To think the police aren't fit for purpose

[countingsheep5678]

I am not talking about individuals who put their lives on the line, I'm talking about how police constabularies are run up and down the country.

I have experienced three quite horrible anti social incidents in the 'safe' area of Hertfordshire where I live! One a group of boys threatened to throw my toddler in the river and another a man threatened to smash my 'ducking' car in because I asked him to move a bag out of the road!

I want to speak to a local police officer to explain my concerns and ask if there would be more officers on the street and what they are doing about the anti social behaviour in the area. I managed to speak to someone who took all my details and said they'd pass it onto a safer neighbourhood team.

I asked when I would hear back... he couldn't tell me. I asked if I could speak to someone more senior as I wanted some reassurance quite soon, he said I would have to make a complaint if I wanted to speak to someone more senior. I asked if I could have the number of the safer neighbourhood team... they don't have a number. So essentially, unless I call 999 there and then there are no local police officers you can talk and engage with. I was also astounded by the lack of empathy the police officer I spoke to had. When you've been on the receiving end of horrible situations you want to feel reassured. I have got off the phone feeling more concerned about the safety of our neighbourhood than ever.

Just by luck I have seen my local safer neighbourhood police team are holding a surgery tomorrow... but surely we deserve better from the police? We need more open, direct access to them? Am I alone in thinking this?

This.

I've had to call the police on two occasions in the last year. One involving a DV incident in the road outside, they came immediately. And the second, I called in something suspicious that warranted checking, and they arrived within a couple of hours.

Thank you to those hard working police men and women for your dedicated service, I'm sure a lot of people couldn't deal with what you put up with on a daily basis. The problem doesn't lie with the individuals on the ground, they must be as frustrated as everyone else. A case of too many (highly paid) Chiefs, not enough Indians I think.

@Onthedowns Sorry, that's basically what you just said!

@rwalker not sure you've read my posts properly! I wasn't expecting the police to prosecute or arrest anyone! But I do expect to be able to speak to a member of the police in the local area to ask what is being done about anti social behaviour, how they are tackling it and what they are doing about it going forward! My point is there is limited direct access to the police. Whilst we know there are thousands of hard working members of the police force, it still doesn't make the system fit for purpose! Which it isn't!

That was a horrific event, I don't think I'll ever forget it. I believe the law about attacking emergency service workers changed after that, as it should have done a long time ago.

Please know that the work you and your colleagues do is amazing and appreciated by the vast majority. We know you put your lives on the line daily in order to protect us.

Yes there is some shit going on in the Met and PSNI, but from how I see it, that is the "top brass", the ones who are basically political posts, and then unfortunately it does trickle down. Any less than intelligent officers then get swept up in being yes men/women and copying those in charge, thus contributing to the rot. I vehemently believe that this is not the case for the entire national police force and that most police officers are decent and hard working. We need to stop condemning everyone on the actions of the minority, but instead stand with the decent officers and support them to feel safe in coming forward and challenging the corruption.

I think the police have made themselves look stupid with arresting people for being mean on Twitter.
Do they think it makes people respect them when they turn up with 2 vans and 6 officers to arrest a bloke that reposted a pic of a pride flag in the shape of a swastika? Tasteful? No. Worth arresting for instead of solving actual problems? Also no.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-criticised-over-arrest-for-gay-swastika-post-0dj6j0007

Or police turning up to question a woman about a sticker of her door, with a PCSO returning the next day to bully her again?

twitter.com/IXthoth/status/1558864403746922496?t=8QLNWeSlEJ8zoaTcz00fqA&s=19

That's just 2 examples from the last couple of weeks.

I'm sure there are lots of officers that do the job they were meant to, but what the hell is going on when so much time, effort and money is put into punishing people for being (supposedly) offensive?

@Onthedowns totally accept your point of view! If I worked in such an organisation I'd be frustrated too... the policing system needs a massive overhaul! I do think we, as the public should be listened to. I also agree that the lack of parenting plays a massive part.... society is falling apart and I'm sorry the lack of government funding has a huge part to play! Kids are bored and demotivated... I guess their parents are too! There needs to be more funding for youth clubs etc and for the social services!

