I've just got home . I left home at 4.30 am this morning to go to early turn. I should have finished at 3pm . But due to one of the calls I went to - alone - I ended up a) injured ( again) and b) rolling around on the fucking pavement with a suspect who would cheerfully have throttled me given the chance . And then , having had to be seen by medics , I then had to go back to work , write my arrest notes , hand the job over to CID , but still go and do his home search and wait while he was interviewed , then wait around for 3 hours until the CPS made a charging decision . And then drive the two hours home . I'm due back in at 3pm . And I'm reading this in an effort to wind down .
Viewing CCTV isn't as easy as plugging a USB into any old computer, because most don't have the software You are required to comply with the DPA , and the ACPO guidelines concerned with dealing with CCTV . Which means you are required to make copies , which can only be done using specialist equipment . Which COSTS MONEY . So some of the specialist video suites have been shut down , or shared between forces . One of my colleagues who works for Cambridgeshire , has to book a space in the video suite at Welwyn Garden City for example . And you're sharing those suites with murder teams , burglary teams , sexual offences and domestic violence teams , missing person teams to name but a few . And those kind of enquiries often have a huge amount of CCTV to go through , so you can imagine how difficult it is to get a space at all .
Do you even realise that since Theresa May became Home Secretary in 2010 , that police officer numbers have dropped from 146,000 , to 122,000 ? That's like losing the ENTIRE amount of police officers that cover Thames Valley , Hertfordshire , Surrey , Kent , Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire , Sussex , Hampshire and Essex , Or like the whole of GMP . Or two thirds of the Met. And on top of that , that police staff numbers have dropped by about thirty percent ? So , the call handlers , witness officers , case administrators , scenes of crime officers , station officers , crime desk admin officers , all gone . But their tasks haven't . So they then have to be covered by officers taken from the front line .
THIS is what happens when budgets are cut to the bone , and the workforce is denigrated to the point that if you believed the media , you would believe that the police are public enemy number one . Officers leave . And they are not so much walking , as running away , to jobs with better money , where they aren't criticised by every armchair warrior , and where they have a much better chance of finishing their days work uninjured . I've got three years before I can retire , and I'm giving serious thought to whether I want to stay on those three years , or say Fuck it , and go and work for Network Rail.
And yet , I still get up , every day and go to work . I put my personal driving licence on the line and risk prosecution every time I turn on the blues . I am held to a higher standard of behaviour and scrutiny both on and off duty than any other profession. I also pay more into my pension than any other profession , yet will get castigated for having a relatively decent pension out of it . And I do it because even after twenty odd years of being spat at , abused , assaulted , shot at , twice , followed from the station after shift , even after all that , I STILL want to help those who really need it , those who you can see are relieved when we arrive , those to whom we might be able to make a difference , and sometimes , sometimes save a life . Or find their missing child , or talk someone off a bridge .
I'm no angel . I'm a card carrying cynic , doing the best she can , with what there is , which sadly sometimes , isn't enough .