Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe warns of the difficulties his officers face with the influx of foreigners into Britain
Britain’s police forces are “struggling to cope” because of the pace of immigration, the country’s most senior officer warned last night.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, told an international terrorism conference that his officers face challenges not only because of the speed of growth but because those coming to Britain had different languages and views of authority.
He also used the conference in New York to warn that the internet is becoming a “dark and ungoverned” space in which too little is done to guard against paedophiles, murderers and terrorists, and called on technology firms to do more to provide online protection.
“People arrive with different languages, different perceptions of the police so that in itself can be part of the challenge,” he.
Sir Bernard said that 25 percent of the population growth in the UK had arrived in London in the last 10 years.
“We have all seen growth but not at the pace we have seen more recently, so it’s a simple logistical point that the more people that arrive, the more quickly they arrive, all our bureaucracies struggle to cope and the police are no different,” he said.
Sir Bernard emphasised the importance of the community beat as much as high-level counter terrorism in the effort to combat the radicalisation of some of Britain's youth who become driven to plot attacks or head overseas to join the jihad of ISIS.
"As much as we are talking about very specialised areas of counter-terrorism, we are careful not to forget we have got officers on the street talking to people," he said.
But he warned: "That can be a challenge for new communities."
Sir Bernard's controversial remarks came after an annual conference of law enforcement chiefs held in New York, this year's attended by police chiefs from Washington DC and Los Angeles as well as the FBI and New York police commissioner Bill Bratton.
Mr Bratton said the chiefs had discussed the explosion in the use of social media networks in the last three to four years and their growing role as a tool for terrorists and would-be terrorists.
"It's a whole new area and four years ago it barely existed, " said Mr Bratton.
Sir Bernard said he was concerned that "access is getting reduced" for police forces and other security personnel to be able to reach data that could fuel terrorist attacks or the spread of radicalism.
Internet companies such as Apple and Google are fast increasing the amount of encryption of individuals' data away from the eyes of security forces in the wake of the outcry following the revelations from American whistleblower Edward Snowden that the US security services were leading a programme to allow government monitoring of ordinary citizens' phone records without judicial permission or the public's knowledge.
"We need to work make sure that the internet doesn't go dark," said Sir Bernard on Thursday.
"As the security services we need to maintain access to digital data and that's a joint concern (with the US), that access is getting reduced . It's not to intrude into privacy but to maintain the safety of the public," he said.
Along with the growth in the use of social networks as a medium for terrorism, Sir Bernard continued his controversial theme that the increase in immigration and the arrival of economic migrants can present difficulties to the Metropolitan Police and other agencies in the UK and beyond.
"Our societies are changing apace. Here in New York society is changing - with immigration many people are coming to live here and you will find the same in London," he said.
"That brings us great benefits, these two great cities are great places to invest, have great economies, great business. But they also bring other challenges and I think the fact that we are able to share experiences and obviously get better plans for the future is a great opportunity," he continued.
"What happens in New York and London is we are seeing growth and with growth there is migration as an element of that but what it means is for the police to have community-based policing, it sometimes can be more difficult to integrate with new populations," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment