Police apology – or arrogance?
“Stop and Search Us”? The Police? Surely they don’t mean that? I wonder who will be the first to take them at their word; and likely end up getting arrested for the effort?
Well, no. They don’t actually mean that. This slogan appears on billboards that have started appearing in various places around Bedford over the past couple of weeks or so, and is in fact part of a recruiting campaign for Bedfordshire Police.
However, it strikes me it’s rather a curious choice of words. Curious? How so?
Because it follows so quickly on the heels of an announcement just about a week ago that police powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 are to be curtailed (see the British Journal of Photography for a report).
So I’m left pondering which scenario accounts for the choice of this particular slogan.
Is it that the Police are totally unaware of the Home Secretary’s announcement regarding the use of stop-and-search powers under Section 44? Or do not see the coincidence of wording between that announcement and this slogan? Well, nothing would surprise me where cops are concerned, though I suspect this is unlikely.
Or is it that they’re sensitive to the damage their abuses of the Section 44 powers have caused them in the eyes of the public, and this is their way of seeking to apologise and to help improve their image, cultivating a “friendlier face” for themselves? Using the slogan to deliberately emphasise the connection?
Or is it that they’re supremely uncaring of whatever the Home Secretary may have to say, and regard the outcry caused by their abuse of Section 44 powers as trivial? And this is a not-so-subtle way of their taking the piss? In other words a testament to their systemic arrogance?
Alas, I rather suspect the latter to be the case.
