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?

Also, as has already been pointed out, the sudden increase in police presence is not down to their suddenly just being enough officers. There aren't enough. The ones you are seeing are working over time, being redeployed, having their rest days and leave cancelled, like I imagine many many other public service employees right now.

You can't run a public service like that all of the time otherwise they will burn out.

No words to the Van Driver who reversed onto a zebra crossing and nearly hit us - police officer just shrugged - I suppose making sure pedestrians were safe wasn't on his list for the day.

To there*

I also thought that shoplifting is being ignored if the value is less than £200, although I may be mistaken.

Thames Valley Police don't investigate any robbery of stuff less than £200- even if you can see the face of the person and car reg on a Ring doorbell.

Thames Valley Police don't investigate any robbery of stuff less than £200- even if you can see the face of the person and car reg on a Ring doorbell

Yes well when you've had your funding cut to the absolute bone, there will be a cut off point as to how and on what it's spent. That really isn't surprising.

My elderly Dad was scammed out of £70,000 - apparently it wasn't enough for the fraud squad to be interested...

If you experienced policing in multiple other countries, I really don't think you'd be saying this.
People also have a tendency to over simplify reasons why crimes aren't investigated- "they didn't care about my theft", when in fact there were simply no lines of enquiry and therefore nowhere for the investigation to go. You can't magic evidence out of thin air. It's disheartening at times, but it's how it is.

Coinciding with this thread, I was just sent this which must be doing the rounds.

I think it's clear the police in the UK have been vastly under-resourced for years, but they have also been saying that they can't get out to do the community policing they want to do because paperwork.

So now here is their chance and I'm sure there are loads of them stepping up and being brilliant.

They are, however, being let down by the idiots among their number who are policing shopping trolleys, telling people to get out of their gardens and so on. The things we've all seen.

They have an image problem and have for years - they could totally help to repair that right now. Spanish police play guitars for people on lockdown, Colombian police were doing Zumba lessons for people in high-rise flats etc. I haven't seen any film of British police doing things like that. Which is a pity.

I don't subscribe to ACAB but enough of them are to give the others a bad name, unfortunately.

There is a reason why a certain type of person becomes a police officer...

As with any recruitment a few rotten ones will slip through, but It might be truer to say there's a certain type who try to become police officers. Sadly I've known a few, and to the credit of the police most were weeded out straight away with the exception of a senior member's son

My own experience has been pretty good on the whole, sometimes superb and only occasionally dreadful - the latter usually at the hands of a "target" officer promoted way beyond their ability

Spanish police play guitars for people on lockdown, Colombian police were doing Zumba lessons for people in high-rise flats etc. I haven't seen any film of British police doing things like that

I can imagine the outraged threads and social media comments now.

I suggest you have no clue what a hard job they do!

I was violently raped at the age of 15 by two men in their 60s. I reported it in person at the police station, and the desk officer rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. I knew both their names, but neither was questioned. When word got out that I'd "grassed", my door was kicked in at 11pm on a Saturday night. I rang 999, and the police attended on the following Tuesday afternoon. My word against his, so again, nobody was questioned.

Some years later, I got into a violent and abusive marriage. Several phone calls to the police, all completely pointless. On one occasion, I phoned 999 after my ex-husband tried to strangle me and sustained an hours-long tirade of violence against me - nobody attended. On another occasion, they did attend, asked my ex-husband to leave the property, they left me there bruised and bleeding, and my ex-husband returned home two hours later. Contacting them was completely and utterly pointless.

Yes, I'm sure NAPALT, but I have zero faith in them.

@Brefugee I see what you're saying, but for every person who wants to see an officer engaging in this way, there will be 100 who will have a massive issue with it "I'm not paying my taxes for these guys to mess about, go and find some criminals" etc. They can't win.