@SantaCarlaCalifornia Is that PCSO Kerry Mucklowe from This Country?!

Just came across this thread on Twitter, quite pertinent to this thread

twitter.com/coppertopcopper/status/1559739630421000192?s=21&t=qBmqZDZ5VBFr5qzBS98NPQ

There is a big issue in North Tyneside/Northumberland in coastal towns with anti-social behaviour by large groups of teenagers. They travel along the coast from North Shields to Monkseaton stopping at Tynemouth, Cullercoats and Whitley Bay. They gather in groups of up to 60+ at times, with alcohol and drugs. They are the same teenagers and the police have just adopted the approach of 'moving them on'- that's if they even bother to turn up to 999 calls.

These teenagers:
scream, shout, chant, play pounding loud music
start fires
smash things up - cars, shop windows, house windows
terrorise people - bang on front doors in gangs, light fires in gardens, defecate and urinate in gardens and outside houses, thrown things at houses and windows(eggs, tomatoes, large stones, the contents of dog shit bins)
vandalise parks, nature reserves, beaches, bus shelters, metro stations, cricket and tennis club huts
attack shops and metro stations and terrorise/assault staff
attack houses of elderly people
vandalise trees and fences in parks and gardens
fight in streets when they are drunk
leave beaches littered in bottles, food wrappers, shit and drugs wrappers

The police and North Tyneside Council could not care less. Their tactics are pathetic and idle. The police take no action at all apart from occasionally moving them on. The teenagers choose places which are easy to run away from when police turn up. As soon as they run off across the beach or down a track or into the undergrowth of the nature reserve, the police leave. Their excuse is 'Well they ran off- nothing we could do'. As soon as the police leave they run back. The police know who many of them are - yet have admitted that over 3 years they have not made a single arrest.
North Tyneside Council have told residents they have a Community Protection Group. This consists of a few people who the police alert when things flare up. They go out and try to talk to the teenagers. They have told residents they have no powers at all and that it can take months to get a teenager to tell them their real name even. However, they are keen to offer free boxing lessons as a deterrent. They told local residents in several neighbourhoods that the council has a plan to address this behaviour , but after a year of requests to see it they have been unable to produce it despite saying in May it would be out within a week.
The Police and Crimes Commissioner for Northumberland, who says anti-social behaviour is her most important target, has been totally uninterested once the police refused to answer her request for detailed information about their response.
It's appalling. My PIL live in one of the streets where there has been ongoing trouble for over 3 years. They had their garden fence pushed down at their back and hordes of these teenagers running through their garden, up to the house, around the side, over the gate door, into the front garden and out into the street. Police did not even attend the 999 calls from residents until 3 hours later and said 'Well they've gone now'. No shit Sherlock!
PIL friend and neighbour is the manager of a local Tesco Express- he was told by the police to allow the teenagers to shoplift eggs and tomatoes (which they pelt at houses) and alcohol and not to challenge them.
Two boys aged about 10 were attacked by a group of these boys on the local tennis courts. Not badly hurt but shaken. Police not interested.
DH's grandma (lives with PIL) has a friend (in her 80s) who lives near them in a bungalow- these teenagers tried to set fire to her car by pushing lit piles of wood under it, pelted her house with the contents of a dog bin, broke her car windows and her house windows. Police did not turn up to 999 calls until almost 2 hours later when the teenagers were long gone but rang two days later to say they would not be pursuing the case and no reason given.
A friend and their neighbours who live at the back of my PIL across a cricket pitch had more than 80 teenagers drunk outside their house doing the kinds of things outlined above and after 6 x 999 calls from the street two officers in a car turned up over 4 hours later. Never even got out of the car although there were teenagers urinating in front of them. Left within 2 minutes of arriving.
Police were invited but did not even turn up to a local meeting. The council did and PIL said they were hopeless and had no strategy whatsoever except to say they will offer free boxing lessons.

Northumbria Police are a disgrace. They are failing in their most basic duty to protect local residents and communities and investigate crime.

