Star comment: Dyfed-Powys Police can learn from criticism
How are our local police forces doing? These days the police are under as much scrutiny, or even more, as any public organisation, and all the while have to deliver their service to the public amid a climate of a squeeze on budgets.
All things considered, then, West Mercia Police, which is the force which covers the county of Shropshire, can congratulate itself for doing well.
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Just over the border in Dyfed-Powys, things are not so happy. The inspectorate has told it that it needs to pull its socks up. It has raised concerns about its investigation standards, and says there have been weaknesses in how it supports and safeguards vulnerable people.
On the face of it this is surprising, as with Dyfed-Powys being such a rural patch, compared with West Mercia which includes some large urban areas, you might have thought that the policing job in Wales would be relatively easier. Whether or not it is, the way the police force there has been responding to its challenges has been falling short of expectations in some areas.
On a positive note, the whole point of this overview is to identify areas which can be improved. It can take the eye of outsiders to pinpoint what needs to be done. Dyfed-Powys will not like finding itself in a position in which it is on the receiving end of criticism, but it is constructive criticism which should spur the force to strengthen those areas in which it is weaker than it should be.
More generally, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has authorised a more powerful Taser stun gun to be issued to officers in England and Wales, a matter which has additional relevance in the West Mercia force, as the death of the former Aston Villa footballer Dalian Atkinson after being Tasered in Telford was one of a number of incidents which has raised concerns about the potency and use of these electric stun guns.
The idea that they are magic wonder weapons which will incapacitate those on the receiving end and yet be harmless has been called into serious question by that tragedy. But in a Britain in which it is increasingly common to see armed officers, Tasers make sense as part of an armoury with a wide range of non-lethal alternatives, to be used sparingly, and only when truly demanded by circumstances.
