The HMIC report on protest policing – a new direction or a triumph of style over substance?

There is no denying that the latest report on the policing of protest by the HMIC (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary) is hugely critical of the police. Throughout the 220-page document there are many polite ways of saying that the police screwed up. There was an “inappropriate” use of police powers. The use of force showed a lack of “clear standards”. And the understanding of the law was, um, “inconsistent”.

All of which is very gratifying for those thousands of people who have been on the receiving end of, um, ‘inconsistency’. But the question everyone’s asking is, of course, what is going to change? The answer is probably not much, although the HMIC would prefer it if the police didn’t get caught with their trousers down again.

The most crucial change they want to bring about is that of public perception. The image of the police has taken a hell of a battering with all the coverage of G20, Kingsnorth, police databases, kettling etc. On page 1 the report states: “The police service is very much on display during these [protest] events and police conduct is subject to intense levels of exposure and scrutiny… This is important now and will be increasingly so as we move towards the Olympics in 2012 and beyond.”

The government is clearly sensitive at the thought of pictures of British police hitting ‘peaceful’ protesters being beamed onto the world’s television sets in 2012. It isn’t really the image they want exported. And probably neither do the police themselves, who have a nice little earner at the moment exporting the ‘British Policing Method’ (surveillance, low level harassment and intelligence-led ‘disruption’) to countries across Europe.

The important thing, said top HMIC cop Dennis O’Connor in presenting the report, is to remember the importance of ‘style’. ‘Style’ amounts to giving the police an image that they are ‘approachable, impartial and accountable’, not at all smug, superior, firmly on the side of capital, and accountable to no-one.

‘Style’ brings us a renewed commitment to ‘communication’ and ‘negotiation’. “The police needs to modernise its approach and be more inventive in using new technologies to engage with hard to reach or resistant communities” says the report. One of these ‘new technologies’ has been the use of Bluetooth to try to communicate directly with protesters via their mobile phones, and which was used, with somewhat limited success, at the Tamil protests and, more recently, at an anti-EDL rally in South Wales.

The strategy is to find ways to communicate directly to the ‘peaceful majority’ in any public order gathering, which has the added advantage of by-passing any organisers who don’t particularly want to communicate with police. Public order strategy will be one of slow escalation, allowing time to persuade protesters to leave and avoid conflict. This isolates any determined ‘troublemakers’ that choose to hang around. Where people don’t go, the use of force or containment is justified.

This divide and rule tactic is not a particularly new idea, but it may be seen more often if HMIC has its way.

Public order also looks as though it is going to become more consistent as training will be standardised across the 45 police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This means (at least in theory) that police from different forces will be able to work together without getting in each others way and screwing things up. But that seems a bit optimistic…

Although the report is mainly a public relations exercise, there are some minor, but genuinely useful, things in it. There is strong criticism of the police misusing stop and search powers, and powers to obtain name and address. It also emphasises a right to protest which limits the use the police can make of restrictions, arrests for obstructing the highway and breach of the peace.

Remarkably, it also contains some very strong criticisms of the Forward Intelligence Teams, suggesting that their operations may not be lawful. They have been firmly reined in from their old practices of harassment and intimidation. And, if this report is implemented, they will no longer have the freedom to do what they want, but will have to justify all their intelligence gathering operations.

It isn’t much of a change, but it is movement in our direction, and that’s a rare thing, and something we should feel pretty good about. The ‘domestic extremist’ units run by ACPO also face change, as the report makes it clear that continuing to operate as private companies is not an option. This will make them subject to Freedom of Information requests – and it will be interesting to see what we can get out of them.

Although these nuggets are good to have, the overall direction for the future of policing in the UK is still one of increasing social control and manipulation, surveillance and intelligence-led policing.

The HMIC is not going to change that – that bit is surely up to us.