I've seen the police be outrageously incompetent (as all other public services!) But have also seen where time is wasted due to other service deficiencies:

• time sitting in court waiting rooms (can be all day and then never even get called!!)

• teen runaways (children's homes aren't allowed to lock their doors at night like a family would so teens are allowed to run off and care homes have to report all of these to the police, even when everyone knows where they are/ who with/ what doing)

• endless meetings regarding above teens

• attending domestic abuse call outs when the perpetrator has a long history (don't let him out of jail just to reoffend/ go back home!)

• welfare checks when families refuse to open their door to social workers

• malicious calls (can we not issue fines for these?)

• mental health/ suicidal ideation - need quicker access to MH services for kids and adults

• they ignore cannabis use even though it's a gateway drug and causes no end of mental health and child welfare issues.

-they will pursue a child neglect charge if a child is home alone but do nothing for 'real' neglect. No criminal conviction leaves the perpetrator free to repeat causing more long term issues.

• the forms for welfare/ non crime issues are several pages long, can take weeks to be written and just repeat info already known.

Most of the general public have no idea what is involved in being a police officer these days….how so much time is taken up with doing admin, GDPR, files to CPS, people in custody, safeguarding, data quality etc..the list goes on and on

And yes there are bad cops but the majority work very very hard and for little praise or thanks.

What really impacts the public perception of the police is how they are reported in the media and the press. There are always 2 sides to every story but so much anti-police stuff gets written these days and people lap it up without knowing the full facts. But hey, easy to bash the Police just like people do with teachers etc..

@Womblesgash That's the whole point though, it's so badly run that the entire system is collapsing. Police Officers shouldn't be doing hours of endless paperwork, that needs to be delegated to specific admin staff. People with mental health difficulties should be dealt with by medical staff with training in that area. Police should be combating criminal activity - that is their function.

As someone who comes from a family of coppers, of whom two rose to the highest ranks having started on the beat, I completely disagree with this.

One of the strengths of the police force is that the people at the top have done all the jobs on the way up.

Those who reach the top don't have 'attitudes learned as sergeants' otherwise they'd still be sergeants. What they do have, though, is an understanding of what it takes to be a sergeant.

My dad, born during the Second World War, just about the straightest bloke you could ever meet, and, by the end of his career, very near the top of his Force, was firmly opposed to National Service, and would disagree with you about the benefits of a military approach.

"I've had plenty of ex-military blokes come into the job, and all they ever seem to have learned in the Army is how to get away with doing close to bugger-all."

Also, I've never met a copper who didn't acknowledge that there are plenty of lazy, sexist, dim coppers. Just as I've never met a lawyer, doctor or teacher who didn't acknowledge that there are plenty of arseholes in their profession.

They're underfunded, it's true. But also, they are directed. As a senior copper of my acquaintance said, "You tend to get the police force the government thinks you want."

Parades/marches/concerts etc should be attended by the military and the many hours of work spent on welfare checks and the like should be left to Social Services. Not going to happen though as they're also chronically underfunded! Every profession will have it's share of idiots, but I think unfortunately there may be a higher proportion in the Police Service due to the nature of the job. However, a few bad apples shouldn't spoil the barrel.

Also, parents need to take far more responsibility for the behaviour of their children. There's a majority on Mumsnet who feel they shouldn't discipline their children at all, even 'time out' seems controversial. How do they expect a child to grow up to be a good, law abiding citizen if there's absolutely no consequences for bad behaviour? Children need firm boundaries and strong leadership. As a PP said, there's so many feral teenagers these days, whose parents have no clue that they're terrorising old ladies at the bus depot or vandalising the local park while high on Spice - or worse, don't care.

Canada seems to have a much better way of doing things and we should definitely take a leaf out of their book.

@Vincitveritas

Parades/marches/concerts etc should be attended by the military

Well, the opening sentence gave us a clue as to how unhinged the rest of the post was likely to be, and you didn't disappoint.

