This little piggy shot a robber

The struggle for equality of the sexes still has some hurdles left to overcome before it is entirely won I'm sure you'll agree. Ellee posts on the battle to see the police force dragged into the new century after seeing this article in the Cambridge Evening News.

Julie Spence, the high profile Chief Constable for Cambridgeshire, argues ""If you want a firearms officer, can they shoot straight, are they tactically aware, will the community be put in danger with this individual? Do they have the right mental mindset to actually be using a gun? So if you answer all that, you then look at fitness as a developmental tool." But instead the test to wield lethal force involves running around and pulling heavy objects - tests that Spence claims favour men without giving any reasonable assessment of a copper's suitability for the job.

Recently The Times reported a study that said "“Sexist language and behaviour was all but endemic within the police service,” it said. “Women, minority ethnic and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender officers continued in large numbers to feel excluded, uncomfortable and discriminated against”... “Sexism was endemic, that is to say everywhere. Not just in every force we surveyed, but in every part of every force.”"

It seems that sexism exists not only in the heads of many police officers, but within the very structures of the police itself. Just 8% of officers ranking chief inspector or above are women even though 1 in 5 police officers are women, which in itself is a disturbing statistic.

Whilst most of the left have abandoned the field when it comes to the battles within the police over issues of bigotry and abuse in favour of an essentially "all coppers are bastards" attitude I'd argue we need to take a more tactically nuanced approach to these questions. An approach that allows us to take progressive ideas into areas where they have hitherto been unwelcome guests.

The analysis of the police as a tool for class repression is essential and useful - but it ignores the fact that it is not only a tool for repression but also carries out socially useful work. Even if it did not it is still made up of predominantly working class people who, just like the rest of us, are a mixture of positive and negative ideas. There's work to do and space to do it in.

Way back in July 2006 I asked "Would you rather a policeman that beats you up because you're black or one that pursues racist attackers vigorously? Would you rather a cop that says all women should get a slap now and then to keep them in their place - or should they take domestic violence and rape seriously?" The important battles going on internally, like Ian Blair's tenure, the idiotic use of police time, taking on the bigotted canteen culture or the industrial disputes in the prison service are ones where we should at least try to intervene in as effectively as we can.

Of course, whilst Spence may have a point about the endemic sexist culture of the police being embedded institutionally it doesn't mean she is on the right side of every argument. It's not that long ago she was arguing that immigrants caused crime - and she gained the support of racists everywhere in doing so, including some police officers.

We can argue to disarm the police or even to abolish them outright but whilst I have every sympathy with the analysis that might lead you to that position it ignores the utter futility of these slogans. Leftwing Criminologist recently had an interesting post on the theory that all police officers are reactionary arguing that if the left supports those progressive struggles inside the police (including those officers on the right side of these fault lines) we can bring them into the orbit of the left.

I'd take it one step further. If we can help push one of the most reactionary sections of our society to the left it shifts the entire national debate in our direction and opens up wider spaces free from most backward ideas that we have to face today.