A question for police people

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

Often we see people being recommended to ring the police and "log this" with them, especially threats and violence from exes and/or current partners.

What actually happens? Do the police really have a log (and I mean a computer version that can be looked up, not a notebook version) where they take notes on these issues?

Does ringing 101 actually achieve anything, or is it a wasted phonecall in the long run, because nothing gets done until someone is actually hurt?

Just wondering, really - thanks to anyone who can answer this!

You can log info online, but unless it’s pretty significant, little will happen. There’s a renowned wanker driving round in an Audi locally, he’s been logged 6 times for excessive speed, dangerous manoeuvres, but is still driving round.

If you logged eg what you thought was a cannabis factory, that would be checked out.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad It would be logged every time building intelligence. If you are in danger call 999 if the incident has passed, report it online.

@Cherrysoup is there any video evidence submitted?

Creating a log is what happens every time someone calls 999/101 or contacts the police online. Depending on what information they are receiving, the call handler will then decide whether to file the log, create an intelligence record or record it as a crime

Domestic incidents, no matter how big or small cannot be just "logged", they have to come out and see you and confirm you are safe and well. Ultimately the matter may just be closed straight away, but it's never a case of ringing up, telling us about it, us making a note and giving a log number and that's that. Really frustrating when people just want something like this logged and they won't cooperate as soon as we say we need to see you, as it just drags things on with us trying to physically see them to check they're ok, and then avoiding us.

Similar with reporting a crime like an assault for example (some low level crime can be given a crime number straight away over the phone), it won't just be noted down, it will need an appointment (telephone or face to face) and a crime number etc but again can just be closed straight away if no evidence/victim won't cooperate.

Most other things will just be recorded on a system anyway, so the police force I work for, the system automatically creates a record of contact for every 101 or 999 call and gives a reference number. That same record can be turned into a log, but that would only be if an Officer had to do something with it.

I do eye roll a lot of the time when I see "log it with the police" on here because ultimately nothing will happen with a lot of information. No one is going through looking at all of these logs. And people kind of think that it gives them the right to slag the police off for "doing nothing" when they've not asked us to do anything but put info on a system that no one will look at.

Thank you for the responses so far!
So the frequently given advice to "ring 101 and log X" - is that pretty pointless then, as further action is required to make it mean something?

I'm intrigued - when someone calls more than once about the same person, or from the same number, does that info get automatically linked up with the previous call/info, or does that have to happen manually?

No idea. We didn’t submit video. I suppose it could be construed as malicious without video. I’ll definitely use my dash am footage if I see him again.

Yes that's exactly it, for the petty things you see on here anyway. But like I say, telling someone to just log threats from an ex or similar is pointless in the sense that it won't just be logged, the police have a duty of care and have to do certain things with that kind of information.

Our system shows call history, incident history at an address, who is registered at an address, you can link people quickly from previous calls/incidents too. Our old system wasn't as good at that kind of stuff but it was very very old and not fit for purpose, hence the new system which is (meant to be) all singing all dancing.