The police cannot police their own integrity

Another boring liberal broadsheet whinge against the police. That is no doubt how The Independent's support for the idea of outside investigation of allegations against the police will be seen in the average station canteen. However, the arguments need to be tackled.

Another boring liberal broadsheet whinge against the police. That is no doubt how The Independent's support for the idea of outside investigation of allegations against the police will be seen in the average station canteen. However, the arguments need to be tackled.

It is absolutely in the interest of police officers as individuals, the police force as a whole and society generally that the police should be more open and accountable. Much progress has been made in that direction, obviously. The forces' reaction to the Macpherson report on the police handling of the killing of Stephen Lawrence has been generally positive, even if the concept of institutional racism in the report was itself of doubtful value. The eventual attempt to put right the initial errors in the police handling of the recent Telford hangings suggested a notable change in culture at the top.

However, there is still a wider "police culture" that sees itself as separate from and often hostile to large parts of the society that the police are supposed to serve. That is why the long-standing tradition of police forces investigating each other when things go wrong has to change. Most inquiries conducted by a second police force are fair, but enough of them have been flawed to undermine public confidence in the system. When it comes to deaths in custody, or allegations of racism or of corruption, other police officers are bound to arrive on the scene with too many preconceptions to be able reliably to form a dispassionate judgement.

The Home Secretary is to be commended if, as we report today he intends to do, he hands over inquiries into allegations of serious police misconduct to a more powerful Police Complaints Authority. The only question is why it has taken him so long.

Any police force that does not like the idea of being accountable to a non-police investigating body has to ask itself what it is doing that cannot survive outside scrutiny. A modernised police force would have a different attitude. It would be open and innovative; it would reward creative ideas; it would adapt to changes in society and the economy; it would recruit a wider range of people. And it would be comfortable with the idea of outside audit, because it would be confident that it could justify itself to members of the wider public outside its own personnel.