The government want more statistics than ever. Funnily enough like the NHS it's management and too many senior officers contributing to waste of time and dredging money. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

We're seeing the same on the railways. The government are insisting on a sign off for every piece of expenditure over £500 so the clerical staff are horrendously overworked - it costs more than that in the time it takes to fill out their spreadsheet in whatever format they want it in this week.

Meanwhile the DfT employs 50 civil servants to man-mark Avanti alone. That's 50 civil servants who aren't doing anything productive, just monitoring one "private" operator. Duplicate that for all of the operating companies in England which aren't devolved and the bureaucracy is incredibly bloated. Micromanagement to the nth degree.

Contrast that with BR which despite being officially nationalised had a considerable amount of independence. It was given an annual sum of money by the Treasury and left to get on with the job.

Sir Humphrey would have been proud.

@WalkingOnTheCracks Thanks😆Which parts are unhinged exactly? And what is wrong with the military overseeing large crowded events? It happens during royal ceremonies for example. I don't mean they need to be armed to the teeth and firing tear gas left right and centre.

Yes there is some shit going on in the Met and PSNI
There have been calls for the last two years for PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne to step down, not least over his own and his officers' handling of the disappearance and death of young Noah Donohoe and this. Byrne was previously in the Met so perhaps that is where he learnt some of his conduct. TW for graphic description in image:

I think the focus on police has changed. Its now more preventing and managing threat, harm & risk.

For example
Incidents of domestic abuse which once were 'sorted' quite quickly by police years ago, now take several hours to do. The victim needs to be risk assessed and safe guarded - as with the offender. Rolling arrest attempts have to be completed etc etc....

Now this is a good thing, that we are taking such things more serious and safeguarding victims - but it will tie the officers up for most of the shift. And this type of incident will always trump a shed being broken into, or kids playing football in the street and shouting abuse - which will go on the back burner

Very quickly you will lose all the available cops of the shift to this - or guarding people at hospitals or mental health institutions

Ditto for incidents of missing from homes, people in mental health crisis, ambulances using police for the ones they can't get to as we are first aid trained.

Then you have the case files - which have become more & more bureaucratic - everything has to be redacted, BWV has to be uploaded and edited/redacted - so if a cop has their BWV (Body Worn Video) on for a 2 hour incident, they are going to have to find at least 2 hours (and more) to go through it all and edit/redact it. And the case file is important, otherwise the case doesn't get to court

I could go on and on about the stuff which is affecting police and the service we deliver - but once these new protocols & procedures are introduced, its very hard to go back over to how it use to be.

I was thinking of posting on the AMA pages - 'I'm a cop, ask me anything'.

Not sure how it would go down though and what time I would have to reply to everyone

Their job is not to make friends with people who might (with good reason) hate them.

There was a piece yesterday about an athlete (de Santos?) who complained around racial harassment when his car was stopped by armed police who said they had been "concerned he may have been using his phone". Quite apart from whether armed police are really necessary for this, presumably he would have put his phone away by the time to spoke to him, so why bother? Or if they had actual evidence they could have sent him a FPN.

Many years ago it was probably easier to work out whether things were crimes or not (with some grey areas, obviously). But especially with Covid it became a police discretion whether anything was or wasn't an offence, so obviously they went after people who had hacked them off for other reasons. So people lost even more respect for them, and the cycle continues....

with Covid it became a police discretion whether anything was or wasn't an offence,

What?

so obviously they went after people who had hacked them off for other reasons.

What?

So people lost even more respect

What?

Isn’t there some kind of algorithm to instantly delete weapons-grade nonsense?

samG76
Because people using their phone whilst driving kill people. Google the Bowburn Lorry crash - recent incident near us which killed 3 people and wrecked the lives of countless others (family & friends) - all because he was on his phone.

Armed police & traffic police tend to share roles & vehicles - ie traffic cops will be ARV cops too

If we can find his phone, the evidence will be there - phone logs etc. Or we can apply to use his account to show his phone was active at the material time.

Offences are always offences - COVID or otherwise. And we don't chase people because 'they hack us off'. If you're referring to de santos, he overtook the police car trying to stop him - what did you expect the police to do from that point?