Chair’s Reaction: You Cannot Tar All Officers With The Same Brush

“IT is totally unfair and unjustified to tar all police officers with the same brush,” the Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said about the media response to a critical report on police vetting.

The report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) says that police vetting procedures are not robust enough, with some officers passing despite having criminal records, being suspected of serious offences, having substantial debts or having family linked to organised crime.

But South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Steve Kent says that the media has ramped up “unfair mass criticism” of police officers as a whole.

He said: “We all within the police have a deep contempt for corrupt officers. If there are issues with vetting that should be addressed, then that needs to happen. But that should not then give a green light to a media rhetoric that all police officers are of this mindset, that they’re all sexual predators and criminals.

“These people represent the tiniest minority within the policing organisation and it is totally unfair and unjustified to tar all police officers with the same brush.

“Suggesting that is absolutely outrageous and shows a contempt for police officers who are out there every day putting their lives on the line. They deserve better.”

He added: “This deserves a better context – yes this is a problem, it needs to be identified and dealt with. But if you throw all police officers under the bus, the effect on morale is enormous. Officers tell me time and time again that they are fed up of reading headlines about the police that suggest that all officers are of that ilk. It smacks of unfairness.”

Corrupt or criminal people who worked in other public sector organisations tended to be treated as individuals, rather than everyone in that organisation being a problem, Steve pointed out.

He said: “In other organisations it seems to be an individual problem, but in our organisation it’s turned into a collective problem. The police are an easy punchbag for the media.

“The press sense that the public are not always 100% behind the police because of the nature of what we do. So it’s easy for them to put the boot in and ramp up the unfair mass criticism. Yet they know that in other parts of the public sector there’s widespread support and sympathy and that it won’t be tolerated if, hypothetically, they said: ‘All the NHS are criminals because of the actions of one individual’.

“The Police Federation wants to come out front and centre and point this out to the public. We also need police leaders to come out and say this as well – that 99.9% of police officers are going out there day and night putting their lives at risk, working hard and protecting the public.”