Police urged to think of public

Press, 2 May 1984, Page 34

Police urged to think of public

PA Wellington Many police do not think enough about how to help the public “like, trust, and understand them,” the Minister of Police, Mr Couch, has said. Opening a four-day conference of south-west Pacific police commissioners in Wellington, he said that relations between the police and public around the world were far from ideal. Modern technology had widened the distance between policemen and the public — a trend toward centralisation that many

police forces were now trying to reverse. A general anti-authority trend was prevalent among “various classes of otherwise law-abiding people. Many police officers themselves do not give enough thought to helping the public to like, trust, and understand them,” said Mr Couch. He quoted from a British survey which found that police there had consistently over-estimated the degree of public satisfaction with them, and tended to underestimate the extent to which the public valued community relations and other “qualitative aspects” of police work. “At the same time, however, they over-estimated the significance which the public attached to what the police regarded as ‘real’ police work — their crimefighting, as opposed to general service role.” Police-community relations is a principal topic on the conference agenda. Discussion themes also include international drug trafficking and large-scale credit card frauds.