To think the police are useless?

[RainbowsAndCrystals]

In my 20s I've been around many people that have had bad experiences with them and say how useless they are.

Something happened to me a month ago and it was caught on cctv.

Firstly the police said I had to get the evidence myself. So I had to ask around for cctv ... very difficult when people don't want to be involved and you're someone with zero authority.

Now a month later and they still haven't bothered to look at the footage.

It's so disheartening and almost like they have sided with the criminals.

The starting salary for police constables in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is between £19,383 and £22,962, rising to £37,254 at the top of the scale - achievable after about seven years. In Scotland it's slightly higher, starting at £23,493 and rising to £36,885 - achievable after about ten years.

The range of typical salaries with several years' experience is £36,885 to £41,865 for sergeant; £47,730 to £51,771 for inspector; and £52,830 to £55,005 for chief inspector.

Most of us would say there aren't enough officers, which is why a lot of minor crimes aren't dealt with and some crimes are badly handled. The Police would certainly say they need more officers. Yet we're in a time of austerity and can't afford them.

£11 million would put an extra 100 constables on the street for 5 years. Same money that has been spent searching for a missing child in Portugal.

Same money that has been spent searching for a missing child in Portugal. I think that's unnecessary & the child has a name.

Stretched to breaking point and possibly a bit useless I think.

My DS was assaulted (9) by another child (10) Police came round, looked at each other with raised eyebrows and used the following phrases

"We know rough and tumble boys are hard for moms"

"It really is just boys being boys"

"Maybe try a local karate class"

The boy had been calling DS gay for months, tripping him up, pushing him over, spitting in his sandwiches, throwing his food on the floor, ripping up homework books, urinating in his water bottle, stabbing him with pencils. We called the police when were sent to hospital by the school after he pushed DS over, dragged.him by his hair, stamped in his back and face and kicked him 4 times in the stomach. He had a broken rib, lost a tooth, lost a clump of hair and bruised all over.

I could kill the little bastard who was suspended for a week and still has the cheek to fucking smile at me. His parents say I over reacted and the Police were an absolute sack of shit, didn't even talk to the other boy about right or wrong.

Even his own fucking parents said its just boys...

Getout I'm sorry, but I get annoyed when the Government say there is no money for additional Police, to look after injured soldiers, for more nurses but they can find yet more money for that investigation when other missing children have had fuck all spent on them or to bribe the DUP to prop them up with a few votes. The priorities are skewed to fuck,

Whilst I agree that all missing children should be investigated I'd rather one was than none. If it was my child it would never be enough & that's how I see it.

I think it's too simplistic to think one pot of money can be moved to another area etc.

The priorities are skewed to fuck

And therein lies a massive part of the problem.

ANd I'm sorry Getout, but no matter how horrible it is to admit, that investigation has cost our police force very, very dear, and at the same time taken lots of resources away from other missing children.
Is it ok that hundreds of other children went missing in that time frame, and had a tiny fraction of that money spent on them??

It's always been about fashionable causes in some respects.

If it's in the media, or the DM or SUn have whipped up a fever pitch about some "spate" of something or other, this is what gets the money spent on it.

The case above is a perfect example.

Plus that and focussing money and manpower on entirely stupid and pointless things.
Say, infiltrating an eco group then shagging the women and getting them pregnant then fucking off.

Or sending 100 officers to police a demo consisting of 20 old ladies and a dog.

Disproportionate allocation of funds according to a pet cause or a media demand.

*The range of typical salaries with several years' experience is £36,885 to £41,865 for sergeant; £47,730 to £51,771 for inspector; and £52,830 to £55,005 for chief inspector.
*

What's your point? Many people would class that as a good salary particularly when you take into account free travel & pensions (which I know you contribute more too).

Did you know Get that one thousand officers and extra armed police were drafted into Manchester as of yesterday for a £2m security operation to protect delegates attending the Tory party conference?

