Police education
It is clear from the Machiavellian tactics of counsel for the various left wing groups involved in the Scarman enquiry into the violent Red Lion Square demonstration, as a result of which a police officer died, that policemen will, in future, require a greater degree of training in the philosophy and metaphysics of their profession and its justification than hitherto. But the same requirement for more and higher training, in various fields of professional expertise, has emerged from confrontations in recent years with criminal elements more skilled — and better able to purchase the required legal advice — than the motley bands of the extreme left. The National Association of Chief Police Officers should therefore consider favourably, at their conference this week, proposals for increasing the size and capability of the National Police College. Due attention must be paid to the fears of those opposing the move that too rapid an expansion may lead to a decline in the quality of education at the College; but the answer to such fears is to insist that government should spend more money on the College, so that expansion is adequately and properly financed. When so many unworthy objects claim and enjoy the financial patronage of government, it would be deplorable if this most valuable of national institutions was, as has been the case with police salaries and other urgent areas of police activity, deprived of the resources it needs in the fight against crime of all kinds.
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