ROAD WARS and similar police programmes: Does anyone else think that the police are often uneccessarily antogonistic?

[ShinyHappySchmooo]

DH watches these.. I'm usually MNing in the same room.. like now.. .. but when I do have a look I often find myself thinking the the police seem to have this almost routine way of treating people.. or certain people..particularly male youths and/or, shall we say, "down at heel" types. They often seem, to bm, to be almost egging each other on as they stop people either on foot, or in cars, and treat them with sarcastic "courtesy" in a way that just seems to antogonise these people, who often get very stroppy and uncooperative, but end up not being charged with anything!

I am not anti police.. far from it.. DH wants to be a Community Support Officer for a start.. but I wonder whether, if they employed some better degree of people skills, or something.. or maybe stop playing up to the camera if that is what they are doing, then the people who are apprehended by them might, at least sometimes, be a little less aggressive!

I could be wrong of course.. they just seem uneccesarily smarmy and sarcastic to me.. as in "we're the police.. we can do anything.."

[ShinyHappySchmooo]

( me.. not bm.. typing watching said tv prog!)

[ShinyHappySchmooo]

This one!! Hey!! I'm a sad boring loser! (Re.. ignored chat threads bumped only by the OP! )

[paolosgirl]

What - you mean the ones who are drunk/violent/speeding/etc etc? Um, no. Why should they extend these cretins any courtesy, really?

[ShinyHappySchmooo]

It's just that at least half the time these "cretins" (not the speeding ones.. those on foot for instance... but yes they are often drunk) end up not being charged with anything.. and these are just those we are shown on tv!

[paolosgirl]

Perhaps they are causing a breach of the peace, or perhaps people are scared to walk in the same vicinity as them in case they lash out, or worse? I'm not sure why the Police should be expected to be polite to them?

[ShinyHappySchmooo]

Have you seen these programmes?

I think the police may cause themselves a unecessarily hard time because these people get aggressive so easily.. maybe they have a grudge against the police already.. maybe because they are drunk/wired/stone etc.. maybe because they don't have the social skills to protest their "innocence" peacefully.. but sometimes they are are actually proven innocent of whatever they were apprehended for in the first police, but the police seem to get them so "hyped up" that they end up being arrested/charged with/for something else!

[paolosgirl]

Yes, I've seen them! I think if I had to spend my life dealing with the people that they come up against daily then I'd be the same way, tbh. I think you'd very quickly become immune to the excuses.

[ShinyHappySchmooo]

Maybe you're right. It just occurs to me everytime I watch.. I think, FGS don't say that to him.. this is going to go pear shaped.. and it does!

But what do I know from the comfort of my living room

[paolosgirl]

We've got a few friends who are Police Officers, so maybe I've just heard too many horror stories!