Monday, May 18, 2020 - 09:21

The Commissioner of Police has been using stock phrases such as 'there is always room for improvement', as if to try and brush under the carpet the serious shortcomings brought to light in the inspection of the RGP carried out by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. The report is about how the RGP is run and how it behaves, and obviously these are issues that cannot be ignored in any democratic society. What is surprising is that the Chief Minister has remained as silent as the grave about it, but that's another story.

There have been many penetrating observations by the HMIC, such as recommendations made in a previous inspection 3 years ago. Said the report: "When we revisited the force in 2019, we found that it had met two out of eight areas for improvement. We expected the force to have done more to assess and understand demand, risk and vulnerability. We also expected it to be better at supervising investigations and managing capacity."

DEFICIENT

In effect, the inspection established that the RGP could have done more about many deficient areas. Let us put aside the main deficiencies established, which have already been aired, and consider what may seem to be minor points, but which reflect the state the RGP is in.

The inspecting team found several administrative errors:

*some records had the wrong crime classification

*the outcome of an investigation was not always updated; and

*certain crimes were filed as detected when they were marked undetected, and vice versa.

And in addition,

*some records were submitted later than the counting rules policy allowed;

*some records did not include important information concerning the needs of victims; and

*in some instances, the matter should not have been recorded as a crime.

And it adds:

The assistant commissioner performed an audit in 2019 that highlighted similar problems to those we found in 2016. For example, there was incorrect classification of some crimes and the wrong status shown on others.