MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1967. Police And Public

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31323, 20 March 1967, Page 12

MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1967. Police And Public

The Commissioner of Police, Mr C. L. Spencer, thinks that in New Zealand the policeman’s lot is not as happy as it ought to be. The public, he says, fail to accept the police force as “ part of society ”, thus imposing some sort of obligation on members “ to convince the law-abiding citizen that we are on “ his side, not against him ”. Mr Spencer surely deduces too much from too little evidence. There are persons, as newspaper correspondence occasionally shows, who appear to relish any opportunity to criticise police artion, whether in the handling of unruly crowds, the disciplining of youths who cause street disturbances, or the rebuking of inconsiderate motorists. The police are the guardians of social order; and it is a reasonable assumption that people, by and large, not only respect them in that role, but also admire their restraint in situations where the provocation to retaliate must often be hard to resist. It is regrettably true that when the police intervene in street fighting—which they are obliged to do—too often there are some bystanders who would rather hinder than help them. The general supervision of traffic has become an exacting—though shared—police task, performed as a rule with courtesy as well as firmness: yet many motorists resent what they appear to regard as interference with, or denial of, a right in traffic to do largely as they please.

Where the investigation of crime is concerned, Mr Spencer surely overstates his case in suggesting that the police frequently face “hostility and dis- “ trust ” from people who are normally law-abiding. The police offer protection to the ordinary citizen against the criminal; and if at times opportunity for co-operation by the former is neglected, it does not follow that his sympathies lean in a wrong direction. It is as well, nevertheless, if Mr Spencer was expressing a view commonly held within the force, that the public should know of it—and, by their reaction, be given a chance to disprove it Most people will readily endorse the claim that selective recruiting and sound training are together raising police standards to a higher level than in the past. Public confidence in the force is increasing, not diminishing The growth of good will would be apparent too, were there more frequent occasion for its expression.