Abstract
The police enjoy the highest public regard of any profession in Britain, with the possible exception of doctors. After a comprehensive three-year survey published in 1975, Dr William Belson recorded proof of the quite remarkable relationship between the Metropolitan Police and the public in London. The heart of his report was a series of multiple choice questions one of which, for example, asked respondents whether they respected the police ‘a lot’ or ‘quite a lot’ or ‘not very much’ or ‘not at all’. Counting the first two answers as ‘Yes’ and the other two as ‘No’ and recording the number in the top class in each case, his principal finding may be summarized as follows:1
Question | Two top categories | Top category |
|---|---|---|
Do you respect the police? | Yes, 98% | A lot, 73% |
Do you trust the police? | Yes, 90% | Completely, 30% |
Do you like the police? | Yes, 93% | Very much, 31% |
Are you satisfied with the police? | Yes, 96% | Very, 61% |
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Notes and References
William Belson, The Public and the Police (London: Harper Row, 1975).
See, for example, interview with Arthur Scargill in New Left Review, September 1975, in which he describes his attitude to the police in the Saltley Coke Depot incident in 1972. See also the comment of the Communist Party shop steward on page 13.
For an excellent case study of policing in a high immigrant area see John Brown, Shades of Grey (Cranfield College of Technology, 1978).
Katharine Whitehorn, ‘The New Law of Gravity’ in the Observer, 13 July 1980.
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© 1983 Richard Clutterbuck
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Clutterbuck, R. (1983). Reporting the Police. In: The Media and Political Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06580-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06580-6_6
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