To wonder about the state of domestic policing in the UK

[Pantone363]

I've been quite lucky to never need the police before so maybe i'm out of touch with the reality of policing in the UK.

Three things have happened this year:

1. Ex DPs house was broken into over night and cash, iPad and handbags stolen. The children were all asleep when it happened. Police didn't attend and just gave an incident number.

1. Our heating oil was stolen. Do you have any CCTV? no. Heres an incident number.

1. DPs friend had a piece of expensive plant machinery stolen from his yard. Machinery was fitted with a tracker which showed the machinery was in a travellers site. Police refused to attend (off record) siting that it was too expensive for them to attend the site and recover the machinery as they needed the firearms team to attend. Incident number and claim off insurance.

I might be really naive but to me it looks like you can pretty much commit a minor crime and as long as you don't get caught in the actual act you're going to get away with it.

I'm not blaming the boots on the ground policemen/women, i'm sure there just as frustrated but is this the norm now?

*they're MN please can we have an edit function!

Op I think you are right. I also think the crime figures don't reflect how many crimes go unreported because people have come to expect and accept a certain level of (particularly) petty theft.

It musts be area dependant because the police here are fantastic.

I have lived in this village (it's called a village but is pretty big) for 4 years.

There was some low level crime and the police came round and told us to report anything that happens, no matter how small as they wanted to keep track of what was going on.

It's a new build and there is still building going on.

I saw someone on the building site at night (it is always been broken into). I called and reported it, there were straight round, quite a lot of them.

We saw someone stealing all the bins, I reported it as it was going on then. They came straight out. In the meantime dh and the neighbours had gone out and the thieves ditched them (apparently they steal bins to load the building materials in to wheel if away )

Dd was assaulted at school they came straight round.

A dog mauled another dog in the street and a young girl was trying to stop the dogs fighting (along with all her family) a neighbour called police and they said they came immediately because the neighbour had mentioned the girl.

They always come out, no matter how small it seems. They drive about to be seen.

It's actually a nice place to live in general, despite these happenings. But they always make everyone feel safe.

And yet if someone slags someone off on FB, a cop has to come around and interview them.

I've read a few behind-the-scenes books written by police officers, it's shocking stuff.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of actual crime solving going on. I was mugged a few years ago. I was sent three separate offers of counselling but the best therapy would have been to see the bastard prosecuted. When my driving licence was posted back to me a few days later with a note saying it had been found in a front garden, I told the police and offered to bring it in for fingerprinting, they weren't interested. My credit card was used in a nightclub within half an hour of the mugging. I asked the police if the club had bar cctv - I could come in and try to point out the guy (I bet he was known to them). They weren't interested. I'm sure he went on to mug a lot more people. I hope none of them were badly hurt as a result of the police's lack of interest. I know resources are scarce but mugging is a serious crime that often deeply affects the victims.

I would say scenarios 1 and 2 are quite normal, 3 isn't or shouldn't be. I'm a police officer. Millions have been cut from the police budget and unfortunately savings have to be made.

In our force scenes of crime used to go to every single burglary as a matter of course. They now don't (several scenes of crimes officers been made redundant). Thats just one example.

Forces simply to do not have enough resources to deal with all reports of crime. Its rubbish, but its true. They therefore have to make a decision as to what they will focus their efforts on. Its not right, but it will continue to get worse.

YES. Mugging isn't worth reporting, same as mobile phone theft, low level ASB

I do wonder at the amount of MNers who advise phoning 101 to really minor issues!

eurochick - in relation to your driving licence, if a member of the public found it in their garden, then I can understand why it wasn't fingerprinted. It could have been lying there through all kinds of weather conditions which would mean it wasn't suitable. The person who packaged it up would leave their prints all over it too, and who knows who handled it beforehand. I can totally understand why you would be unhappy about it, but think that it was a reasonable response given the circumstances.

With regards to your credit card, not so reasonable, and a bit lazy of the police. Unless they have prior knowledge of the club/bar cctv (you'd be amazed how many places don't have CCTV, or have fake cameras, or don't have anyone there who knows how to work the system, or only keep stuff for 7 days before it gets recorded over etc etc).

It isn't an excuse at all, but sometimes an officer can come across as disinterested when actually, they know that something like CCTV isn't available. We all have bad days, but obviously need to keep in mind we are dealing with members of the public so should try not to let it effect them (but officers are human after all, and we're not all perfect). But yes, on top of that, there are just plain lazy officers who give the rest of us a bad name, so I'm sorry if you were dealt with by one of those. Just makes the job harder for the rest of us.

Pantone, I often think that too, but I think that generally, people have little contact with the police, and have their own ideas about what they should deal with. Those ideas don't necessarily match with reality, especially in the days of reduced budgets and reduced officer numbers!