To think policing is pretty poor in this country?

[EasyPleasey]

I'm sure there are lots of excellent and well meaning individual police officers. However, my dealings with them in the past decade have been:

1. Reported a sexual assault. CCTV available, public area. Case closed not investigated.

2. Reported a burglary. Very likely suspect told to them, they didnt investigate, they didnt have time, case closed.

3. Spent ages writing to them about suspected fraud on a now deceased person. Never followed up by police.

4. Reported a fraudulent car sale/theft complete with names and addresses, nothing done.

5. Reported regular criminal damage to private property, some teenagers smashing outdoor lights and garden furniture in my road, £1000s of damage. Police said it's worse in other areas and did nothing.

But now I see police loitering round Tesco enforcing that one puts 'non essential' socks in their trolley, harassing people for using their front garden, I think where did they find all this time? Maybe a lot actually enjoy having the power to order people around, but solving crimes isnt a passion for many of them?

The main issue, I think, is the lack of funds. I've only had to deal with the Police once in my life and they were good although it was a small matter. I think whenever you use public services you always need to remember that they are massively underfunded and secondly, there might be something much more serious going on when you report a crime.

With regards to lockdown, it is their responsibility to impose the rules. If you remember the first week, absolutely everyone was breaking the rules and quite frankly they needed to be stricter. Things have only changed because the police have increased their presence.

I got over the police when they fined a woman for reporting her ex’s threatening behaviour / stalking as it was wasting their time. And then he murdered her

Yep. It all just underlines what they think of victims of domestic abuse. Turns out it is just a domestic. Unless the victim goes outside to sit on a park bench for a break from it. Then it's a lockdown infringement and stern words can be imparted. 🤷‍♀️

@icypop

You mean the type of person who is willing to bravely serve the community, work all hours and be underpaid while anonymous morons criticise them from behind a keyboard?

There aren’t ‘extra’ police just like there wasn’t after London terrorise attacks. Leave will have been cancelled, rest days reduced, training officers rushed through...

My dealings with the police have been mixed, but that's in part because their powers are hindered by all kinds of stupid guidelines and laws.

Was woken at 8.15am yesterday morning by six coppers demanding my neighbours and I answer our flat buzzers. It was Easter Sunday. Those who didn't answer had a bang on their flat door. The officers said, just checking you are in and well. WTF? I sometimes work on bank holidays (rostered key worker), so I might have been out, and my family have no plans because of lockdown. Wtf else would we be at 8.15am? I wish they would piss off and let us get on with it.

It's like Old Bill saying they'll check shopping baskets or back gardens. Piss off. Let us get through isolation/lockdown like adults. We don't need coddling.

It's not just a lack of funds, it's attitude. I've lost much respect for them during this time and their "easy targeting" of people. Total lack of common sense being employed. Meanwhile, real crime goes unchecked.

Don't the CPS make the decision on prosecuting? The police decide whether to investigate.

Quite a lot of what people are complaining about is decisions made by the CPS. Regarding having a word with a sunbathers in a park, that's what the guidance is from management, it's not exactly essential is it. Having a word with dv suspects doesn't happen as it can escalate their behaviour, this is no longer allowed as a way of dealing due to research into da and behaviours

I cant think of a single country whose police i would rather have than england

Having experienced the police in America, I'd take ours any day.

They do need more funding and I'm sure there are some awful ones, but my experiences with them have been fine and I'm not terrified of them like the American ones. Our car was nicked and they found it. My cousin is a DI and she's caught countless murderers (I know this because she was on a documentary - she doesn't talk about it with me). A mates husband does community liaison and spends a lot of time helping women get out of DV situations.

I am a white woman and look quite unthreatening, so I can understand that others will have very different perspectives though and I'm sure there are still the vestiges of institutional racism there. Overall though I prefer that we have them.

I gave up on the police when I finally after over a year of his shit and even after we broke up he was still trying it, reported my ex for domestic abuse and the police officer called my ex in-front of me to tell him to “stay away” and the piece of shit officer boiled it down to a bit of harassment then gave MY EX my crime reference number to report me if I contacted him despite me never contacting my ex.

When my ex contacted me again which was no surprise given the police supported him and his actions, the second officer was even worse and told me contact was part and parcel of a relationship if an ex (that may I add was mentally abusive but police officer told me It’s not up to me to decide if it was abusive or not) contacts me against my wishes..this same ex that told me via an email that he was spying on me and was word for word telling me what messages I had received! According to the police, that’s normal part and parcel of an ex in a relationship

These were two different male officers from two different police stations...go figure!

It was my local domestic abuse team that encouraged me to report it and when I told them what happened they said sadly that attitude is quite normal unless it is domestic violence, but mental or emotional abuse, they tend to just brush it off.

@Balhammom
Well said, totally agree with you.

I think that the police get sold an unrealistic picture of what it means to be a police officer. When you watch police shows on television it looks interesting and its not office based - its out and about. The reality is that it grim. It is dealing with the same dysfunctional families and people again and again and again and again and again.

It does take a certain harshness to be able to put up with that.

Also, I have seen an attitude that is applauded within the institution that is actually repugnant. It is condescending and wants to assert power for power's sake.

I do think more (50/50%) women in higher positions would help to modify the culture.

The police do a pretty good job considering whatever they do is wrong in some eyes.

