Over 1,000 police officers from the Metropolitan Police are currently not working or have limited duties because the force is trying to remove staff who are corrupt or not capable of doing their job properly.
However, it may take a long time for the force to remove officers who have broken rules or didn’t pass background checks.
The Metropolitan Police is being urged to fire officers who are not capable or may be harmful, especially after the Wayne Couzens and David Carrick incidents. It’s concerning because both officers were working together in the same unit.
It has been revealed that one-third of the staff in the squad where Carrick and Couzens worked has been removed to completely reorganize the unit.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said that around 60 officers could lose their jobs every month for the next two years. Around 30 officers could be facing investigations for misconduct, while another 30 officers could be having hearings due to severe incompetence.
Out of the 34,000 officers in the Met, 201 have been suspended and around 860 are limited in their duties.
He said, “It will take one, two, or more years to remove the people who are corrupt. ”
1,600 cases were looked at after Carrick received a life sentence for many sexual crimes. These cases involved police officers who were accused of domestic or sexual violence in the last 10 years, but nothing was done about it.
Out of the cases being looked at, there are around 450 investigations currently happening.
The Met has also provided information about how they deal with disciplinary actions.
“In the last year, 100 officers lost their jobs for serious wrongdoing, which is 66% higher than the usual rate. ”
Currently, there are 201 officers who are not working, which is more than the 69 officers who were not working in September of last year.
275 people are waiting for a serious misconduct hearing, and a big number of them are accused of being violent towards women and girls. This is compared to 136 cases from last year.
The amount of reports from people and police officers claiming misconduct has increased twice as much.
The police force has checked all officers against the records on their computer. They found 11 cases that needed to be looked into more closely, and now five of those cases are being investigated for serious misconduct.
14 people are being looked at more closely to see if they did something really wrong, and there will probably be more people added to the investigation.
The worst case out of all the cases reviewed was about accusations of rape.
On Monday, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said that they have plans to make it simpler for police chiefs to fire bad officers. She announced this in a written statement to the Commons.
This means that if someone is found to have done something really wrong, they will be fired. It also means that if officers don’t pass background checks, they can be fired as well.
If someone is found guilty of certain crimes, like sexual offenses, it will be considered very bad behavior, and the responsibility for overseeing punishment hearings will go back to the top officers instead of independent people who know the law well.
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