Will crime commissioners be positive or populist?

Within three months, we will see the election and inauguration of police and crime commissioners throughout the country. The jury remains out as to whether this new breed of democratically elected officials will be a good or a bad thing.

Most of the coverage of their coming has been rather negative – not least because of the fact that we are following the United States in politicising law and order, and decisions will be based on populist rather than more rational calculations.

There was no party political consensus around the establishment of commissioners, with the Labour Party opposed to them, but now engaging with the process. And some early candidates for the posts confirmed people’s deepest worries – such as one who proclaimed that, if elected, he would turn the police back from being social workers into rat-catchers.

Yet, the new arrangements for policing also bring some real opportunities. Crime is not consistent across the country, and strategies for crime prevention and control should, arguably, be responsive to local circumstances. And given the prominence of young people in the crime and antisocial behaviour agenda, here is a real chance for reasoned and reasonable arguments to be made through democratic channels for a measured and purposeful approach to youth engagement, crime and justice.

There could be more robust advocacy for positive activities for young people. Talk of youth police and crime commissioners by an independent candidate may be premature and possibly slick electioneering, but commissioners could forge stronger connections with the wider canvas of youth policy development.

It may be a bit of a cliché, but it is still true that the promotion of positive opportunities and experiences is probably our best chance of preventing more negative behaviour.

Public support
Despite redtop newspaper portrayals of the yobs on our streets and the often knee-jerk public complaints about leniency in ?the treatment of young offenders, research has consistently pointed to the fact that – given more facts about a case – the public favour more support and inclusion of those young people.

Elected police and crime commissioners could ensure that approaches to youth crime are appropriately proportionate, and not based on scaremongering and moral panics. The more populist among them could of course, regrettably, veer in the other direction.

That is, in a way, the problem and the challenge. Will variations in approaches to law and order – including the ways in which young people are dealt with – be the outcome of more carefully weighed assessments than those that are currently made through the discretion exercised by chief constables? Or will local decisions be more attributable to the quest for votes and re-election?

Police and crime commissioners will be able to serve two terms of office and it will be revealing to see whether their approaches ebb and flow between populism and a more measured stance, according to the cycle of an individual’s appointment.

Howard Williamson is professor of European youth policy at the University of Glamorgan