I’ve lived in the same area for all of my (almost) 50 years.
Its a nice area, semi rural becoming increasingly busier due to lots of new builds but that’s now the same in most areas of the U.K. I imagine?
I have just popped into my local, small, Co-op which is in the village next to mine.
I have frequented this shop since a small child and usually pop in at least once a week, it’s often quite and never feels an unsafe place to be, the village in which it is located is also a safe and lovely village/small town.
I was quite shocked today to see notifications everywhere informing customers from now on staff will be wearing body cameras due to an increase in abusive behaviour towards staff.
I feel so disheartened that many people in our society have become so angry and abusive to the point they are taking their anger out on anyone in their path.
It’s a frequent occurrence in DH’s line of work, he is a highway engineer and they have all been wearing body cameras for the last 4 years due to awful physical and verbal abuse such as when they have road closures etc, he has been in the job for 30+ years and says it was never like it is now. He gets sworn at on a daily basis. One man threw a bottle of urine at a colleague just because they would not allow him to go through the road closure, another member of the public smeared his sandwich over the face of DH’s colleague ffs!!
What has gone so wrong in society that staff in every day jobs are having to be protected with visual and audio equipment?