keith a wrote:
I questioned whether the authors background was suitable for the post in question
Well, they interviewed and hired him, and kept him on for five years. I don't think that means he was just twiddling his thumbs making stuff up.
keith a wrote:
I don't think he can have it both ways when he says "these statistics disclose a complaints system that fails to identify or punish the minority who abuse their office
I do. You rightly say it either means the complaint is unfounded, or else the complaint was badly investigated. You presume he had the power to oversee the latter. But we know the police get to do far more of the investigations than the independent folks; we also know they exonerate several times as often as the independents. This does indicate something amiss.
keith a wrote:
I also felt that the author of that article contradicted himself. His remark that the public can't call on the IPCC but that "Police officers are regular visitors to the IPCC, and staff make frequent visits to police professional standards (complaints handling) departments to discuss cases" makes the whole thing sound rather sinister IMO, whereas the reality of it is that this would be the officers leading the investigation not the rank and file, or those subject of the complaint.
You presume no officers comment on cases they're not involved in, nor do they have undue influence that prejudices the investigation.
keith a wrote:
Later he says "I handled the West Midlands, which has the second largest police force in the country, yet the IPCC has no office in the region, employs virtually no one from there and, since I left, has no commissioner resident in the region" which surely reinforces what I'm saying.
I don't follow you - where's the contradiction?
keith a wrote:
I guess what I'm saying is that the article is one persons view and it sounds like he has an agenda.
Anyone writing an article has a story they want to propagate, sure. The article is important because of its basic facts, that go unchallenged including:
- The police investigate themselves more than anyone investigates them. This is not a credible way for any authority to be scrutinised. The IPCC uphold several times the number of complaints than the police do.
- Only one complaint in 290 is independently investigated.
- Thousands of complainants appeal against local police investigation of themselves, but over 80% of the appeals fail.
- The IPCC is financially incentivised to rely on police resources.
- As the other article I posted says, the IPCC looks to the police for its approval ratings rather than complainants.
This cosiness is demonstrated by the way the IPCC repeated the police's false, misleading and dubious claims about Ian Tomlinson, Jean Charles de Menezes, etc. (when the Guardian posted the Tomlinson video the IPCC and police together went round to their offices to try to get them to take it down).
