I agree with you, a single elected police commissioner type person who

Comment on Conservative Policies : Conservative Crime and Justice Policy by David.

I agree with you, a single elected police commissioner type person who reports to the council etc… what’s happening locally could be a good thing. But I don’t think that’s what this policy is about, it looks like this policy is to copy what the US police forces do: example

The Guardian article below suggests its “quarterly beat meetings at community level”.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2009/jul/01/police-reform-england-wales

“Their plans to slash bureaucracy and form-filling, while strengthening stop-and-search powers and pushing more police on to the beat, sends out populist, yet vague, signals – as do reforms to “empower local people as well as police officers”. That means, potentially, the biggest structural change in police operations in 35 years, with a pledge to introduce US-style directly elected police commissioners, while requiring all forces to publish crime maps and to hold quarterly beat meetings at community level, where people can hold the police to account.”

That’s got to add a lot of bureaucracy to the police and be quite expensive at community level.

Something needs to change, the police are not respected or completely trusted by the public.

From the above Guardian article:
“Why, for instance, are many town and city centres virtual no-go areas for anyone over the age of about 25 at weekends, courtesy of high-tolerance policing of alcohol-fuelled mayhem? Compare this to the situation when a relatively inoffensive political demonstration is swamped by an intimidating riot squad bent on zero tolerance.”

That’s a damn good point, high tolerance for criminal behaviour, low tolerance at legal political demonstrations!

I see this beat meetings policy as a PR stunt that will be expensive to manage and ineffective.

Have to admit not sure what would work though!

David