ABSTRACT
The police monitoring committee moved centre stage in the struggle for police accountability in Manchester in the countdown to abolition and immediately, after the new police authority took over. It also played the crucial role of providing detailed briefing papers for the City Council’s representatives on the new police authority and, it is alleged, leaked sensitive authority documents to the media. Manchester City Council, like other radical local authorities around the country, was, in effect, having to realize that as a property owner and landlord, it was a victim of crime on a massive scale. Issues around women, crime and policing also acted as a powerful incentive for the deepening of the council’s community safety work. At the same time as the police monitoring committee was established, so were several other initiatives, including the equal opportunities committee. Community safety and women’s safety also had a pivotal role to play during the 1987 local elections.