ONE THOUSAND.

In the meantime, what crimes get ignored?

My point was more I don't necessarily think that that money was lying around & if it wasn't spent on the McCann case it would of been there for other kids or the police.

Ok Shatners and I'm not a Tory voter you tell me realistically where the money is going to come from.

I've not denied underfunding is an issue.

YANBU. Although I haven’t had to deal with the police for a number of years luckily.

Do you remember when ‘happy slapping’ was all the rage? Where people would film their mates going up to strangers in public and smacking them? Well, it happened to me in Tesco, some lad ran up and clobbered me over the head side of the head with an Argos catalog. It fucking hurt and my eyelid was cut.

I reported to the police (the station was actually across the road so a colleague went with me after it happened). They left a voicemail about 20 minutes later to say that there was no CCTV and ‘no motive’ so they can’t proceed with a complaint. They didn’t even ask the Tesco staff who saw it, it was by the tills so at least half a dozen saw it happen.

I rang back and said that wasn’t acceptable, I’d been assaulted etc. they eventually brought me in and took photos of my eye and ‘logged’ it (for want of a better phrase). The officer did apologise on behalf of the colleague who left the voicemail.

Also, Tesco staff went and got frozen peas for my face after it happened. Which the manager charged me for. Still annoyed about that one.

My parents were robbed about a month ago and the police were amazing. My dad reported it at 6.30am, there was a police officer on the doorstep two hours later taking statements. The guy doing the fingerprinting came later that day and they caught the suspect 2-3 days later after they put a tag out on the car. The car got smashed in the police chase but they recovered goods from inside.

The insurance company, on the other hand, were fucking useless!

As I've said before people will be more inclined to pay more taxes if they can see that money is having an impact.

The fact is many people don't & that's a lot of people to be persuaded.

Oh yeah good point about the Tory conference Shatners.

What a phenominal waste of money.

There was a Conservative dinner a couple of years ago that had protestors outside.
They witnessedpolice turning up and fucking help unload the cases and cases of wine.
Good use of public funds there!

I don't necessarily think that that money was lying around & if it wasn't spent on the McCann case it would of been there for other kids or the police.

Where did the money come from then to pay the salaries of all the coppers involved, whose time could have been spent elsewhere?
What about the time/ resources/ tech work???

You seriously don't believe that the money for all this came from private pockest??
Did these private pockets also pay to get in extra coppers to cover all those jetting off on the case every few months??

No??

Then it was money spent that could have been spent elsewhere.

Well I wouldn't want to be living in Spain right now would you op? I'm truly sorry that your experience has been bad but I promise you that the uk police force is far better than many others around the world. I would chase up your cctv issue and as another op said, check if the quality is good enough to identify someone

Get I'm sure there are some tax loopholes in the corporate field that need closing. I'm sure we can spend money better in certain places. But I'm one of those people that actually thinks and would have no problem with tax increasing to pay for what are, in my opinion, essential services.

I was merely quoting the salaries so people could see the sort of costs involved if we want more police, btw

of course the money didn't come from private pockets but I don't believe they would of "found" the money & ploughed it into pay rises. I do take your point though re media expectations & weight & I don't disagree with it.

I also agree spending 2m on the Tory conference is a waste but they are not going to not to do that. If that makes sense

Actually toocool our very own police force has frequently behaved in a way that the police force in Spain would have been proud of yesterday.

Being a slightly nicer, sweeter smelling turd, doesnt detract from the fact it is still a turd.
Police violence is endemic wherever there are police, that's it.

Ds2 is a "special" I don't think the general public realise how much policing is covered by unpaid volunteers.
He would like to do it as a full time job, he is committed, honest, and a people person.
But He would earn 50% of what he does in his full time job now .
His experiences on the street have made him very anti alcohol he reckons that a large proportion of crime is caused by drunken idiots.

I have had good and bad.

