or, Why do so many politicians fail to understand where security capacity comes from?
Across the United Kingdom there is a common belief that violent crime is a serious growing national problem. While statistics do not always support this belief, perceptions do guide action from those in power.
The current government has promised to put an additional 20,000 police officers into service. Other organisations are also benefitting from increased resources and revised controls and laws to support enforcement.
All of this is with the intention of making the UK safer. It may, indeed, succeed in reducing crime rates but, will only achieve partial success because it fails to recognise that security comes from three pillars, and these are out of balance.
The first is our security forces themselves. This means police, border agencies, and every other body charged with providing security.
The second pillar is the controls and rules of law which apply throughout society. Right now, for example, emergency legislation is going through Parliament to end the release of people convicted of terrorism offences halfway through their sentence
Finally, the third pillar comes from the capacity of the general population to keep themselves safe. For the vast majority of our lives, afterall, there will not be a police officer stood next to us. If the people we are engaging with choose to act outside the law then we are effectively alone, be it for a few moments or a prolonged period.
Building capacity within people is not simple. It is so much harder to measure than numbers of officers, or scope of laws. If it works then bean counters will, rightly, observe that there was no crime. We do not run a second, test case, parrallel universe and so it will be difficult to prove what has been avoided.
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”.
Albert Einstein or sociologist, William Bruce Cameron (There’s an argument about who said it)
So the big question then is how do you build that capacity within the general population?
Let’s start by making sense of the question. Another way to regard capacity is to view it as the behavioural norms and expectations of a group of people. So, perhaps the question should be, how do you help people to adopt good behaviours in situations that threaten their personal safety and security?
Whatever that answer may be, it is clear that helping people to adopt good behaviours, is not the primary concern of people like police chiefs, national Police and Crime Commissioners and security forces. Their role is to ensure that they utilise their resources to the best of their ability, to prevent crime and to stop crime and violence when it occurs. In that role their hands are already full.
Logically taken, if good behaviour leads to the avoidance of crime then actually the police will never be involved, or have to consider how resources may be applied to support that person or group of people.
If good behaviour around security and safety is, therefore, a life skill, who has responsibility?
At the moment we teach life skills in schools but, schools cannot teach everything and there will always be big gaps in what can be delivered. To fill those, we rely on the work of charities or charitable organisations.
That means we effectively rely on a postcode lottery system to develop our behaviours in security situations. We have no common foundation on how anybody is educated, and that matters.
Everybody at some stage is likely to visit a major tourist attraction or site, or to attend a concert or theatre or cinema event. Individuals from across the country, and the world, will travel into places where potential crimes may occur. If those individuals have not been educated in understanding their dynamic security situation then we can have no confidence in what they will do.
Eilidh MacLeod was only 14 when she was a victim of the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017. She came from the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, had not grown up in a city or large urban environment but was there on that tragic day.
Our approach to the three pillars of security is out of sync, and needs to be addressed.
Unfortunately many of our leaders either do not understand this, or are worried that the political messages sent by recognising the need to apportion individual responsibility are not attractive. It is easier to say that Police and Crime Commissioners should resolve the issue, than to tackle the root of the problem.
So, a final thought. Having a programme to improve our personal security behaviours is not a free option, but it it is cheap. Home Office figures show that the cost of a murder in the UK was £3.2 million, and a rape £40,000 in 2018. Preventing some crimes will save money elsewhere and provide skills for life.