It's called evidential standards. You may think one picture of someone near your property is enough to hang the bastards but guess what, it isn't.

The police can't just go full CSI on every little thing sadly.

Yes, they do make mistakes but everyone does and overall there aren't many other countries police I'd rather have.

@Fenellapitstop

The police officer “had a word” with my ex in from of me, this was only a year ago.

I put in the complaint with the help of a domestic abuse support team and they all closed ranks.

Where i live is a very depreved partcof Liverpool. At one point we had half hourly Matrix vans patrol the area. We are the next bit from Norris Green and I think the reasoning was if we went the same way, they'd never regain control.

No one is, practising social distancing. There's still parties, drug dealing, hanging round the shops, fights in the streets (although that was a bit of entertainment, there were cars pulling up and people joining in for the whole morning and yes the police were called). Neighbours are all sitting in each others paths for a drink. The lads are still out on mopeds and scrambler bikes. Yet our Police are patrolling our parks and proms, talking to people who aren't actually doing anything wrong. You might have heard that they've wrongly raided two venues.

My DD went through terrible DV last year, including a knife attack witnessed by neighbours, who called the police. She was fobbed off by them, treated aggressively by whoever she tried to speak to and only when Liverpool DV services got involved did they attend, after letting her down for another two weeks with excuses of a lack of resources. They were hoping that she'd go away. I could fill every thread with first hand experiences of our woeful Policing. Including two neighbours being murdered by an ex partner.

But all of a sudden they've got resources to throw their weight around.

I work in criminal justice, not police, crime is not down because we are in a pandemic. People who persistently offend don't give two hoots about social distancing guidelines, yet remands are being denied and nothing but essential high risk remands are being processed by courts so offenders are seeing no consequence. In my recent experience things are actually getting worse. We're also about to see around 15.000 early releases, the initial 4000 was nowhere near enough to enable prisons to function safely given staff and offender needs to socially distance, quarantine etc.
Funny how pre Corona dozens of threads criticising the NHS, can't do that now, can't slag off teachers as schools aren't functioning, so let's all have a go at the police.

Fenellapitstop

Do you know what else escalates the behaviour? Everyone standing by and doing nothing, because the perpetrator takes that as societal acceptance of their behaviour.

By your own logic, we should never arrest or charge perpetrators as that would escalate the behaviour. We should do nothing and hope.

And if having a word escalates the behaviour, surely we shouldn't be having a word with sunbathers? Could lead to more extreme sunbathing.

It either works or it doesn't. If it works for lockdown, do it for DV. Otherwise, they can fuck right off with their "advice".

Why don't do join up then op if you're so much better than the current lot?

And for those of you who are writing off the whole 123,000 officer in England and Wales - hopefully you never need to call on them.

What is wrong with this site? Slight criticism of specific teachers and nurses are jumped on (even when that individual was way out of line) but here you are writing off a whole emergency service and that's totally acceptable?

Yes done cops are dickheads - just like some teachers I've met. But the significant majority do a bloody hard job with often little support from the public.

If you don't get a good service - complain. That's the only way it gets better. The PC who told me 'it's a domestic' when I'd reported GBH (not against me) got disciplined as i made a formal complaint to the IPCC.

And lots of the complaints here are about the CPS. But if they don't press charges you have the right to a 'Victims Right to Review' where you can ask for the file to be reviewed again.

Yes, I do think they are shit. I was the victim of an armed robbery in 2010, two men in balaclavas with guns took over my local shop. I was the only customer in it at the time. They got £200 from the till, manhandled me about bit then left. Luckily I was un-hurt.
HOWEVER, the police were shit. They berated me for not remembering what the attackers looked like (their faces were covered by the balaclavas and I was in shock), they never offered me any counselling or anything. I had no follow up, no news about whether they caught them- nothing.

Now I hear they are planning to police people's shopping. Well sorry but they can fck right off- they did nothing about the armed robbery, why should I be questioned about buying a fcking curly wurly? I'm shocked by the justice system in this country- people not paying council tax getting locked up when convicted rapists are given a £50 fine.
Its not right.

@Marriedtoapenguin 6 different CCTV clear images of the same two people breaking into businesses. Images of them holding equipment worth thousands of pounds. How could that not be enough?

Round here the community policing is good and when I have spoken to individual officers I have been impressed. They do a hard job and I respect them.

I used to have a job in which I saw the results of police investigations into very serious crimes and on the whole the police were very impressive.

However a lot of the problems highlighted on this thread are very serious and worrying and I think police cuts and underfunding have probably worked against improvements they have made in other areas eg prejudice.

On balance I think our policing in the UK is good, but it could certainly be better. I would not like to live in a country where police are armed, for example.

@hoxtonbabe and it didn't work which is why I know we are told not to do it!

I am a police officer.

I'm ashamed of the specific examples of overreach that have been in the news, when I read these stories I cringe so so much. This is not how we want to be known - overzealous, officious, jobsworths...

The vast majority of officers join up because they want to help people, do the right thing, possibly enjoy the flashing lights, but genuinely want to help.

We're not all bastards. We're having to go to work every day with people who call us bastards, spit at us, try to hurt us and actually wish death upon us.

Nevertheless, I wish more thought was put into the Coronavirus policing response. These stories very embarrassing.
I imagine we won't all hear of many stories of decent officers helping communities and sticking their necks out.

I bet you'd still dial 999 if you had someone breaking into your house...