In 2016 there were just over 106,000 frontline police officers serving in England and Wales. In the same year 107 of them were dismissed for gross misconduct. Amongst the reasons for dismissal were assault of fellow officers while drunk, drink driving, sexual assault, possession of indecent images, voyeurism, racism, theft and fraud. It’s not a list that makes for comfortable reading, and the actions of the officers concerned clearly fell well short of what was expected of them.
The strange thing is that whenever a police officer is dismissed for gross misconduct, I never hear a call for the entire police service to be disbanded. Obviously, the failure of a few must mean that police forces are a ‘bad thing’ and the world would be a better place without them. Of course, this doesn’t happen because common sense and the evidence of history tell a different story – despite the failure of the few, society is very definitely a better and safer place for all of us because police forces do exist.
On a different note I was interested to hear, in the wake of yet another religiously inspired terrorist attack, that the world would be a better place without religion.