To all those wondering why police aren't investigating crime

@ChilliBandit also what planet do you live on when you are saying they are paid well? My husband is in the police and we are on universal credit. Jesus where have you pulled this crap from

Because someone threatening to kill themselves takes priority over some teens smashing up an abandoned warehouse. Human life matters more than property. There's no one else being funded to deal with non-crime emergencies - so the police do it, but they can't be in two places at once. So, non-criminal life-threatening calls take precedence over criminal non-life-threatening calls.

Course 999 should be free but my god it gets misused.

and if it is a 12 year old reporting their mum for not stopping for a burger, they should hang up.

The police are also there to protect the public that includes the most vulnerable members of our society

The law abiding public should take priority over lawbreakers.

I have huge sympathy for the frustration of having to fill the gaps borne of over a decade of underfunding of other health and social care services. I've seen first-hand how support for the mentally ill has been pared to the bone.

But oh, OP, the optics of the police painting their cars in the flag of one protected characteristic to the exclusion of all others (where the colourful public support on police cars for the disabled, for example?) and patting leather-clad 'pup play' fetishists or dancing the Macarena at Pride parades and - worse than either of those things - turning up at people's homes and workplaces to "check their thinking" for tweeting a limerick or a photo of some ribbon. Would you like to address the effect those activities are having on public perception of the police, OP?

I would hate to work in the police nowadays something that was such a highly respected position before much like my own job. The flack that police get is unbelievable and it’s not because they are all crap at their jobs it’s because of the reasons outlined by the OP. Services everywhere are stretched and it all falls to someone else. The pressure is immense for those in the role and instead of the constant criticism some support would be great for those who tirelessly try to do their best in difficult circumstances. Unfortunately this is the case now in most professional settings.
I can only speak for the role I know which is as an ASN teacher. We now deal with mental health, social work issues, speech and language, physio, medical duties. The list is endless, with this the standard job has to be done but there are no more hours in the day, no more staff to facilitate it. Nothing but staff cuts. The nhs support has mostly been withdrawn due to their own staffing crisis.
When you start roles such as police, paramedic, nurse, teacher it’s a calling, you want to do good. Doing good is getting harder each day.
If the police didn’t bother with the mental health call-outs then who would? Nobody. It’s someone’s mother, daughter, sister and they need someone to step up for them. When a crime is taking place and police are unable to leave someone threatening to take their life or hurt others what can they do they cannot be in two places at once.

Okay. I want to be supportive of ordinary, decent coppers.

What can we do to help, as ordinary citizens OP?

@Relevanceiskey Given the Met lost a court case over it, it’s not just my opinion. The Met have hardly showered themselves in glory the past few years have they.

I feel for you and your colleagues. Systematic destruction of public services has brought us to this. As an ex nurse with many friends still ‘in’, I can tell you it is a similar story on that side of the fence too. Nurses didn’t sign up to be police officers, security staff or social workers and yet find themselves increasingly managing this side of things and being told to ‘adapt’. It’s shit. My friends in the ambulance service are also having to deal with more conflict and social problems than ever before. The state of mental health in this country is a public health crisis being ignored by our government.

@BenCoopersSupportWren it's not their fault the public choose to ignore all the good they do in favour of things that fit their anti-police narrative. That is a small list of things amongst hundreds of thousand of calls they get every week.

From my brother, my sister in law, 3 cousins, 2 uncles etc etc. Different forces may vary I grant you but they certainly aren’t hard up.

@Relevanceiskey - having blind support for the police is not helpful. They have a huge amount of power, they need to be able to look at their short comings and make changes appropriately. I am not for a second saying it’s an easy job but it doesn’t mean people can’t be critical of what they do.

@ChilliBandit yes I'm sure you have insight into all your families finances. Also on what planet is 30 or so grand a fine amount of money to live on?! As I said, we are on UC.

The police can't win in this country

I feel for you. V hard job, v little praise.

In some areas of the country, ambulance, police, mental health and A&E have teamed up and created dedicated teams set up to respond to MH crises and ‘regular service users’. Instead of playing ‘pass the bomb’ between services they instead work together to support these people and so reduce the impact on all the services.

I think this should be funded more and rolled across the country. They are called High Intensity Partnerships.

www.sabp.nhs.uk/our-services/mental-health/shipp

I just really think we need to stop and consider to what extent this is about staffing cuts.

You are right, teachers, police, etc were not having to do so much back in the day.

But when we stop and think - ok, who was doing this stuff, in a lot of cases the answer was no one was.

To use a very mundane example, large numbers of kids were not going to get speech therapy. Teachers weren't screening for it in the same way either.

There seems to be two types of things: problems that existed before but which people, to a larger degree, just took as normal. And then other problems which did not exist to the same degree. And then I think a smaller sub set of things, like more institutionalized people, where now they have not much support. (And not that institutionalization should be the answer for most.)

SO to me the real questions are around where these social problems are coming from, and to what extent maybe we are asking too much of the state in some cases to solve issues they really have no capacity to solve.

Labour and experts constantly point out that cutting the budget of one department puts pressure elsewhere. Now we have a situation were every public service is cut to the bone.
Can't say that I'm a fan of the Police. I've never had a positive experience as a member of the public, or professionally. Recently Serena Kennedy seemed to enjoy the orders that she can give out, rather than call an amnesty and quickly have the Olivia Pratt-Korbel murder solved.

The flack that police get is unbelievable and it’s not because they are all crap at their jobs it’s because of the reasons outlined by the OP.

that is not entirely true. And while OP says it's not their force, but this is what sticks in a lot of people's minds (not saying it's right, just that it does happen)

the optics of the police painting their cars in the flag of one protected characteristic to the exclusion of all others (where the colourful public support on police cars for the disabled, for example?) and patting leather-clad 'pup play' fetishists or dancing the Macarena at Pride parades and - worse than either of those things - turning up at people's homes and workplaces to "check their thinking" for tweeting a limerick or a photo of some ribbon

So i think one of the first things the police really ought to be doing is to stop berating the public for "using them wrongly" while these things are being so prominently posted. Back to basics. Visible presence where they can be a deterrent to low-level spontaneous crime, etc etc.

@Relevanceiskey - yes I do, as a family we are very open about money. I also do tax returns for some of them. Don’t know what to tell you, none of them are on less than £45k even 5 years into the job for the youngest. Again it must be region specific, we are SE.

@ChilliBandit sure, be critical of the things they do wrong. But at least have understanding of what you are accusing them of. Most of the criticisms I see of the police is due to a complete lack of knowledge of what they can and can't do and the procedures/red tape they are bound by. Hence people jumping on the "omg did you see them arrest that red head at the vigil!!" without realising that is literally what they are taught to do. Why don't you stop wasting your energy and criticise them for stuff they have actually done wrong. Like, for example, the officers who were taking photos of victims dead bodies.

The two are not incompatible. The unit allows dispatchers to respond to such calls that without tying up an officer.