Public attitude to police
Sir,—Your editorial acceptance of the Police Commissioner’s assertion that “numbing public apathy” was hindering police work (July 10) and extrapolations on “enemies within” was surprising journalism. There has been nothing offered to confirm that public attitudes to the police, or to helping them, has changed. Neither was there anything to suggest that crime rates were really increased. Just as likely is that definitions of crime, reporting, and perhaps media treatment of some aspects of crime have undergone some shifts — that it is perception of crime rather than crime itself which has changed. If the police are experiencing some new difficulties with public perception of their role, I suggest the problems might well be in police attitudes to the community rather than the community’s to the police. There can be few who seriously believe the police “serve” the public in a personal sense, as we are invited to do: they are agents of the State. — Yours, etc., lAN D. SPICER, Wellington. July 10, 1985.
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Press, 13 July 1985, Page 18
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167Public attitude to police Press, 13 July 1985, Page 18
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