Applied Criminology: Ethics and Accountability in UK Policing

This essay examines the ethical and accountability challenges within policing in the United Kingdom, particularly in England and Wales, using the case of Sean Riggs, a British musician of color who died in police custody, as a central case study. The paper explores how budgetary cuts, social inequalities, and the influx of migrants have impacted policing practices, leading to low morale, increased crime rates, and a decline in ethical behavior among officers. The essay highlights the lack of transparency and accountability, exemplified by the alleged abuse of power and the subsequent cover-up in the Sean Riggs case, suggesting potential racial bias. It argues that immediate reforms are necessary to address these issues, improve police conduct, and ensure the safety and protection of all citizens. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for improved ethical standards and a more accountable system within the UK police force to prevent future tragedies and maintain public trust.

Running head: APPLIED CRIMINOLOGY
Applied Criminology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Policing in the United Kingdom, is undergoing rapid and tumultuous changes, as a
result of which it is faced with a considerable number of challenges, especially when it comes
to the enforcement of law in sensitive situations. Sharp budgetary cuts instigated by the
global economic downturn, widening inequalities in Great Britain, the continued and steady
flow of migrants into the country and the adverse impact of social media have all had a role
to play in the manner in which policing services are rendered in the United Kingdom at large
and in England and Wales in particular. Motivation levels are low among police officers in
England and Wales, largely because of remuneration levels not being enough to sustain
people with small or large families and with duty hours being quite rigorous and heavy for
the most part. Exhaustion levels tend to be quite high among police officers in England and
Wales especially for those who perform night duty, and who are entrusted with community
policing duties (Barton and Mathews 2015). Crime is on the rise in England and Wales rather
than being on the downside, as a result of which the work of police officers here have
increased considerably. Police officers need to be on vigil at all times for the rendition of
their services, and are seldom able to take a break from such rigorous leading to a poor work
life balance in turn. Ethical behavior is seen to have reduced by quite a large degree among
police officers in England and Wales as a consequence of the policing services in England
and Wales are faced with (Bridger et al. 2017). This paper discusses in detail the lack of
ethics and accountability on the part of police officers in the United Kingdom by outlining
the key aspects of policing in England and Wales, with special reference to the case of Sean
Riggs, a British musician of color who died in police custody. The paper concludes that
policing services in England and Wales need to undergo immediate reforms if law and order
is to be implemented here along ethical lines.
The primary purpose of policing in the United Kingdom is to ensure safety and
security of people living in the neighborhoods and residential areas of cities and towns. If the

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common people of England and Wales are to be sufficiently protected from criminal
activities and criminal violence in particular, then it is the law enforcement authorities who
need to be vigilant at all times in order to make sure that such protection is provided as and
when the need arises (Bridger et al. 2017). However, it has been noticed of late that the police
services in England and Wales have not been up to the mark, and that policemen have been
abusing their authority by hurting civilians rather than protecting them in the manner desired.
This is more than evident from the case of Sean Riggs, a British musician who died in police
custody and who died probably because of the fact that he had been man handled and not
because he unfortunately suffered from a cardiac arrest at the time that he was in custody.
Sean’s cardiac arrest was more than likely caused by the fact that he had been held down
forcefully by five policemen out of which five were constables and one was a sergeant. It is
important to note in this respect that Sean Riggs was a musician of color. He was not a white
man and he also suffered from schizophrenia. Reports suggest that he was highly paranoid at
the time of his arrest and that because of the fact that he was behaving like a mad man after a
bout of drunkenness, that the police had to arrest him immediately and that they had to use
absolute force to keep him down (BBC News 2019). The end result was that Sean was
heavily constrained by these policemen to the extent that he was hardly able to breathe that
the time that they took him in after which he was remanded to long hours of custody in a
holding up area, a place where he was undoubtedly denied all the basics that he needed in
order to gain comfort and recover from the forceful process of having been held down. In
other words, Sean Riggs was denied food and water in custody and he was not given any
medical attention either. As a result, he suffered from the severe consequences of having been
beaten and then held down by the five policemen before being thrown into the holding up
area (BBC News 2019).

