To think that Privatising the Police is a bad idea?

[NarkedPuffin]

Here.

The Tories have finally gone insane.

Quote from Guardian:

The breathtaking list of policing activities up for grabs includes investigating crimes, detaining suspects, developing cases, responding to and investigating incidents, supporting victims and witnesses, managing high-risk individuals, patrolling neighbourhoods, managing intelligence

The point is that when someone calls the police about 'harrassment' or 'threats via facebook', it might be nothing, but it also might be a serious situation. A noise complaint from a neighbour might be someone who like watching films at a high volume or a serious incident of domestic violence. Trained, experienced officers will make better judgements.

Can I just clarify a couple of points which I think might be getting misread:

detaining suspects - this doesn't mean making arrests, it means "detention officers" that man the custody centres - essentially the old gaoler job.

managing high risk offenders - this will be actually managing the files on high risk offenders, ensuring that all the agencies are working together, that the appropriate strategies are being followed. It doesn't mean that private firms will actually be dealing face to face with high risk offenders (or at least that's how I assume it will work, based on how it is currently run - managed by police staff but actually run by police officers)

Surrey police has form for publicising these grand schemes and them then petering out. I remember the Surrey + Sussex merger - we even got to the point where uniforms had been manufactured. It never happened.

Don't get in a panic, most police authorities won't have the taste for privatisation. It's all a big noise which probably won't result in any change for anyone

'You may wish to consider that the prosecutors that actually present the most serious cases in crown court are simply agents working for commercial criminal chambers'

Who have qualifications and training and still aren't allowed to arrest and detain people.

Narkedpuffin, why do you assume that a police officer might make a better judgement ? A warrant card doesn't automatically mean that you are a better investigator or a better judge of whether a vague and insipid threat on facebook needs further investigation. Indeed, I have seen plenty of decisions made by police officers that have turned out to be wrong and a serious underestimation of what has occurred.

The vast majority of our work does not require police officers on nearly £30k to investigate it.

NP, there is absolutely no mention in that article about employees of private companies being allowed a power of arrest

But if private investigators are investigating the lower level offences, how will police investigators gain the experience required to make them halfway competent to work on the big jobs OhdearNigel?

I am not assuming that the police are infallable. I am assuming that for private companies to be interested in these contracts there must be good profit margins. I am assuming that they will be paying people a lot less than police officers and spending a lot less on training. I am assuming that someone who has dealt with 1000 drunken scuffles has more chance of reading which people are likely to pose a threat than someone who has dealt with one.

OK Nigel, I misunderstood the 'detention' part. No arrest. I am still deeply concerned about the responding to incidents, investigating crimes and other implications.

Well now, that is a whole other debate - but deskilling of police officers has been happening for years. Most officers now could not build up a case for a contested trial because civilian staff provide that function. Most of the police officers I deal with on a daily basis have no idea what happens to a case once it goes to court. I have spoken to officers with 10+ years service that have no idea what happens after charge and have little knowledge of the court process. Lots of statements are now taken by civilian investigators and our custody centres employ civilian members of staff to interview suspects.

In fact, almost every function on that contract note is already undertaken by civilian staff in the police force I work for.

I may just be being overoptimistic but I really don't think that the service to the public will change noticeably. I suspect that the "respond to incidents & investigating crime" element of it would roughly translate to

Grade one emergencies - will be responded to by police, as now
Grade two (within 4 hours) - will be responded to by police, as now
Grade three - these are things like burglaries in sheds, vandalism etc. These may be dealt with by subcontractors - and now may well be dealt with by police staff anyway.

Actually it specifically says in that article that private companies will not have powers of arrest.

Thanks for your insights, Ohdear :)

"The amount of public money wasted in the police service investigating "malicious texts", "threats via facebook" and "harassment" where, 20 years ago, both parties would have been told to pull themselves together and grow up, is obscene."

I'm not sure I want to go back to a time when victims of stalking were told to "pull themselves together", if indeed that time has passed.