YANBU I was in the police for a few years in the late 80s. I couldn't believe the sheer laziness and poor attitude of a significant minority of the other officers I worked with. It led me to leave the force after just 3 years. Time and time again, an officer I'd be working with would stop and have a laugh with known regular criminals - like meeting a friend or family member - would happen almost every shift. One guy used to spend half his shift having brews, going from one friend/relative house to another. All this "we don't have time" is absolute nonsense - they have lots of time but choose not to do what the public want them to do. When we got a call for something like antisocial behaviour, it was treated as a joke, with the patrol car being told to drive past to "fly the flag" with absolutely no intention of actually stopping to challenge the offenders - it was a "success" if they saw you coming and stopped what they were doing so you saw no evidence of anything untoward happening. Any officers who actually wanted to do things like be proactive were soon "given a word" by an old hand that it wasn't worth the effort and you were told that if you saw something happening that hadn't been reported, you looked away and pretended not to see it. Most would do a fair attempt at the job, and a very small minority actually ignored all the nonsense and did it properly, but the minority who weren't interested at all were like a cancer that brought everyone down to their level.

YANBU.

It's really not a popular opinion (and it was only yesterday i got torn a new one for saying I think that many police officers are getting a kick out of being able to be trumped up smarmy little busybodies with the new COVID restrictions) - but I think police in general are awful and have little empathy and personal agendas.

A quick run down of most of my deadlines with them (never been on the wrong side of them):

1. Saw a man hit a woman outside a wine bar. The station was round the corner so me and my friend ran to alert police. "We don't get involved in domestics" was their response.

1. Got pulled over on a night out with friends - there were 4 of us in the car, it was 3am, we were all glammed up and I hadn't drank a drop. The officer kept saying "no way have you not been drinking. Do you think I'm stupid?" and wanted to search the car for drugs for no reason He was furious when my breathalyser came back clear and there were no drugs in the car.

1. Got pulled over early morning coming back from the airport because the officer thought he'd seen me on my phone. My phone was in my suitcase in the boot! He pointed at an actual lamp post and said "See that there? There's a hidden camera there, and it automatically picks up people who are on their phones, scans their number plate and sends you a court date out. So if you were on your phone you'll be tried ina court of law. Or you could just admit it to me now, and it doesn't have to go that far" I said ok then that's fine, but in the meantime I'm going to report you for telling lies. He went spare and threatened to arrest me. What for, I don't know.

1. Was out with a friend one Saturday and her (placid, never hurt a fly) DP ended up getting knocked down in someone else's scuffle - he was standing outside a pub having a cigarette, a case of wrong place at the wrong time - and the police (possibly understandably) arrested everyone involved in the "fight" including him. His mate found us and told us what happened.

We found a nearby police officer, we had no idea what would happen next as had never had any dealings with arrests. My friend is a carer in a home for adults with learning disabilities and was at work the next day at 10am, so needed to know if she would have to message her boss and say her DP couldn't look after their son. We simply asked "we're unsure what happened but will he have been taken to a cell and would he be out before, say, 9am?". The police officer so SUCH a cow and kept saying "he should have thought about this before committing a crime". Ok but will be be out by morning do you know? "Not my problem, he's got what he deserves" we then asked if he'd be allowed a phone call. She sneered and said "No, don't be ridiculous, why do you think he would get a phone call." I have a knack of trying to say funny things in awkward situations (it never ends well) and said "We'll they do on The Bill" and my friend laughed. The copper shouted DO YOU THINK THIS IS A LAUGHING MATTER??!! Calm down weirdo

1. Not me, but my (prick) exBIL kicked his girlfriend in the stomach, grabbed their child and left the house. She called the police. They came round and essentially said she was wasting their time, she provoked him, was exaggerating and he's more than welcome to take his own child - this was all in front of him as he'd returned by then and was playing the victim. Awful!

I remember when the 999 What's Your Emergency the designates domestic violence officer was horrendous - always said things like "I don't know why they don't just leave!" And disbelieved and challenges women on their stories.

No wonder they're not trusted.