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The fact that Sean Riggs suffered from a cardiac arrest is something that was triggered
by him being forcefully held down by the policemen and not because he was suffering from
any adverse medical condition. It was the violent behavior on the part of the policemen that
led him to suffer in police custody and consequently die. Had he not been handled so
forcefully and had the law and order authorities taken better care of Sean Riggs while he was
in police custody, then the situation would not have been as unfortunate as it turned out to be.
Sean Riggs was a young British musician of promise (BBC News 2019). He was a talented
artists and had a huge fan following in the United Kingdom. He did suffer from mental
conditions like schizophrenia owing to which fact his behavior was unstable from time to
time. However, he was a harmless man by and large and did not want to hurt any person who
came his way. It is reported that Sean Riggs was a jovial and happy musician and that his
fans really went into mourning upon the news of his death. Sean Riggs did not deserve to die
an unfortunate death in police custody. The fact that he did so is something that is quite
alarming, highlighting the fact that the law enforcement services in England and Wales,
requires immediate attention and reform if civilian deaths are to be avoided at the hands of
law enforcement authorities (Forrester et al. 2016).
What is particularly striking about the death of Sean Riggs is police custody is the fact
that Sean Riggs was a brown man who died at the hands of white policeman. Thus, the death
of Sean Riggs was certainly in a way, a case of racist violence. It has been mentioned earlier,
that the continuous flow of migrants into England Wales and the global economic downturn
has created huge challenges for law enforcement authorities over here (Heide and Chan
2018). As migrants continue to come into the United Kingdom, it generates a lot of economic
pressure on the government which has to provide for all of these people over and above the
people already residing in the UK. Due to the heavy flow of migrants into England and Wales
and the sharp rise in inequalities in the UK at the same time, the police forces in England and

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Wales have faced a huge reduction in their basic pay and are not provided with incentives and
rewards, monetarily and otherwise, as frequently as was the case before. Policing in England
and Wales is something that is now done on a very low budget (Holdaway 2017). It is on a
shoestring budget that law enforcement services are rendered, and this in turn has had quite a
negative impact on the attitude of policemen towards their basic duties. It is clear from the
death of Sean Riggs that the policemen were bearing a lot of hatred to this young musician of
color who was doing well for himself in England while the police officers on the other hand
were white, but who lacked the financial rewards and incentives that they deserved for
performing such rigorous duties due to budgetary cuts in policing services. Due to such
financial constraints many of the people who were serving on the police force in England and
Wales had been laid off, and those who were lucky enough to hold onto their jobs were
receiving a pay that was really not up to the mark (Holt et al. 2019). Most policemen in
England and Wales are not able to make ends meet because of the low remuneration that they
receive for their duties, and things are particularly hard for policemen who have families, or
who have people depending on them financially. It is no surprise therefore, that such
undesirable conditions have caused policemen to care less and less about the safety and
security of civilians. The law enforcement authorities in England and Wales do not have the
incentive that they need in order to protect the people that they have a duty to protect. They
are not sufficiently paid for the work that they do and their work hours are long and rigorous.
To make matters worse, many people from migrant communities are better placed financially
than these policemen, causing a lot of hate and resentment to occur among those serving in
the forces, especially white people who are losing out financially and otherwise because of
the continued flow of colored people into the country (Jackson et al. 2019).
Sean Riggs was manhandled by five policemen and died in police custody. If this was
not bad enough as far as the reputation of law enforcement authorities in the United Kingdom

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is concerned, what made matters worse for the policing services in the England and Wales
following the death of Sean Riggs, is the fact that the five police officers chose to lie about
this death. They were not willing to own up to the fact that they had killed off Sean Riggs by
virtue of their violent behavior. They did not want to take any responsibility whatsoever for
his death, and they lied about not knowing anything about his death while he was in custody
(BBC News 2019). The death of Sean Riggs is something that was reported to higher
authorities in England and Wales at a much later stage, at a time when it was a bit too late to
take any action against the five policemen involved in this unfortunate incident. This is
extremely alarming to note. The law and order authorities were not only willing to engage in
abusive and forceful behavior against a civilian in order to carry out their duty, but were also
willing to lie about this behavior. This lack of ethics in the behavior of policemen rings a
warning bell for law enforcement services in England and Wales. It is the job of a policeman
to protect people, and not to beat up people to death and lie about this later on. It is clear that
members of the police forces in England and Wales lack the honesty and the integrity that is
needed in order to do their jobs in as honest and as persevering a manner as possible (Kane et
al. 2017). They are now no less than criminals themselves because of the fact that they are
now aping the behavior of criminals. It is a criminal who beats up a person to his death and
who runs away from the scene or lies about the incident. A member of the law enforcement
authorities in England and Wales is not expected to do the same (Lister and Rowe 2015).
However, this is exactly what had transpired when Sean Riggs was arrested. He was handled
with a great amount of force by the five policemen who had arrested him in the first place, all
of whom were white and who clearly held a hateful view of colored people in the country.
Sean Riggs was neglected by the police while he was kept hauled up in police custody. He
died from his injuries and a cardiac arrest, which may not have occurred had he not been
beaten up and held down so brutally by the five police officers who were involved in his

