“POLICE AND PUBLIC”

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 April 1936, Page 2

“POLICE AND PUBLIC”

PROSPECTS OF CAREER. “It is ridiculous to pretend that a great genius is needed to be a good police officer,” writes Major Maurice Tomlin, formerly Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, in “Police and Public.” “In the Criminal Investigation Department, to ■which the thoughts of so many candidates are directed in the first instance, intelligence and resource are necessary in the investigation of the more intricate forms of crime, such as frauds and some of the more complicated crimes of violence.” “In the ordinary cases (which of course, far exceed the others in number) and especially in cases of larceny, the most successful detectors of these offences —whose feelings, it is hoped, will not be hurt if they are called ‘thief-takers’ —are very often men who are able to mix in the underworld without being identified, and whose knowledge of what is going on in that world becomes with experience almost an instinct, and enables them to know what is going on and where they should cast their net, although they could not be able to pass a very brilliant examination in any book subject. “One of the most experienced detectivd officers of recent times, who had run to earth one of the most ingenious of modern criminals, when lecturing on criminal investigation work said that he was often reproached for having considerable acquaintance amongst very doubtful customers with whom he was on friendly terms; he had been asked how he could reconcile his position and the dignity of his Service with such connections with what is called the underworld.

“He said his invariable reply was that though he had often got valuable information in a ‘four-ale’ bar, he had never yet got any from a vicarage. And that sums up the position as at present; whether the Police College will produce as good thief-takers as the school of life remains to be seen.” In view of the establishment of the Police College, with its special training for talented young men, the likelihood of promotion from the ranks as compared with those in the Police College is of interest. Dealing with this point, Major Tomlin thinks that the ordinary constable has the best chance. He says:—

“The chance of a career is really smaller than on the uniform side, because of the selection for admission to it being more rigorous; just as the successful candidates for the uniform side are those judged to be the best of the many thousands who present themselves, so those selected for the C.I.D. may be assumed to be the best of such of the uniform men who volunteer. Thus if would seem that for the police officer under the new system to get to higher ranks will be more difficult than in the past; and if it turns out that the process of elimination produces a higher degree of the qualities necessary, so much the better for the Service and for the public. “There is, moreover, another aspect which, in the judgment of some, will offer greater scope for the keen and intellectual young man of the Service, and that is the possibility that there will be greater opportunities in the future than up to now for young officers to elave the Metropolitan Force on transfer to other Forces in higher ranks.

“In the past there have been such opportunities, for suitable young constables to join Colonial Forces as officers therein, and if the Police College develops into what it should, there will be a much larger supply of these young officers from whom Colonial Forces can be officered, and it may be that the Colonial authorities might be glad to have the ready-trained men instead of having to enter a number of untrained young men who learn their work after they join. “It will be said with a great deal of truth, that the woik is entirely different; that there is but little similarity between duty at High Barnet and in British North Borneo or at Walworth and Walfisch Bay; but the basic principles of police duty are the same everywhere.” a •