@TomHardyCBBC that's such a cunty meme 😔

But NEVER call a man a man on Twitter if the man lives in Yorkshire as you'll be interviewed under caution. Kicking a woman in the stomach - A OK

Police forces in different areas have very different characters. The police have been massively cut, there are not enough of them (eg. they don't have the man power to go and get and easy win of catching drug dealers who they have been informed are dealing at the same time and same place each day).
The CPS not the police decide when to prosecute - and for some reason, regardless of what politicians might say, the CPS are increasingly less likely to prosecute sexal crimes.
Some police are "dicks", but then power goes to some people's heads. So some might prefer to harass people buying easter eggs to "real crime" but those isolated incidents irritate people and get widely reported.

So basically: lack of manpower, CPS decisions on prosecuting, and some people are dicks (and some of those are police).
But is it really better in other countries?

I’ve called the police 3 times in my life and In all honesty I would never bother calling them again.

1st time my sister was sexually assaulted after a night out, her drink was spiked and she was followed (all caught on cctv) the officer (who was male) who attending my sister said to her perhaps she shouldn’t have been out for a drink this was when I finally couldn’t keep quite any longer, she was treated like the fucking criminal! Eventually after some very serious words with another officer this one disappears, a female one turned up and she was even fucking worse! I made a complaint but nothing ever happened to either of them. Closed ranks quite quickly despite 3 witnesses.

2nd time I called when someone was actually trying to break into my house - luckily my dog scared them off when they turned up over 8 hours later I was berated about my choice of security and was told if my dog has attacked I’ve been held accountable! This was to me who has literally just gotten home from giving birth and was breastfeeding her baby while some cunt was trying to break in...

3rd time - some twat hit my car then called the police claiming I was drunk, never seen them turn up so quickly...I was tested and negative, I was then told not to drive to fast...yeps I had my dog and 2 kids in the car nothing was said to the twat who hot my car and told my kids mummy was going to jail luckily I had it all on dashcam which was sent into them twice with a complaint attached - still not received my apology!! Or even an answers - this thread has reminded me to email again.

So yeah while there may be one good officer it doesn’t make up for the 100’s who are absolute shit...and try and tell me not to buy some non essential shopping while I’m out getting food...my answer won’t be polite.

Look up the youtube channel "Crimebodge". Some very interesting stories about the police on there.

I think it's clear the police in the UK have been vastly under-resourced for years

Well, they had their chance to step up when Blair/Brown spent 13 years splashing the cash, but they failed to win over the public as they were too interested in being inclusive rather than putting feet on the ground to tackle what the majority of the people wanted them to do, i.e. anti social behaviour, burglary, car crime, etc. But hey-ho, arresting people for selling golliwogs ticked more boxes.

There will have been directives from on high to police the lockdown.

But this country has reached the state where if I'm the victim of crime, I don't trust the police to do anything about it. Too many stories of nothing being done. The police are short staffed and swamped in beurocracy.

Yes they are largely hopeless. I do agree that lots of individual officers do they best they can/know how. Our local force have been hopeless over the past year in dealing with very serious domestic violence with my neighbours, and now they miraculously find the time to patrol our Largely deserted local woodland car parks leaving silly notes on people’s cars. Probably more likely to spread the virus than anything. Also the car park in question is notorious for vehicle thefts and break ins. We’ve had ours done twice up there. They know who does it but do absolutely nothing about it and in the 7 years we’ve been going up there I’ve never know the police patrol the area. Yet now they will do so to tell dog walkers to go home. It often feels like they are only prepared to show up if there’s an easy target, ant real work they shy away from with shouts of cuts (which I do understand makes their jobs harder but I feel it’s quite often an excuse for poor management).

I haven't seen any film of British police doing things like that. Which is a pity

A pity? They aren't there for your entertainment what an odd suggestion. It's a pity that our police aren't out playing guitars and giving us Zumba lessons... I've read it all now.