Fear of police not the answer

An armed offenders squad member stands down after a callout in Balclutha last year. Photo by Glenn Conway.

When, oh when, are the powers that be going to do something effective about law and order? It is a matter that has, in the past couple of weeks, lurched from urgent to critical.

For evidence of that, just recall the vicious and mindless assaults on four police officers that happened on the weekend before last.

As usual, all we have had so far is a series of knee-jerk reactions from politicians, senior policemen and the police officers' union.

Prime Minister John Key and Police Minister Judith Collins talk about introducing harsher penalties for attacks on police. They say this would send a clear message that police should be "feared and respected".

But the last thing we need is for our police to be feared. That would not only rob them of any respect we might have left for them, but would really put us on a par with Third World, communist and former communist countries.

We need our police force to be restored to a state whereby it engenders and deserves the public esteem, admiration and co-operation it held for most of last century when we considered it among the finest in the world.

Said Mr Key on TV: "...We hold our police officers in high respect and rightfully so ... And I think they are entitled to know that they are treated by society in that way."

Well, Mr Key has spent much of the past three decades overseas and may be unaware of the gradual decline in the public's respect for the police, but the fact is we no longer hold them in the high regard we once did.

However, it has to be said no blame for that attaches to the vast majority of policemen and women who are dedicated to their tasks and carry them out to the best of their ability.

It can be put down, rather, to political interference and to the readiness of a series of tame senior officers to kowtow to their political masters whose interest is not in achieving the best policing possible, but in trying to convince the voters they are doing something (anything will do) about law and order.

This has led, for decades now, to a series of unwise decisions regarding the police, the worst of which was to bring traffic enforcement under their umbrella.

That - far more than a commissioner being nobbled for drink-driving, senior policemen in court on historic sex charges or policemen behaving badly when off duty - has led to the decline in respect for the force.