1 Police misconduct and public trust
The 2020s have been marked by a succession of scandals involving police officers. Many of these have involved officers from Britain’s largest police force – the Metropolitan Police. Some have involved serious crimes against women, including the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens and the multiple sexual assaults and rapes of David Carrick (both now imprisoned).
Figure 2: Banner stating ‘Police are Perpetrators’ displayed during a protest against sexual violence by police officers such as David Carrick and Wayne Couzens [Description: Two women wearing face masks, hats and coats stand outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters on a rainy day. They hold a large black banner with the words ‘Police are perpetrators: Copwatch Network.] Source: Getty https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/protesters-hold-a-banner-which-states-police-are-news-photo/1247274492?adppopup=true
Cases such as these have generated protests across the country and ‘exposed severe flaws in forces’ vetting and misconduct procedures’ (Institute for Government, p. 88). Serious criminal offences by serving police officers are relatively rare, but we should not allow their impact to obscure other forms of misconduct which are more prevalent.
A record 593 police officers were sacked and banned from the job in the year to 31 March 2024, an increase of around 50 per cent on the previous year. (This does not necessarily reflect a sudden increase in misconduct but does probably reflect a growing awareness of just how significant the damage being done by police misconduct is, and a desire within policing to improve standards to root out malpractice.) Moved text as we can’t have footnotes on OL
Activity 1 Breaches of professional standards/behaviour by dismissed officers, 2023–24
Look at the table below, which displays data compiled by the College of Policing showing the different categories of behaviour for which police officers were dismissed in 2023–2024 (this does not include police staff or special constables). While 593 officers were dismissed, this table lists 1,339 offences (because many officers were accused of more than one type of offence).
What are the three most prevalent offences for which officers were dismissed? Do these surprise you?
Figure 3: Breaches of conduct by officers dismissed for misconduct in 2023-2024 [Description: Table with 2 columns; first showing lists of types of misconduct and second the associated numbers.] Source: [College of Policing, 2024 - https://www.college.police.uk/ethics/barred-list/police-dismissals-2023-2024
Discussion
The three most prevalent reasons for dismissal are ‘authority, respect and courtesy’ (where officers failed to act ‘with self-control and tolerance, treating members of the public and colleagues with respect and courtesy’), ‘discreditable conduct’ (where officers behaved in a manner which ‘discredited the police service or undermined public confidence in it, whether on or off duty’), and ‘Honesty and integrity’ (where officers failed to act with honesty or integrity or ‘compromised or abused their position’). Note that all three directly relate to public facing roles with failure to comply diminishing confidence in the police. Categories such as use of force are lower down the list.
The record number of police officers dismissed for misconduct in 2024 remains a tiny percentage of the total workforce. But any betrayal of the high professional standards expected has a disproportionate effect on public trust.
A YouGov monthly survey from 2023 showed that the proportion of people who had ‘not very much confidence or no confidence at all’ in the police to deal with crime had grown from 38 per cent in 2020 to 53 per cent by April 2023.
Significant failures have markedly affected public trust and the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s Public Perception Tracker showed that public confidence in the police ‘dealing fairly with complaints’ was at its lowest point since sampling began in 2017. In 2023 almost 6 out of 10 people said they were not confident that the police dealt fairly with complaints.
As you will see in the next section, public confidence in police complaints processes is closely linked to the maintenance of professional standards.