The ones who dealt with what I call sexual harassment from some young men towards my son were crap. Passed it off as 'boys will be boys' which fucked me right off. It was disgusting.

I have dealt with quite a few police officers recently and they were all amazing. Responded in a very short space of time and were full of kindness. The only time I have not had PO arrive in a decent time is when the situation is one that can wait for a bit. Any emergency where they are needed straight away they have been there within 10 minutes.

At the moment they have to prioritise more than ever because there aren't the resources and I'm sure that translates to people being disappointed with how 'low level' crimes are dealt with. However, I'm full of confidence that in my area at least, if you are at risk they are going to be there quickly and will handle situations brilliantly.

I agree with you OP. My Aunt was injured in a mugging and police did nothing. Never followed up or contacted her again. Last year I dealt with an elderly man with a head injury and the ambulance took 6 hours to respond. The corrie McKeague case was botched from the begining. Yes emergency services are cut and at breaking point but that doesn't mean we cant complain when they are so so bad.

I'm sure there are some tax loopholes in the corporate field that need closing. I'm sure we can spend money better in certain places. But I'm one of those people that actually thinks and would have no problem with tax increasing to pay for what are, in my opinion, essential services.

Your absolutely right but not enough people think like that. I truly think if more people had better experiences with the police then they would value them more. Hopefully most people will only be the victim of a crime once, if you don't think you were treated correctly in that instance than it can tarnish your view. For my burglary I wasn't expecting a debrief with a mugshot of the perp along with my retrieved goods just a call to let me know what was going on after I chased it up.

I think there's a lot of poor management too.

Last year, I reported, at 7am, a bloke acting suspiciously via the 111 system. Mid afternoon, I noticed a police woman driving around the village, then she stopped and she started walking down the canal towpath and re-appeared along the road coming back to her car about an hour later. Then she sat in her car for about half an hour. Then I got a phone call - it was her, asking me where the suspicious bloke was because she couldn't find him. When I told her it was 7am and the bloke was long gone, she was visibly very angry as she'd not been told it was such an old call and she'd just been allocated the job when she started at 2pm. So that was a good couple of hours of wasted police time simply because the control room had (1) sat on it for six hours and (2) not told the officer when the call came in, so she thought it was current and had prioritised it!

I think can apply this to any organisation, publicly funded or not.

I work in IT and the services I manage are considered shit because of constraints put on me by senior managers in terms of funding. I'd love to deliver a world class service but the powers that be dictate what the pile of crap it ultimately ends up being, but I take the hit.

Something has to give. That's not to minimise the effects of crime on people and their lives, my brother is a policeman and would love to love his job but isn't given the resources to be able to deliver.

I can appreciate the police are stretched but tbh I think a lot of the problems are of their own making. They don't seem pro-active enough to me. They don't seem interested unless there is violence involved & they catch someone in the act.

My neighbours a few doors away had BOTH their cars stolen a few days ago. Someone managed to break in & stole house keys & car keys. There have been a few similar break-ins in the area within the last year or so. Don't think the cars themselves were the targets, although they are nice enough, fairly new VWs (not a top of the range Merc like another neighbour)

A couple of neighbours (including myself) have cctv that shows exactly when the cars were driven away. The footage shows 3 people trying doors. I know there is insufficient detail for the people to be identified but knowing the exact time is useful The police have been told who has cctv and have not bothered to contact any of us to ask for copies of the footage. My footage shows exactly when the thieves own car was parked at the end of the street (unfortunately can't read the number) It's a fairly quiet road. There are enough traffic cameras around that should be able to pick up the car they used to get here.

They do have a suspicion who is involved. You'd think they'd welcome absolutely anything they can get to help nail them. But hey, why should they bother when it's "only" property.

My neighbours are nervous wrecks knowing someone got into their house while they slept.

My ndn is in his 80's, with a disabled wife, and he is so scared he wants to move away. I can't say I'm particularly thrilled at knowing I could be next.