In England, until 1829, police work was carried out by bailiffs who answered to a magistrate and by the army in case of serious disorders. That year, the Conservative Home Secretary (and later Prime Minister) Sir Robert (Bob) Peel established the first professional force in London, despite criticism that it would be an instrument of repression of political rivals and curtailment of freedoms. The agents were called in slang peelers (by his last name), or bobbies (the diminutive of his name).
The initial distrust generated by the bobbies soon turned into affection, even a love story, especially on the part of the middle classes, who felt protected by their dissuasive presence on the streets of the capital. And although some occasionally used the club with a little too much joy, people thanked them for chasing down thieves, telling off hooligans, and climbing on rooftops to rescue their cats and dogs.
That confidence has completely disappeared (only 43% of the population has it), and culminates in a devastating report that denounces institutionalized racism, sexism and homophobia not only in Scotland Yard (London's Metropolitan Police) but in the 43 forces police forces in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own), arbitrary arrests of members of ethnic minorities, especially Afro-Caribbeans, macho behavior and language, abuse of power and indifference to crime (only one in every hundred rapists is convicted, robberies are not even investigated, and cybercrime has skyrocketed). The icing on the cake has been the recent cases of two police officers from the same elite unit, Wayne Couzens and David Carrick. The first murdered a woman, and the second incurred in dozens of cases of sexual abuse, which were known to his colleagues and superiors. Instead of being kicked out of the force, he was promoted.
Being a woman in the English police is not easy. The report that is published tomorrow censors the discrimination to which they are subjected in order to be promoted, their objectification and sexualization, the toxic macho culture, the jokes and the obscene language that they have to endure in the work environment. And he remembers unfortunate incidents such as that of the Wembley officers who took photos with the corpses of two murdered black girls jokingly referring to them as mines, and that of others from Charing Cross police station who were sent through the networks social images of colleagues, saying how hot they were.
It all started a generation ago with the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence at a South London bus stop, and the complete disinterest of the Metropolitan Police in investigating the case and arresting those responsible, a group of white hooligans who in the community It was well known who they were, but for years they continued to live in the neighborhood, enjoying total impunity. It was the first time that institutionalized racism had been discussed at Scotland Yard, but it fell on deaf ears.
Then came the cases of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician riddled with shots in the subway by agents of the terrorist unit, mistaking his identity and the cables he carried in his bag for a bomb; that of the disabled newsboy who was killed during an anti-establishment demonstration (in which he was not participating) when the police pushed him and used disproportionate force, causing him to go into cardiac arrest; later, that of the redheaded girl who was thrown to the ground and handcuffed for protesting the death of Sarah Everard (Couzens's victim), an image that went viral and went around the world. And just a few weeks ago, that of a middle-class mother who disappeared near a river in Yorkshire, the local authorities spent twenty days combing the area searching for her with a huge and ineffective deployment, and it was two neighbors who found the body. , which was right under their noses.
The bobbies no longer exist, due to austerity and the cuts of successive governments. Prevention of crime in the streets has completely disappeared, and police officers spend most of their time in offices, doing paperwork or trying to find suspects through security cameras or electronic trails left by cell phones, computers and credit cards. The agents complain that they do the work of social carers, attending to domestic problems and people with mental problems, and that should not be their job. And that their salaries are low. A rookie fresh out of the academy earns 25,000 euros a year, three times less than his equivalent in the Los Angeles LAPD.
In iconic TV series like Line of Duty, Unforgotten, or Happy Valley, there are crooked cops but more crooked apples than rotten apples. In reality, not so much. Couzens was known among colleagues as "the rapist", and Carrick as "Dave's bastard", but they were still there. Alas, if Robert Peel would raise his head...!
