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PUPSM 29,4 758
characterisation of the police officer as embodiment of national virtue and, at the opposite extreme, the “realism” of the hard-
bitten cynicism of The Sweeney. A more contemporary binary might be between the bucolic idyll of Mídsomer Murder and the
urban blight of The Cops. In terms of documentary portrayals of the police few have had the impact of the BBCS 2003 under-
cover investigation The Secret Policeman, which led to internal debate within the police service (see, for example, Baggott, 2004)
and suggestions that legal action had been contemplated to prevent the programme being broadœst (The Observer, 2003).
Whether based on fact or fiction most attention on dysfunctional or rogue police ofñcers has been focused toward the lower ends
of the rank structure. Although there have been a small number of programmes based upon senior officers, Reiner (2000, p. 160)
noted The Chief and Waterfront Beat as early examples, these have been relatively rare. Media representations aside, however,
concern about the quality and effectiveness of police leaders, as opposed to junior officers, has been enduring. just as concern
about the poor quality of police leadership led Metropolitan Police Commissioner Trenchard to establish Hendon Police College
in the 1930s, his successor, Joseph Simpson, advocated the work of Bramshill Staff College as his preferred solution to the same
problem three decades later in the 1960s (Bunyard, 2003, p. 101). During the “golden age" of the 1950s the Chief Constable of
Worcester police was imprisoned for fraud and the Chief Constable of Bńghton charged with corruption, although subsequently
he was cleared (Wall, 1998, p. 186). In the late 1980s an enquiry by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee
concluded that a lack of central government control and ineffective training explained the poor quality of leadership in the police
ser/ice (Reiner, 2000, p.l93) Less than a decade later the Sheehy Inquiry, established by Conservative Home Secretary' Kenneth
Clarke, recommended fundamental change to the culture of the service by the introduction of performancerelated pay, fixed-temi
employment contracts and the abolition of several middle and senior management ranks. Most of these recommendations fell by
the wayside in the face of an unparalleled protest campaign involving the Police Federation and a number of chief ofñcers.
Nonetheless, that the Sheehy Inquiry was even instigated demonstrated that central govemment sought fundamental change in the
management of the police sen/ice (Morgan and Newburn, 1997, pp. 555; Loader and Mulcahy. 2003, pp. 291-2). Much of the
Conservative govemments' commitment to extending "private sector" discipline into public services has continued apace since
the election of New Labour in 1997. Certainly the extension of “performance indicator” regimes and the use of devices such as
“customer” satisfaction surveys indicated that the “new public managerialism” has become central to the govemment’s criminal
justice policy, no matter how controversial such approaches proved when first they were mooted under the Conservative
administration of the mid-19905 (McLaughlin et al, 2001). During recent years the nature and quality of police leadership has
come under scrutiny from a number of quarters (Long, 2003). While most political and media discussion of the Lawrence Inquiry
focused on the matter of institutional racism the report was also highly critical of many aspects of management and leadership
within the Metropolitan Police, both in terms of the initial investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the subsequent
intemal police enquińes into the handling of the The Lawrence Report reached the conclusion that “the investigation was marred
by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism, and a failure of