What hope is there for the rest of us when the Police can't be arsed?

[Mark Davies]

Originally Posted by Buster Lung

Each officer that struggles with poor equipment, lack of support, lack of time, manpower etc.... and does the job properly no matter what, should be commended. However, by doing so they are in fact damaging society in the long run. As long as the people at the top can see on paper that the job is being done, they'll never do anything to change the situation.

You are absolutely right. Our current leadership seem convinced that Neighbourhood Policing is working and is the way forward - because the Inspectors leading Neighbourhood Policing tell them it's so. Well of course they do! They're not going to admit that they are failing, are they? And in the meantime Response Policing is at crisis point, on its knees and ready to crack. And we have got into this position by the grand police tradition of 'keeping the wheels on'.

Whatever is asked of us, however difficult it is, we manage it. We keep the system going because we have to. We are there to protect the weak and vulnerable in our society and if we don't do it, then who will? We have to make it work.

I've said time and time again how shit it can be trying to do a decent job as a police officer - and this is why. Because, if it was any other kind of organisiation doing anything else, we would have given up long ago. Nobody would struggle through such adversity for simple private enterprise - we'd all have quit and moved on long ago. But we can't quit, we can't let it fall apart - for the sake of keeping our society together. So, we have to keep the wheels on. Letting it fall apart is not an option.

[Andy the Coastie]

Originally Posted by clockworkdog

Mr Cockydog.... Outrageous! :-) Agreed re word POLICE being too big - at least in the met they have blue shirts. Essex give them white shirts same as coppers - deliberately IMHO...

Soz ,mate ,,,,don't ya just hate typo's

[onthetrain]

Originally Posted by scubajay

I am not stereotyping a force based on one example. Dorset Police has let someone down. You are bound to get defensive as it's your force, and to be honest, the layabout has let YOU down as well, as you have to defend Dorset police's good reputation now.

And on another note: 1 pc covering 150 sq miles? wow. On one shift last week I was the only response driver covering a patch that extends (in my force's equivalent of BCU) all the way to Peterborough on nights (Harlow on days and out to Slough etc heading west. This massive area was covered by me, my partner and one other. In that shift we attended a one under, 2 calls for kids on the tracks in areas far apart, umpteen fights and assisted the met with a couple of calls as well. We all have it bad etc, as we have all stated ad nauseam on this board, but lazy arses (and god knows the BTP is chock full of them) make us all look bad. One bad apple etc.

Jay,

I seem to have misinterpreted your post and for that I apologise.

For what its worth I don't intend to be the least bit defensive. The original poster highlighted an example of poor service, I accept totally it was poor service and offered to help to do something about it.

I am however fiercely proud of my little force who IMHO do a fantastic job with extremely limited resources. As we are so stretched we cant afford to carry passangers (pardon the pun). It is an unfortunate fact that the service as a whole still carries too many wasters and it is far too hard to get rid of them.

Now to other issues, are you sitting comfortably?

I'm afraid I cant agree with some of what Mark says about senior officers. We can't lay the ills of the service at their door. That is totally unfair. Like PC's Sgts or whatever there are good and poor senior officers in every force.

Can anyone doubt that they want to deliver a good service to the public and those under their command? The reality of the situation in my view is that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. The strength of British policing has always been its independence from Government.

This independence began to be eroded when Lady Thatcher sent us in as a political force to break the miners strike. The independence has been eroded by succsesive governments ever since. Each Government has politicised the service a little more, but the pace has changed radically over the past 10 years. The reality is that Government now control how each area is policed. Half of police authority posts are now political appointments. This is to ensure that Government policy is implemented in each force regardless of how the Chief Constables want to police their areas.

The subject of both training and Safer Neighbourhoods has been raised elsewhere in the thread. Take training, my area of expertise. We as a force favoured a foundation degree model when the old regime of training colleges closed down as it was more cost effective and IMHO gave a better product. What do we get? An imposed 22 unit NVQ qualification that most forces in the country are struggling to deliver because of the amount of time needed to assess and the Bureacracy involved. Incidentally in response to Busters point that training was brought in house for budgetary reasons, your way off the mark. It costs Dorset Police a lot more to train our staff now than it did before. It is however a better product. The fact is the training that was in place was held to be not fit for purpose in just about any respect you could mention.

Safer neighbourhoods have been introduced by Governement, forces have no choice. It is not of a case of it would be nice if you did this....

IMHO most senior officers work very hard to deliver what MUST be delivered under very tight constraints. It is every bit as much of a no win situation for them as much as it is for us. Can anyone really think that senior officers sit around all day thinking up ways to make life difficult for the troops?


Ahhhhhh, thats better

[Daz217]

[. Can anyone really think that senior officers sit around all day thinking up ways to make life difficult for the troops?


