MATTERS OF ORGANISATION.
The great deterrent against crime is not vindictive punishment; the more
certain you make detection, the less severe your punishment may be. The
brilliant sleuth-hound work of which we read so often is a less
important factor in police work than organisation. Organisation it is
which holds the peace of London. It is organisation that plucks the
murderer from his fancied security at the ends of the earth, that
prevents the drunkard from making himself a nuisance to the public, that
prevents the defective motor-bus from becoming a danger or an annoyance
to the community.
Inside the building of red brick and grey stone that faces the river,
and a stone's throw from the Houses of Parliament, there are men who sit
planning, planning, planning. The problems of the peace of London change
from day to day, from hour to hour, almost from minute to minute. Every
emergency must be met, instantly, as it arises--often by diplomacy,
sometimes by force. A hundred men must be thrown here, a thousand there,
and trained detectives picked for special work. With swift, smooth
precision, the well-oiled machinery works, and we, who only see the
results, never guess at the disaster that might have befallen if a
sudden strain had thrown things out of gear.
In the tangle of departments and sub-departments, bewildering to the
casual observer, there is an elastic order which welds the whole
together. Not a man but knows his work. The top-notch of efficiency is
good enough for Scotland Yard. Its men are engaged in business pure and
simple, not in making shrewd detective deductions. The lime-light which
occasionally bursts upon them distorts their ways and their duties.
Really, they have little love for the dramatic. Newspaper notoriety is
not sought, and men cannot "work the Press," as in times gone by, to
attain a fictitious reputation.
It is through well-chosen lieutenants that Sir Edward Henry works. There
are four Assistant-Commissioners upon each of whom special work
devolves. Sir Frederick Wodehouse, for instance, is the "Administrative
Assistant-Commissioner." He deals with all matters relating to
discipline, promotion, and routine so far as the uniformed force is
concerned.
The Criminal Investigation Department is under Mr. Basil Thompson, a
comparatively young man who came from the Prison Commission to succeed
Sir Melville Macnaghten, and who has successfully experimented with some
new ideas to make the path of the criminal more difficult. Mr. Frank
Elliott, who was formerly at the Home Office, holds sway over the Public
Carriage Office; and the Hon. F. T. Bigham, a barrister--and a son of
Lord Mersey, who gained his experience as a Chief Constable of the
Criminal Investigation Department--deals with and investigates the
innumerable complaints and enquiries that would occur even in a police
force manned by archangels. Mr. Bigham is also the Central Authority
under the terms of the international agreement for the suppression of
the white slave traffic.
There are six Chief Constables, mostly ex-military officers. One of
these assists in the administration of the Criminal Investigation
Department, the remainder control districts of four or five adjoining
divisions. To adopt a military simile, they may be compared to
major-generals in command of brigades, with each division representing a
battalion, and the superintendents, colonels.
Only once in the whole history of the Metropolitan Police has a man
risen from the ranks to the post of Chief Constable, though many, like
Mr. Gentle at Brighton, and Mr. Williams at Cardiff, have become the
heads of important provincial forces. The post of superintendent in
London is at least equivalent in its responsibilities to the average
chief-constableship of the provinces. There are metropolitan section
sergeants who have as many men under their control as some chief
constables of small boroughs.
The unit of the Metropolitan Police is a division which averages about a
thousand men. Each is under a superintendent, with a chief-inspector as
second in command. Thereafter the ranks run:
UNIFORM BRANCH. DETECTIVE BRANCH.
{ Divisional Detective-Inspectors.
Sub-divisional Inspectors { Central Detective-Inspectors.
Inspectors Detective-Inspectors
Station-Sergeants First Class Detective Sergeants.
Section-Sergeants Second Class Detective-Sergeants
Constables (reserve) Third Class Detective-Sergeants
Constables (according to Detective-Patrols
seniority)
These are distributed among close on two hundred police stations in the
metropolis, and in twenty-two divisions. Some are detailed for the
special work with which London as London has nothing to do. Thus there
are: the King's Household Police; divisions guarding the dockyards and
military stations at Woolwich, Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, and
Pembroke; detachments on special duty at the Admiralty and War Office
and the Houses of Parliament and Government Departments; and men
specially employed, as at the Royal Academy, the Army and Navy Stores,
and so on. In all, there are 1,932 men so engaged.[1] Their services are
charged for by the Receiver, and the cost does not fall upon the
ratepayers.
Scotland Yard is run on the lines of a big business. To the intimate
observer it is strangely similar in many of its aspects to a great
newspaper office, with its diverse and highly specialised duties all
tending to one common end. The headquarters staff is a big one. There
are superintendents in charge of the departments, men whom no emergency
can ruffle--calm, methodical and alert, ready to act in the time one can
make a telephone call.
There are McCarthy, of the Central Criminal Investigation Department;
Quinn, of the Special Branch which concerns itself with political
offences and the care of Royalty; Bassom, of the Public Carriage
Department; Gooding, of the Peel House Training School; West and White,
of the Executive and Statistical Departments.
Nothing but fine, careful organisation could weld together these
multitudinous departments with their myriad duties. It is an
organisation more difficult to handle than that of any army in the
field. The public takes it all for granted until something goes wrong,
some weak link in the chain fails. Then there is trouble.
The Metropolitan Police is the only force in England which is
independent of local control. The Commissioner--often wrongly described
as the Chief Commissioner--is appointed by the Crown on the
recommendation of the Home Secretary, and has wide, almost autocratic
powers. It is an Imperial force which has duties apart from the care of
London. It has divisions at the great dockyards; it is the adviser and
helper of multifarious smaller zones in case of difficulty. It has
charge of the river from Dartford Creek to Teddington, and its confines
extend far beyond the boundaries of the London County Council.
In one year its printing and stationery bill alone amounts to over
L10,000; its postage, telegrams, and telephone charges to another
L13,000. Its gross cost is nearly three millions a year. That is the
insurance paid for the keeping of the peace. What do we get for it?
We have taught the world that a body of police can be none the less
efficient although their hands are clean; that honesty is not
necessarily a synonym for stupidity; that law and order can be enforced
without brutality. There are no _agents provocateur_ in the London
police, and the grafter has little opportunity to exercise his talent.
In one year 17,910 indictable offences were committed within the
boundaries of the Metropolitan Police district. For these 14,525 people
were proceeded against, and as some of them were probably responsible
for two or more of the offences the margin of those who escaped is very
low. There were 178,495 minor offenders, all of whom were dealt with.
The machinery of Scotland Yard misses little. How many crimes have been
prevented by the knowledge of swift and almost inevitable punishment it
is impossible to say, but they have been many.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This was before the War.