MARCH 2010 - THE DEAN WRITES
Policing was in the headlines...again...
Policing was making the headlines over the past month. At home in Northern Ireland it was in the follow up to the talks at Hillsborough and the devolution of the administration of justice. In London it was a “bad cop” story when one of the highest-flyers from an ethnic minority was found guilty of extensive abuse of power.
The policing story however which caught my eye on a local news web site was headlined, “New scheme to help police widows”. I followed through discovering that this was a UK-wide scheme to help the partners of deceased officers who have remarried. The initiative is to be run by the Police Dependants’ Trust. Being the persistent, inquisitive sort, I followed through to the Trust’s web site.
Despite having served for six years on the Police Authority here, and at the height of our conflict, I was shocked by what I saw there (http://pdtrust.org/). To the right hand side of the title bar on the front page there was a red sweep arm on a clock face and the gruesome message: a police officer is assaulted every 24 minutes.
Eleven case studies told of incidents with various backgrounds in which police personnel were injured. Road traffic accidents - one of which resulted in an officer being paralysed from the waist down; a woman constable who is now suffering from a degenerative illness following an accident. And others - a policeman who was struck in the chest when arresting a violent prisoner, and who after a medical examination and discharge from hospital went to bed still feeling unwell and died in his sleep. Another officer on a night out with friends refused to give a group of youths a light for the cannabis they wanted to smoke. He was punched and kicked, loosing consciousness.
It was good to see that two of the fourteen trustees of this Police Dependants Trust represent the Police Federation for Northern Ireland. Maybe its our recent history in Northern Ireland where police men and women, and their dependants were murdered and killed to further “a cause”, that even the best of us do forget the risks which police officers take every day on duty in more normal times. I know that risk of a serious accident or even death is something which many police officers consider. But I am also certain that most of them think of the difficulties their spouses and families could face if they were no longer there.
That's why I am glad the Trust and other bodies exist such as the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officer’s Association and the RUC Benevolent Fund. The Fund supports ex members of the RUC-GC, police widows, injured and disabled officers, as well as members of the PSNI who find themselves in financial hardship or difficulty, and it is the door-opener to the excellent facilities for rehabilitation and therapies at dedicated centres in Harrowgate and Aughterarder.
These funds and associations are worthy of our support. Ultimately, regardless of salary and what some may deem as “other career perks”, the police officer in performing her or his duty, is doing so on behalf of you and me. They are the line which stands between civilised living based on common justice, and a barbarity which would exploit any and every concept of sin imaginable. That is why policing is for many officers and other members of the public, rightly regarded as being a Christian vocation.
Christ on the cross stood on the most major line of all between death and life, between evil and salvation. He did so not because he was superhuman. Rather, with faithfulness and integrity, he was not prepared to compromise the standards of love which prevail in the Kingdom of God. That is one of the most major reasons Christians respect and love him.
In like fashion those who stand daily and uphold the line between justice and crime, between civilisation and barbarity, are entitled to our prayerful and political support and also to our charitable and social concern when they are injured making this part of the world a better and safer place for all of us.
