We used to recover every stolen vehicle , no matter what . And what happened ? We would have two cars out of about six , on a good resourcing day , sitting waiting for recovery which can take anything up to three hours to arrive. Whilst listening to the the control room trying to find a unit to go to emergency calls , like violent domestic incidents , burglaries in progress , people being battered , and there wouldn’t be any one left to go. Unlike social services , the NHS, the fire brigade or other partner agencies , we can’t just hand over our calls to someone else and skip home . We have NO back up agency when we run out .
And even then , the amount of complaints we got because we’d recovered people’s cars and it cost , was phenomenal. That’s why we are required to let the owner recover it first .
There’s a finite amount of resources . A LOT less than you think . So make up your mind what you want police to do, because they cannot do it all, and as I recall , people trump property , every single time .
We have fewer and fewer resources now. When I joined nearly thirty years ago , my patch was 2 miles long and 2 wide , and we would parade 40 officers . Most on foot .
Thirty years on, my patch now covers an entire London borough , and we parade somewhere between 16 and 20 officers . For 800, 000 people or so. The number of calls made to our patch is about 250, in an eight hour period . And that’s not including anything reported online , or that is dealt with by taking a crime report over the phone.
This is what happens when you ask an organisation to save 800 million pounds . They’ve sold off the police stations , most of the training estate went for housing , the safer neighbourhood offices . They’ve stopped doing operational feeding for officers , so if you’re now policing say a football match , a march or a protest , you either have to take your own sandwiches ( not exactly practical when your carrier is miles away and there are no pockets in public order babygros ) or find food when you can, often ten to 12 hours into a shift . And then no doubt someone will take your picture and report it on Twitter. When they’ve sold off all they can , the only thing they can cut down on, is people . So the experienced ones leave and aren’t getting replaced . In the next 5 years , there is going to be a MASSIVE exodus , because 30 years ago, there was a massive recruitment drive . People aren’t staying on past their 30. Why would you ? I’ve got about 18 months left , and I can’t wait . Even though I love policing , the actual nuts and bolts of it , I’m done .