supervisor. "The instructions are on the Intranet." Inwardly I raised a sceptical eyebrow.

He read the notes out loud to the team, explaining the new process. To issue a dispersal notice, we must now do the following:

1. Complete the form using the subject's details and give the top sheet to the person. 
2. Create a CAD specific to the dispersal. (A 'CAD' is a log or record of actions). 
3. Create a specific intelligence report ('CRIMINT'). 
4. The IBO (an administrative team) maintains a spreadsheet of dispersals, which I must update. 
5. Scan the dispersal form on a printer and save this file into a particular folder on the Metropolitan Police computer system. 
6. Complete and give the subject a stop-and-account form. (Form 5090).

If I'm thorough (and want to protect myself against allegations) I'll probably also want to duplicate the subject's name, address and date-of-birth in my pocketbook.

This is another only one of hundreds of procedures we are supposed to know like the back of our hands.

After this rousing briefing I wanted to check a certain suspicion, so I logged into a computer and found the folder for dispersals. I thought to test it by attempting to save a document into that folder.

I wasn't surprised to find that I didn't have 'write' permission to do this...and neither did anybody else.

In the Met Police, systems are created by persons who seem to give no thought to the actual implementation – to the difficulties that the guys and girls on the street are likely to encounter.

There's a familiar pattern here. The reality is that this 'improvement' will cause the power to be used LESS often. Officers will be unwilling – without a good reason – to jump through these hoops simply to disperse people.

I predict that in a few months time dispersals will become a performance indicator, in order to force officers to use the power.

I've seen this cycle happen so many times in the police force. It's depressing.

And it's good to see that the bosses are really working hard to reduce the duplication of paperwork...

Shoot Me! I'm The Target!

The UK's official threat level for international terrorism was raised from 'substantial' to 'severe' on the 29th August. The threat level system is run by the Security Service for managing terrorist risks. 'Severe' implies that an attack is highly likely.

Since the threat level was raised, police officers have been exercising more care and diligence during their duties to protect themselves. We know that there are certain terrorist groups who would merrily murder soldiers or police officers in public.

Also you know – if you have read my older blog posts – that all police managers have a constant concern with covering their arses. They make decisions based on the need to protect themselves from criticism and protect their hopes of promotion.

So what happened in our police station when the threat level was increased to 'severe'?

Our inspector, probably desperate to be seen to be doing something, put out an order:

All constables are to wear their yellow high visibility jackets at all times when outside the police station.

If the terrorists are out on the streets carrying loaded guns or stabbing implements, they'll surely not hesitate if they see a whale-shaped yellow blob lumbering along inside a shirt and tie, fleece, body armour, yellow jacket and silly hat?

With a high risk of a terrorist attack by fundamental Islamists, I feel like I'm on show, my bright yellow attire screaming out:

“I'm here! Shoot me! Me!”

Are we supposed to now be protecting the public by literally mopping up all the bullets? Instead, while the threat level is this high, shouldn't we perhaps adopt a lower profile?

Worst still, my inspector insists upon 'single patrolling'. This is the bizarre practice that former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson made one of his key policies, together with (1) learning 'The Five Ps' catchphrase, and (2) wearing name badges.

The idea of single patrolling is that it gives the public a false impression that there are more cops than really exist. In other words – an unrealistic expectation. And, according to unquestioned orthodox police thinking, this is a good thing.

Single patrolling is also unproductive (I don't stop and search people when I'm alone), demoralising for us, potentially dangerous (it was cast aside when the London riots started) and it worries the public when they see a police officer walking alone – they tend to assume that the reason we are alone is because budget cuts have reduced our numbers.

And I especially don't want to be waddling along by myself, under my blimp-like yellow jacket, when a terrorist attack is 'highly likely'.

I'm sure you've got my point by now.

Police sergeants and inspectors do seem to like their people walking around in high-visibility jackets, but why?

Seriously, how will that help us or any member of the public?

I know the thinking - I can hear their cogs slowly turning - my inspector, like all police managers, assumes that a visible presence reassures people. He wants people to enjoy that special euphoric glow of reassurance.

Nope. That doesn't work.

My experience is that people worry – when they see coppers near their homes they assume something bad has happened in the vicinity. They ask us:

"Officers, what's happened? Is it anything I need to know about?"

Obviously I dislike the fact that my inspector has chosen to put his team in danger simply in order that he is seen to be taking action of some kind, but what disappoints me most is something else.

Like so many police managers, he can't think for himself. He also can't reason through the obvious consequences of decisions. He might work from a desk, but I'm out there walking around and hoping not to get beheaded or shot.

Not only can police managers not think for themselves, but instead of doing nothing – something they should try more often! – they do the only thing they can think of, which is to copy the tried and abandoned ideas of previous commissioners, including ones who performed poorly and resigned in disgrace.

I don't write this because I enjoy disparaging police managers, but because it just isn't good enough.