“| | |

The changing |

‘image of the

British Bobby f

_ By William Pomeroy

| For the Marxist sociologist

LONDON

there has never been a greater abundance of ma-

_ terial than today for case studies of the

_ decay of capitalist society. All major

_ capitalist countries have the commion

phenomena of economic crisis, unem- ployment, social conflict and tension, rising crime and abnormal behavior, and corruption of every form, which

contribute to the disintegration of an es- _ tablished way of life.

Britain today is one of the richest

fields for such studies, for the reason _ that its decline as a capitalist power has ~ peen the steepest. In the space of little _ more than 30 years it has lost a vast colonial empire, and has been reduced to the status of a third rate power. Its

ruling class, its large middle class, and

_asizable sector of the working class that pad been cushioned against the vicis-

situdes of crisis by the wealth scooped jike cream from the colonies, and had peen nurtured to think of their country as the greatest nation, the greatest de-

_mocracy and the most civilized, have _ had to undergo the shock of seeing their _yaunted society coming apart at the ' séams.

One of the most unsettling evidences.

of this has been the changing image of the British policeman. The ‘‘Bobby,”’ as he is commonly known (a name derived

from Sir Robert Peel who introduced

the organized police force with his Met-

_ ropolitan Police Act in 1828), has always _peen characterized as ‘“‘your friendly neighborhood policeman,’’ a sort of

he was unarmed; he carried no gun, was ©

overgrown Boy Scout. ;

The most famous of the helmeted:

Bobby’s features has always been that

- equipped only with a short club that was

kept out of sight, and was reputed to

_ tackle the most desperate law-breaker _ with bare hands and persuasion. Bri-

tons were always fond of comparing

_ their civilized Bobby with the U.S. cop _ and his prominent gun thrust in an evil- _ jooking holster, and even recently have

tended to regard the imported television _folk-heroes like Kojak, Starsky and ' Hutch and Co. as creatures from a vio- _Jent American way of life that was re- mote from the British way of doing ‘things. 7

’ No longer. The day of the unarmed, gentlemanly Bobby is over. Britons

have suddenly awakened to find their friendly neighborhood ‘policeman en- _ gaged in shoot-outs in the streets or sur- rounding the house next door while

bristling with sophisticated ‘weaponry.

_ The British police have become over- night indistinguishable from that

The reason given is that British criminals have increasingly turned to guns themselves, and that today the Bobby just has to “fight fire with fire.” This is the old chicken-and-egg reason- ing (which came first?) because crimi- nals use the same argument against the police (and against the enormous pro- liferation of the ‘“‘security agency”’ and its heavily-armed guards).

In truth, the reason why the British Bobbies are acquiring a para-military character is far more complex than being a mere reaction to more ruthless bank raiders or payroll snatchers. The soaring growth of crime Statistics, par- ticularly of crimes of violence, is itself linked to the spread of economic and social crisis that has brought’ despair cynicism and tension into the once rela. tively placid British Society.

_ .Today Britain’s aged prison system is packed and bursting with nearly 50,000 prisoners, proportionately the

largest prison population in Western:

Europe. Destructive riots are a fre- quent occurrence in the-prisons as a consequence, and brutality by prison guards has been charged. The prison problem reflects the greater decay. The Bobby, however, is not used merely against the criminal. He is turned out in enormous numbers at political demonstrations and at the scenes of strikes. Invariably the huge phalanxes of police are employed to curb, contain or disrupt leftwing or other working-class demonstrations. or to block strike pickets (especially mass picketing that occurs when police inter- ference comes into play). Rightwing politicians have called for tougher pe eae es against demonstrators. n recent years the political rol the Bobby has become es evident be the fascist National Front has met with counter-demonstrations from anti- fascist forces. In such cases masses of police have been used to protect the fas- cists and to facilitate their public ac- tivities, and to resist and break up the anti-fascist demonstrators. Undoubtedly the most insidious in- fluence of all on police methods has been

the prolonged civil strife in Northern

Ireland, where the British government has sought to achieve a military and police solution to a political question that has a civil rights struggle at its heart. Martial law, arbitrary arrest and

A Bobby practices his trade on a striker in St. Helens, Lancashire.

detention, indiscriminate house raids, and ruthless killing of militants by undercover police and intelligence per- sonnel in Northern Ireland have in- fected the whole of British society like gangrene: the spread of the struggle to England by the Provincial Irish Repub- lican Army has seen the same military and police reaction in England’s cities.

On top of this has been the occur- rence of plane hijackings and of anarch- ist bombings and shootings in Britain similar to those elsewhere in Western Europe. At regular intervals London’s Heathrow Airport and other sites are taken over by army counter-insurgency units for exercises.

For the past two or three years Bri- tain’s civil liberties organizations have been raising warnings about the en- croachment of police and military re- strictions on civil liberties. A host of re- visions of police procedure affecting the rights of citizens and their protection under the law has been going onto the books. Accompanying this have been

~ complaints of maltreatment of suspects

by police in interrogation, and, much more frequent, complaints by Blacks and Asians of police abuse.

Despite all these trends, most Bri-

’ tons were shocked when armed police in

London just before Christmas engaged petty-robbery suspects in gunfights in the streets on two occasions. Questions

“The day of the unarmed gentle- manly Bobby is over. . . The British police have become overnight indistinguishable from the American cop.”

~ UPI

raised about these brought the revela- tion that police forces all over Britain have been quietly “‘gun-trained.”’ Un- known to the public, police forces, each authorized to stock their own arsenals with their own gun purchases, have .been building firing ranges. In London alone, 3,404 police officers are now au- thorized to draw revolvers and 40, rifles, including sniper’s rifles and pump- action shot guns.

Besides the Bobbies, London has ac- quired, without public knowledge, a whole spectrum of ‘‘special police groups.’’ These include a 150-man Anti-Terrorist Squad, the 260-man Spe- cial Patrol Group that is heavily-armed and uniformed, the D II whichis an elite firearms squad and wears battle dress and blue berets, the Diplomatic Protec- - tion Group, the Special Branch Protec- tion Squad, and the Royal Protection Group. Much more ominous is the fact that the notorious Special Air Service (SAS), an undercover commando-type unit that was developed for the last postwar colonial wars and that is em- ployed in Northern Ireland for counter- insurgency uses, is on call to aid the police in British cities.

Many British people have been alarmed by this revelation of a full- blown armed police force in their midst. They also find themselves. deluged by television series of tough police with guns that are so violent that protest has forced them to be toned down. Often the target of the police in these series is the revolutionary. Alert trade unionists connect police trends with right-wing Tory proposals for strike-breaking when they get back to power. .

Looking for a friendly neighborhood Bobby? He’s down on the firing range Jearning how to aim at someone with his friendly gun. —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— FEBRUARY 16, 1979—Page 7