Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [149]
Ani’s boss comes to help her out, as she is increasingly nonplussed as to why we are so amazed by what she is showing us of life in a Danish prison. The senior official in the Bridewell is the District Chief of Police, Jørgen Ilum, a man who looks like a highly paid and very established lawyer and not in the slightest like a provincial militia chief. Jørgen, we are pleased to find, is not fazed by anything. He is a professional and ponders long and deeply, listening attentively to our uniquely Russian questions.
“Do investigators in Denmark torture the accused to extract testimony?”
This admittedly causes some consternation, followed by a lengthy discussion we can’t understand between Mr Ilum and the Deputy Chief of Police, Sten Bolund. Sten is wearing a modish, grey, regally elegant suit with a sparkle in the cloth, set off with a bright super-modern tie. They seem genuinely unable to understand how such a question can arise if the investigators’ salaries are paid by taxpayers. They finally reply, “No.”
“When was a policeman last found guilty of brutality in Denmark?”
Again consternation, and another long discussion in Danish, this time bringing in Nils Hedegger, Head of the Esbjerg Police Association, their trade union. Trade union representatives are required to be present in every police station. The three of them reply that in 1993 there was a complaint against two policemen in the neighbouring district. A man in a bar (the plaintiff) had been behaving aggressively, others in the bar asked for him to be removed and the owner called the police. The aggressive man considered that he had been removed too effectively. The district court found against the policemen but the appeal court acquitted them on the grounds that the force used was justified in order to protect the interests of the other patrons of the bar.
“But we really can’t remember any claims of brutal behaviour during an investigation,” all three confirmed. As both Jørgen and Sten are pushing 50 and Nils is about 40, their collective professional memory must go back at least a couple of decades.
“What are the criteria for assessing your work?”
The policemen smile with relief and start telling us about things which are as clear to them as the sea and the sun. Every three years there is a public opinion poll in Denmark and citizens are invited to say whether they feel safe in their homes, secure in the streets, and whether they find the police courteous, neatly dressed and well trained.
The survey is their performance assessment. If the results are bad the Chief of Police will be replaced and some officers sent for additional training, while others might be fired. There are no targets for solving a set percentage of crimes, statistics which in Russia have to be inflated by fair means or foul and result in such painfully familiar dialogue as, “Confess, you bastard, that you murdered …, stole …, fenced …, or else …”
In another, less direct survey the population are asked which of the public sector employees, paid from their taxes, they rate most highly: doctors, teachers, municipal bus drivers or policemen?
“In recent years,” Mr Ilum informs us proudly, “policemen have come first.”
The police are subject to sanctions if they work too slowly. At the present time, for example, Danish society is making a concerted effort to eradicate violence on the principle that, while stealing is of course bad, physical violence is wholly unacceptable. The Danish Parliament has decided that the police must give priority to investigating violent crime, and such