The Canberra Times
The killing of two female police officers in Greater Manchester has prompted the usual calls, first for the restoration of the death penalty for police murder and, second, for the arming of the police.
The first can be dismissed at once. The second is more complicated. For while it would be wrong to take such a decision hastily in the wake of the latest killings, there are dangers, too, in stubbornly wanting to preserve the British exception for its own sake. Having an armed police force might deter some criminals, but it does not prevent officers being targeted and killed. Indeed, there is some reason to believe the opposite: that arming the police may encourage criminals not just to carry weapons, but to use them. Police mistakes also become more lethal.
Yet policing has to evolve to match changing times, and the terrorist threat has made armed officers a more frequent sight.
There is a real question, too, posed most starkly by last year’s riots, whether the police, as an institution, has not suffered a loss in authority. Arming the police might be seen as an extreme way of redressing the balance, but it could be the most effective. This is an extract of an editorial published in London’s The Independent yesterday.
Copyright 2012 The Federal Capital Press of Australia PTY Limited