Yes

[onthetrain]

Originally Posted by Daz217

[. Can anyone really think that senior officers sit around all day thinking up ways to make life difficult for the troops?


Yes

Plonker LOL

[Daz217]

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by Mark Davies

... Because, if it was any other kind of organisiation doing anything else, we would have given up long ago. Nobody would struggle through such adversity for simple private enterprise - we'd all have quit and moved on long ago...

Those working in private enterprise have the same problems too. Lots of people working in call centres, with little alternative but another call centre. On terrible pay and pensions too. There just are not that many places to move on to.

[Mick F]

Originally Posted by Adrian Kelland

Those working in private enterprise have the same problems too.

Exactly. I work for a large IT company and I am surrounded by people who work long hours without overtime, often without recognition, but who do it for pride in their work.

The grass can often be greener......

[clockworkdog]

Originally Posted by Mark Davies

You are absolutely right. Our current leadership seem convinced that Neighbourhood Policing is working and is the way forward - because the Inspectors leading Neighbourhood Policing tell them it's so.

Mark - two points to comment on there.

1 - Neighbourhood policing is working...
2 - it's the way forward....


On the first point - it depends where you are in the country. On the second - it absolutely is the way forward and I am totally convinced of that.

The main issue is whether we really want to pay for it. Response policing is about applying sticky plasters. Rush from one call to another etc. You have to have it and it can never be taken away. It will always be a case of just keeping a lid on things unless you actually try and tackle issues by adopting a problem-solving approach. That's where neighbourhood policing comes in. Working with all of our partners, which includes our communitity. Following priorities set by local ward-based Neighbourhood Panels and Youth Panels following consultation with the ward's community at public meetings, etc.

The main problem is that to do Neighbourhood policing properly is bloody expensive. It costs a fortune, takes time and is not a quick-fix. Most forces don't have the money, play at it, because (and you are right about the politics) Police Authorities insist on it. All this does is strip response teams of vital assets and the overall service suffers.

The MPS is fortunate, they have been given an extra couple of hundred million to fund Safer Neighbourhoods and there has been no reduction in response officers (that doesn't take into account the additional burden of other new statutory responsibilities). Safer Neighbourhoods really is making a difference in London. Despite this, and the phenominal size of the met and our 35,000 police officers, both last night and today, I listened to one Borough's control room staff informing the local Duty Inspector of one unanswered emergency call after another - it was shameful!

The fact is that society is chaning but the Government doesn't really want to confirm to the public what the media keeping saying. To deal with the miriad of problems that have now built up in our society will cost a fortune. What will we do????

Most of us, as `coppers', whether we are Constables or Chief Superintendents, etc. (even `senior' officers!!!), will honestly keep trying to do our best and keep pumping the water out.

Andy

[Mark Davies]

Originally Posted by onthetrain

I'm afraid I cant agree with some of what Mark says about senior officers. . . . Can anyone doubt that they want to deliver a good service to the public and those under their command? The reality of the situation in my view is that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. The strength of British policing has always been its independence from Government.

This independence began to be eroded when Lady Thatcher sent us in as a political force to break the miners strike. The independence has been eroded by succsesive governments ever since. Each Government has politicised the service a little more, but the pace has changed radically over the past 10 years. The reality is that Government now control how each area is policed. Half of police authority posts are now political appointments. This is to ensure that Government policy is implemented in each force regardless of how the Chief Constables want to police their areas.

Of course, everything you say about the politicisation of the police is true. My response to that can be summed up in one word:

COLLABORATION.

We all know that what the Government is doing to policing is wrong. We all know that chasing simplistic targets does not equate to providing a quality service. But we're still doing it, aren't we? And the reason we are doing it is down to weak and inept supervisors.

Nobody is standing up and saying, "No - we're not going to do that!" But why should they? Actually sorting out the problems within our communities is hard work. It's not easy. But sanction detections policy is the perfect cop-out! You don't need to solve anything. All you have to do to look competent enough for that next promotion board is to meet (or better still exceed) your detections target. And all you need to do to achieve that is bully your staff into doing the dirty work for you! Easy! Any incompetent idiot can do that and seal their next promotion as a result. And they justify it by saying, "Well, I'm just doing my job delivering what the Home Office asked for", and still manage to sleep at night.

That's why we are doing it. The Government set us targets so they can roll out the figures to boost their failing re-election prospects. And we collaborate with their plan because it suits our promotion prospects equally well.

Do we care that behind all those lovely statistics all we are doing is persecuting the innocent and failing to deal with the criminals? Well, some of us do - but it seems that blind eye gets turned the minute you get one foot on the promotion ladder.

Maybe things are different in your force, but I'm sorry - from where I'm sitting all ethics and morality seems lost to personal ambition from the rank of inspector upwards.