THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 1977. The safety of the lawmen

Press, 15 June 1977, Page 18

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 1977. The safety of the lawmen

Enforcing the law in these days of diminished respect for authority and constant infringement of the Arms Act can be a hazardous business. Traffic officers throughout the country are disturbed by assaults on fellow officers who must patrol at night on their own. Their concern is understandable. This week a former Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Gideon Tait, suggested that policemen should be armed for, among other reasons, their own protection against armed criminals.

Policemen and traffic officers are as entitled a» anyone to personal protection. The public has an added interest in ensuring that policemen and traffic officers do not feel threatened because the efficiency of law enforcement will suffer if its officers are fearful for their own safety. If a policeman hesitates to apprehend a burglar for fear the burglar may be armed, or if a traffic officer refuses to stop an offender for fear he may be assaulted, the public will not benefit from laws designed for their protection. Ways must be found to protect law enforcement officers against all possible risks.

The proposal to equip traffic officers with devices which will enable them to keep in constant radio communication with their headquarters offers only limited benefits. If the threat to the safety of solitary officers on night patrol increases, the Ministry of Transport will have to allow' officers to work in pairs at night. This is a common arrangement for police in cities and the community will have to bear the cost of recruiting and training additional officers. This will have to be accepted as the cost of ensuring that the roads are kept as free as possible from traffic offenders. In effect, the taxpayer will have to recognise that offenders who are prepared to assault traffic officers are likely to be drivers who are exceptionally reckless of the safety of others on the roads.

The suggestion made by Mr Tait that the police be armed for their own protection would put individual policemen at greater risk rather than less risk. The Minister of Police (Mr McCready) has already squelched the idea by observing that arming the police would only encourage others to carry and use guns. The knowledge that policemen were armed might deter some timid criminals; the determined ones would simply carry their own weapons to a greater extent than they do today. The result would probably be that minor assaults on policemen would be fewer and more serious assaults would increase. The police themselves will probably be reluctant to exchange bloodied lips and cracked heads for gunshot wounds.

To the extent that an armed police deters criminals from assaulting policemen. this effect is already achieved by having special squads to deal with armed offenders. These squads can be called out at short notice and the police response should be calculated to meet the particular circumstances. No criminal today can be sure that policemen are never armed.

The safety of policemen will be best assured not by increasing the number of guns, even those in the hands of policemen themselves, but by reducing the numbers of guns and keeping the most rigid possible control on permits and registration. The Police Department itself has acknowledged that removing more firearms from ready access would reduce the incidence of firearms offences. This means offences against policemen as well as offences against any other person. The essence of the problem is to keep all citizens safe from the misuse of guns. If the police are to be armed, all citizens will be encouraged to look on guns as weapons of self defence. Such an attitude would defeat all efforts to rid the country of guns that can be used criminally.