The British Back Their Bobbies

The Police have been much in the news this week, with the rank-and-file demonstrating in London against the Home Secretary's reform plans, and more senior officers publicly debating whether the low clear-up and conviction rate for crimes is the fault of the Police or of the criminal justice system.

From the British media one often gets the impression that there is a widespread consensus of dissatisfaction with the Police and distrust of their probity. That's not what we find when we ask the public.

Last month, for the BMA [The Public's Trust In Doctors Rises], we measured public satisfaction with and trust in doctors and a number of other groups and professions, including the Police. While the Police do not score levels of trust quite as high as doctors, nevertheless two-thirds of the public are satisfied with the way they do their jobs, and they are trusted to tell the truth by around two-to-one. These findings have been consistent over the last twenty years.

Q Now I will read out a list of different types of people. For each, would you tell me whether you generally trust them to tell the truth or not?

Source: MORI/various clients Base: c. 2,000 British 18+ except 1997, c. 1,000 in 1997

By way of comparison, while 59% trust the police to tell the truth, 54% trust "the ordinary man or woman in the street", 45% trust civil servants, 20% trust government ministers and only 13% trust journalists.

The trust figures have been undented by controversies such as the Stephen Lawrence case. In fact, it is often the case that an institution whose reputation with the public is good and solid can weather occasional bad news stories without the public's confidence being shaken. The BMA survey shows a prime example of this - such is the public's trust in doctors that they are prepared to treat even high-profile scandals as isolated incidents. In the BMA survey we explicitly reminded respondents of the stories in the press and on TV, with a question apparently strongly loaded against doctors; yet in two successive years' surveys the public refused to take the bait and only 4% would say that "most doctors" do their job badly nowadays.

Q As you may have heard or read, doctors have been reported in the press or on TV recently in an unfavourable light, e.g. the Bristol surgeon inquiry and stories about Alder Hey and other hospitals retaining body parts. Thinking about those stories and taking your answer from this showcard, how well or badly would you say that most doctors do their job nowadays?

Source: MORI

Of course the media presentation of the police has changed over the years, in fiction as much as in fact. Nobody believes the world is like Dock Green any more (nice though it would be if it were). In the modern TV police station the rules are pretty sure to be "bent", even if not many of the coppers are. Consequently it is relatively reassuring to find from the British Social Attitudes Survey that most of the public think that most of the time the real world isn't like that, either.

Q How much do you trust British police not to bend the rules in trying to get a conviction?

Source: NCSR/British Social Attitudes Survey, Jun-Nov 2000

Yet all this is not to say that the public is satisfied with standards of policing as opposed to the officers themselves. In a survey for the Sunday Telegraph in January 2001 [Public Services Poll], we found that satisfaction with "the way your area is policed" had fallen to 43%. This was the first time in two decades of national measurements of this indicator by MORI that more had expressed themselves dissatisfied than satisfied, but for years before that it had been plain that there had been a falling off of satisfaction from the high levels found in the early 1980s.

Q Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way your area is policed?

Source: MORI

But the first instinct seems to be to blame the politicians or the administrators, not the police officers themselves. Nor is increased funding for the Police a high priority compared to the NHS or education (though 37% of the public do feel the police are underpaid) - the public clearly feels that improvements can be achieved by more efficient use of existing resources. In a July 2000 MORI survey for the Mail on Sunday [Crime And Punishment Poll], 76% thought the Police spend too much time on paperwork, 58% on prosecuting motorists and 50% on "being politically correct". While 15% felt the government were most to blame for the recent rise in crime, only 4% blamed the Police. An overwhelming 93% agreed that "Muggings, criminal damage and car thefts would decrease if the police had a stronger presence on the streets".

Media impressions (and repetitious jokes about estimating the size of Wednesday's demonstration) notwithstanding, there seems little doubt which side the public's initial instincts will be on in the dispute between the Police and the Home Secretary - though of course a strong case by Mr Blunkett might change that.

Probably an important element in maintaining public confidence in the Police is their day-to-day familiarity. Most of us, fortunately, rarely come into contact with the courts, but we see the Police going about their duty all the time, and perhaps speak to police officers comparatively frequently. Certainly, it is the reassuring image of the "bobby on the beat" that strikes strongest chords with the public. Persistently when the public is asked what would contribute to reducing crime in Britain, putting more police on the beat comes at or near the top of the list whatever the other alternatives suggested.

Q (1994-2000) I am going to read out some different suggestions for ways in which crime levels can be reduced in Britain. Which two or three, if any, do you think would do most to reduce the level of crime in Britain?

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Source: MORI

Nor should this possibility be dismissed, even if the experts are convinced it would be ineffective in cutting crime, if the presence of police on the beat would ameliorate fear of crime, which is in itself a problem the authorities need to tackle. A survey in the West Midlands last summer by the MORI Crime and Policing Unit for the West Midlands Criminal Justice Strategy Committee offered the public eight choices, from which they were asked to pick three or four that "would make you feel personally safer in your area"; more than three-quarters picked "more police patrolling on foot", and two in five "more police patrolling in cars". A Neighbourhood Watch scheme, in third place, was selected by fewer than one in three.

Mind how you go, Mr Blunkett.

Roger Mortimore 15 March 2001