Winter/Spring 1992
Sir Stanley Bailey-part of Community Policing's Past and Future
by Tina McLanus

Some of you may remember Sir Stanley Bailey as the soft-spoken and distinguished gentleman with the elegant English accent who offered a host of thought-provoking insights as a panelist at the Community Policing and Drugs conference held almost two years ago at Michigan State University. Many more have had the opportunity to know Sir Stanley as the architect of Community Policing in England. The Northumbria Police Force was established only 18 years ago, and Sir Stanley has been its Chief Constable for the past 16 years. All who know him will want to join us in honoring his retirement from the force, the fifth largest in England.

"Sir Stanley Bailey has always been an inspiration to Community Policing in the United States and in England," says Bob Trojanowicz, director of the National Center for Community Policing at Michigan State University. "As evidence of this - he's been knighted by the Queen."

Throughout his tenure as Chief Constable, Sir Stanley's main goal has been to improve the quality of life of the residents of Northumbria. Early on, he was aware that the police alone could not remedy the societal ills that result in crime and the problems that crime itself presents to the community, including the fear of crime. He pioneered a program of preventive policing which encouraged people to take an active role in protecting their property and sharing the responsibility for crime prevention with the police.

In 1976, the Community Involvement Department was born as a "bridge building exercise" with the community, in the hope of re-establishing old-style policing. The Permanent Beat Officer system returned the officers to beat duties, giving them their own "patch" to be responsible for.

The Community Involvement Department addressed crime, accident prevention, and race relations, and it reflected Sir Stanely's commitment to the youth of Northumbria, as he encouraged officers to become active with youth through established programs and schools.

The Volunteer Cadet Scheme was established so that Northumbria youth could work closely with police officers doing good works for the community. This concept expanded into the Youth Opportunities Programme, which placed 30 young people on the force for work experience and personal development. Again, the program expanded into the Youth Training Scheme, with 150 trainees. By 1986, there were more applicants than places within the department to use them. Of those trainees in the program, eight out of 10 found work either during training or within three months of completing their training.

Based on the results of the youth programs, approximately 300 older, unemployed people have been placed in various positions on the force - assisting the Permanent Beat Officers, aiding in the administration of Neighborhood Watch, and clerical duties.

Sir Stanley says that he feels that the training programs give more than just job training and that they contribute to society by providing a strong workforce for commerce and industry. Not only do the trainees free up police officers for other duties, but working with the police builds trust between the young, the unemployed, and the police.

An evolutionary revolution

"With a united and more solid front, this force and a highly motivated community stand a far better chance of achieving, if not an absence, a control of crime." Sir Stanley Bailey - 1985

The Community Policing movement in Northumbria, with Sir Stanley Bailey at the helm, did not happen overnight. Instead, the concept emerged over time as a series of initiatives coalesced into a working philosophy based on the priorities of the earliest metropolitan police in the United Kingdom: protection of life and property; maintenance of peace; and prevention and detection of crime.

An early initiative that led to Community Policing, called Policing by Objectives, clearly has Sir Stanley's thumbprint on it. It focuses on six core objectives as a means to increase police effectiveness and efficiency, and by addressing specific problems through planning, implementation, and evaluation:

With these core objectives in mind, divisional and subdivisional commanders have the basis to implement individual initiatives in response to local needs, based on an intimate knowledge of their area and its problems.

Sir Stanley's name is synonymous with crime prevention in Northumbria and abroad. In his tenure, Neighborhood Watch groups increased from two to 2,776, with "Watch" groups extended to Farm Watch, Hospital Watch, Campus Watch, Business Watch, Pub Watch, Boat Watch, and School Watch.

Other crime prevention efforts include:

The private sector

Sir Stanley has had the strong support of the business sector for his crime prevention and Community Policing efforts. One of the first constables to recognize the good that sponsorship could bring to the community, Sir Stanley has developed a partnership between business and the police to improve the quality of life in the community. Sponsorship by local business has funded specialized staff, community group needs, accommodations and equipment for multi-agency crime prevention initiatives, sexual offense referral centers, and crime prevention campaigns such as Bobby Bloodhound - Northumbria's version of McGruff the Crime Dog.

The Northumbria Coalition Against Crime is the country's first-ever group of businessmen working jointly to promote crime reduction initiatives and to reduce their own crime and those of the community.

The future

Sir Stanley continues to remain active in his retirement. He is vice-chairman of Crime Concern, a crime prevention initiative, and he is involved in various research projects involving Community Policing.

According to Sir Stanley, pure academically oriented policing research is long-term, and by the time it's completed, it is often out-of-date. On the other hand, applied or pragmatic research, as is often the case in Community Policing research, is often discredited by academics. The University of Newcastle upon Tyne has set up a joint venture with the Northumbria Police to research crime, policing, and the community - a pioneering development in community-based policing. Combining the police/academic experience can be of practical and academic value, and Sir Stanley sees this as a way forward for Community Policing in the future, of which he will always be a part.