Policing - new material (66)
01 November 2003
Commentary on the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Committee on the Administration of Justice, November 2003, pp.56. The CAJ has worked on policing issues since its foundation in 1981 and this commentary is the first in a series that it intends to publish on policing institutions in Northern Ireland. The work is divided into two sections. The first is an overview of the Policing Board, with an emphasis on the issues of transparency and accountability. The second part addresses particular case studies which illustrate how the Board's approach to accountability and transparency have affected important policing issues including operational accountability, CS spray, the Omagh bomb investigation, training, sectarian crime and district policing partnerships. CAJ, 45/47 Donegall Street, Belfast BT1 2BR, Tel. 44 (028) 9096 1122.
"Al-Qa'ida is far more sophisticated than any of us expected" Sir John Stevens & Jason Bennetto. Independent 21.7.03. Bennetto interviews the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police on violent crime, Al-Qa'ida and the murder of human-rights solicitor, Pat Finucane, by loyalist paramilitaries in collusion with FRU. On violent crime Stevens complains about unfair press coverage. On Al-Qa'ida he warns that the organisation "is far more sophisticated than any of us expected", although fails to justify any of Scotland Yard's "scare stories" - presumably on grounds of "security". On the Pat Finucane murder he says: "it's taken 14 years and its been extremely harrowing on occasion, but we have got there".
When the face fits, John Dean. Police Review 26.9.03. pp26-27. Discusses the second ACPO Working Party for Facial Identification national conference, held in Manchester in September. The article cites Richard Neave, "an expert with Barclays Security Bureau", who believes that "facial mapping should be regarded as a science" - a modern day phrenology, perhaps? The article expresses "doubts" about the technique of morphing which "makes it possible to take different faces and blend them together to create a single, more realistic face." Professor Vicki Bruce of University of Edinburgh says: "Morphing images are good for leads or if police want to put images out on Crimewatch, but not to take into court."