We've fallen quite far from the tradition of policing by consent as developed by Sir Robert Peel:
- Whether the police are effective is not measured on the number of arrests, but on the lack of crime.
- An effective authority figure knows trust and accountability are paramount. Hence, "The police are the public and the public are the police."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
Edit: another choice quote from that article, from the Home Office itself in 2012:
"The Home Office defined the legitimacy of policing, in the eyes of the public, as based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so."
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