Bureaucracies Protect Themselves — UK Edition

London's Metropolitan Police force, often known as Scotland Yard, is a mess. Cocaine, cash and jewellery stolen by corrupt cops

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, which goes by HMICFRS or sometimes HMIC, has been trying for at least 5 years to get The Met to make some reforms around hiring, evidence storage, Information Technology monitoring and other things to try and get some control on corruption. Some of the problems go back at least as far as a high-profile murder in 1987. The Met Police has failed to learn anything from their failure in that case. By and large, nothing has been done about the recommendations from HMICFRS.

An independent inquiry into how the force handled [that 1987] case found it was institutionally corrupt, saying it had concealed or denied failings to protect its reputation.

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

The current set of problems/recommendations make it seem as though the organization is insane.

Hiring: The Metropolitan Police Department is hiring people with criminal records, and with ties to known criminals, without even bothering to check.

Evidence: Is for the most part not secured, and tends to go missing.

Across the board, the report flagged concerns with security measures in stations and evidence rooms gave corrupt staff "ample opportunity" to interfere with seized property and evidence.

In one of the stations investigated, the security code for a store was written on its door.

This has resulted in the "loss" of cash, drugs, and jewelry.

IT monitoring: The Met is not tracking the use of its information technology systems to be sure that no is accessing data illegally.

This was all brought into sharp focus by the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving member of the Metropolitan police. Cops also did quite a lot - later deemed to be illegal - to squash protests about the death. Hey, they were protests about police, really. But there was more...

The issue was further heightened earlier this year after messages between officers were shared which joked about rape.

In the face of all of that, and more, the cops still are not willing to change.

The panel that looked into Morgan’s murder, set up by the government, reported last year and found the Met to be institutionally corrupt. In part, that was because the force was slow to hand over documents requested, and was accused of trying to cover up to protect its reputation instead of doing the right thing.

The Criminal Justice System. In some cases Criminal. Not interested in Justice, but only interested in protecting "The System," its reputation, and the people inside. (Hat tip, indirectly, to Clayton Cramer.)