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arrest. Sean Riggs was therefore a victim of hateful racist behavior, the type of behavior that
is expected from a criminal but which was instead carried out by five members of the law
enforcement authorities in England and Wales. He died at the hands of people who were
expected to protect him from harm rather than inflict it.
Anger towards migrants, economic inequality and long hours of duty clearly seem to
be having a very adverse effect on the performance of law and order duties in England and
Wales, as is evident from the case of Sean Riggs, the young British musician who died in
police custody and who was a man of color as well. It is more than evident therefore that
reforms need to be initiated within the law and order system of England and Wales, if police
officers are to become humane enough to carry out their noble duties rather than taking
recourse to the type of base behavior that is akin to criminal behavior (McKinnon et al.
2016). Counselling sessions need to be held at the law and order enforcement units in the
different parts of England and Wales. The people who serve on the police force of the
country need to understand or need to at least be made to understand that it is their duty to
protect people from criminal behavior and not take recourse to criminal behavior themselves
(Payne-James 2017). They must safeguard the interests of the public and not hurt members of
the public who are harmless and who have not done any wrong. While police officers do have
the right to arrest people and take them into custody, they are not supposed to kill off such
people who are in custody. It is a fact well known that even criminals in the United Kingdom
have rights. The death of a person in police custody results in the violation of the
fundamental rights of such a person under the constitution of England and Wales and it is of
course a violation of such a person’s human rights too. No human being on the face of this
earth deserves to die in police custody, let alone in a place as advanced and civilized as
England and Wales. The counselling sessions with police officers in England and Wales
therefore need to focus on the noble aspects of policing services. The officers must be made

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to understand that their profession is not really a profession but a calling, and that they are
meant to protect people and not hurt them (Phillips et al. 2016). Those who are particularly
violent and angry among the members of the police forces in England and Wales should be
sent to specialists to learn how to keep their angry behavior in check rather than unleash their
anger on unfortunate victims like Sean Riggs. The matter of racist behavior among police
officers in England and Wales should be something that ought to be made punishable by
punitive action. Police officers are expected to be above something as base as racism. White
police officers and brown police officers should be made to work together in England and
Wales (Phillips et al. 2017). White officers must understand that brown or colored people are
their brothers and sisters and have the same rights that they do, including the right to the same
pay and incentive. If brown and white police officers are granted the same pay in then police
services, and if the number of brown people serving on the police force equals the number of
white people in the services, then a lot of the animosity that is held by policy officers towards
people of color will be reduced. There can be fewer instances of deaths in police custody.
Members of the law and order services in England and Wales will not be given any just
reason to hurt people of color and instead will feel geared up to provide them with protection
and assistance instead (Stoneman 2018).
Every effort needs to be made on the part of the government of England Wales to
increase the remuneration of police officers, be the white men or men of color. Police officers
also have families to look after and they also need to sustain themselves adequately if they
are to perform to the best of their ability. It is not right to expect a police man to selfless
render protection services anywhere in England and Wales if this is a person who is not able
to make ends meet because of the poor pay that he receives at the end of every month
(Stoneman 2018). If people take to criminal behavior because of poverty, then one should
not expect police men to not do so either. If the police of the country are not paid well enough

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they will not have the desire or the incentive that is required in order for them to perform
their duties in the manner that is expected (Jackson et al. 2019). If they receive a pay that
helps them to keep themselves and their families comfortable every month, only then can
they go ahead and offer protection services to the civilians of England and Wales, and not
otherwise. There is no dignity in poverty and if police officers are subjected to poor pay and
conditions akin to poverty, then most certainly they will take recourse to base and carnal
behavior and will behave in the same way that criminals do. They will want to hurt whoever
comes their way, as is clear from the terrible death of British musician Sean Riggs in police
custody (Lister and Rowe 2015).
Thus, the need of the hour is a revision in the pay of police men in England and
Wales. The law enforcement authorities in the country need to be paid adequately and at par
when it comes to race and color, if equality is to be restored in the ranks and if the policemen
are to obtain the financial security that is needed to do their jobs well. Work hours also need
to be reduced or be equally divided by hiring a greater number of people into the police
forces. If the police in England and Wales are paid well enough, there is no discrepancy in
the pay between black and white policemen or policemen of color and if the work hours of
the police forces are reasonable and adequately scheduled, much of the crisis that is seen to
exist in the rendition of police services today, will be resolved.

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