Athinginyourlife, I am not referring to stalking. A hhypothetical example of what I refer to might be Britney calling in and saying "Charlene is my boyfriend's ex and she's been calling me a slag on facebook and telling all my mates I am a ho". Then Charlene phones in and says Britney has been texting her to say that she is a fucking boyfriend stealing bitch. Neither of them want it to go anywhere, in fact probably in 6 weeks the boyfriend has been dumped and they're both friends again and have absolutely no intention of going to court. Cue many police hours and a lot of wasted money.

This, sadly, is very representative of our bread and butter work.

In fact, almost every function on that contract note is already undertaken by civilian staff in the police force I work for

I know that the process of privatisation started a long time ago

NP - interestingly enough, new police officer recruits for Surrey Police seem to have to pay for quite a lot of their own training... here It's certainly innovative

Np - we still work for the police. I am employed by my police force, not the private sector. Only custody assistants and ID staff are subcontracted in my force

And having worked as both a police officer and police staff I would argue that an experienced member of police staff can do just as good a job as a police officer. Being a police officer doesn't make you a good investigator - being a good investigator makes you a good investigator, regardless of whether you hold the office of constable.

If you still work for the police then at least you're still accountable. If you work for a private company the main aim of your employer is to make a profit. I believe even those that are fairly pro privatisation would consider the police force to be a public service.

I would argue that an experienced member of police staff can do just as good a job as a police officer

I would agree. Unfortunately inexperienced member of staff are cheaper to employ and the biggest cost of most businesses is salaries.

OhDear has reassured me a bit but the thought is still a scary one. So much potential for interests other than the public's to be served.

It's an interesting idea and don't think condemning it before seeing the details is an intelligent response. 'Investigating crimes' for example can be donkey-work cross-referencing vast amounts of data rather than something more skilled like taking fingerprints. G4S already take prisoners to and from courts so why not put them in charge of the cells at the same time? The more admin and unskilled jobs that can be farmed out, the more time the highly trained police personnel have to be on the front-line... something every police commissioner seems to complain about. Obviously, there would have to be checks and balances, terms of operation, boundaries/rules and a full audit trail. I'd like to hear more

Dh and I discussed this after I was chatting on this thread (he is a police officer with about 14 years in, he is currently a detective sergeant). The main concerns for him is whether this is the thin end of the wedge

Surely big implications for prosecutions if evidence gathered by private firms with potential conflicts if interest efc
I just wanted to give my thoughts on this topic. I think that this scenario is extremely unlikely as the disclosure process in trials is very transparent with all material disclosable to the defence. There are stringent regulations in place covering evidence gathering and whoever is responsible for an investigation is accountable to the court for the way in which evidence is gathered. I do not have any concerns that conflicts of interest will affect the court process - because they happen now and do not lead to problems. Obviously the companies that undertake this subcontracted work will be tightly monitored and subject to regulation.
I genuinely believe that the Attorney General's office would not allow this to happen if there were serious concerns for the justice process about the accountability and transparency of the firms bidding for these contracts

Elections for police commissioners start happening this year as well I think - so police authorities will be jumpy about alienating their voters.

Ive seen it all now.

I thought privatising the (beloved) NHS was bad enough.

This is just a joke.

Whatever next????

Am PMSL at Debbies "robocop" point. Well said

This idea - with presumably payment on results...

Inn our area the police don't come out for "minor" crimes that they think they will be unlikely to solve - car theft is the one we found out about when the window was smashed outside our house and stuff taken and all we got was a crime ref number.

So if payment is based on results then what impact will this have? Will crimes only get investigated if an initial checklist indicates that they will probably get a result.

Also group 4 are shit aren't they?

Aren't they the ones who keep losing prisoners and there was some other scandal about them wasn't there?

wasn't there some issue with their treatment of asylum seekers in detention and I seem to remember something about HM prison inspector type people saying they were doing a shitto job with a prison that they ran?