stillvicarinatutu Sorry this is huge!
Read your posts for years and lots of respect for you and other sensible common sense officers out there, and what you face daily. Generally you seem to be common sense and apparently working in a force that understands it place in society and that it has to be different things to different people according to why they're interacting with the police.
You don't get to see what ordinary non criminal members of the public, see when they interact with the police in some areas.
One of Dc's friends who I've known since childhood is a police officer. They're smart, well educated, know what a scroat is, what an idiot who needs to be pushed away from becoming one is, and what a victim is, and that sometimes people can even be more that one category and still need the law upholding.
They've been invaluable to us as we seek to not pay for the fact we're surrounded by crime, often the victims or witnesses, and don't need to be further victimised by ill educated officers who want the instant gratification of solving a crime, but don't care about the repercussions to victims, or making witnesses into additional victims. The worst ones don't care if they get the right perpetrator, as they seem to feel it all levels out somewhere.
They frequently treat victims of crime as standing between them and their goals, potential criminals that they haven't caught yet, and act as if we officially live in a police state, and they are in charge and we must do as they order. It's why they've become a problem.
I'm visibly disabled and a repeat victim of crime. It's 50% of the problem, sadly if others report it, then police attending is often the other 50%. I didn't used to feel this way, it's a reaction to how police behavior towards me and mine as victims of crime, has changed.
The well heeled around here use private security firms who act as police. (even refusing access to public roads for their clients, which the police do nothing about -we get its low on the priority list - and telling the plebs to privately prosecute, knowing we can't) The real police just don't uphold the law, from minor (as above) to middling (seeking to arrest a naked disabled woman for biting the burglar who woke her up) major, (refusing to take statements about serious OTT GBH on a mentally ill woman, but publicly demanding street statements over a murder in front of gang members known to be linked to the likely perpetrators) and we can do little about their decisions.
The dodgy round here, use the enforcers linked to both crime, and illicit money lending, but also bailiffs, rubbish collection, etc. Some who aren't dodgy pay a fee for 'services' (but it amounts to protection) the same as the well heeled. The small group caught in the middle keep our heads down and try not to be noticed by criminals, private security firms, or police.
As a result of the financial fallout from Covid increasingly we are forced into contact with the 'enforcers' because they are part of legitimate businesses now, and often the only people who will step in over the luckless middle group. It's a sticky web, but increasingly hard not to be ensnared by.
Our bit is a 'naice' area sandwiched from all sides by the not nice, with a handful of SH in it. We've become a cut through with casual crime as well as planned. We defend ourselves, and our rich neighbors as best we can, and the way we get treated is in stark contrast to the way they do.
Generally police attitudes here, towards anyone with lower social economic status, SH or council tenants, suffering from MH issues, or viably disabled, is to see us as the problem, and treat us as scroats, or attracting crime by our existence, no matter we don't have criminal records, or what's been done to us. We're 4th class citizens.
The desire to have results means ignoring those brave enough to give statements that don't fit the desired narrative, arbitrary 'law enforcement' by officers unqualified to make those judgements, victims being accused of criminality as they're still there and the offender has hot footed it long ago, witnesses being intimidated into shutting up because the police have made a decision, and really frightening situations where ordinary people find themselves ordered to do things they know will lead to crime. (TBF the last is often the much feared by the real community, 'community officers.')
I'm SO lucky to have an intelligent knowledgeable friend in the force that I can call for advice. but it shouldn't be like this.
You can't tell walking down our 'naice' street that this is what's going on, or that some of us live in equal fear of the police as of the criminals. The well heeled generally take the police advice to buy in security patrols, and the rest of us can't afford the advice to move, now we've become the easier targets.
We aren't protected by front line police response here, though we benefit from what else they do backstage in terms of tackling gangs, drugs etc, but I only know that because of Dc's friend.
IMO the issue isn't generally corruption, (those exist and are just uniformed criminals, but are not the rank and file) it's poor education, and the caliber of more recent recruits in a society that has been poorly governed and resourced, in an institution placed under ridiculous pressure, combined with a somewhat understandable police ethic of 'us against them' and a very low understanding of their real role, and the law, and what laws to use when arresting actual criminals. (Witnessing the perpetrator being arrested under the wrong charge tells the victim they'll be walking out of court fast on a technicality, so definitely don't do anything stupid like giving a statement. They know where you live, and no ones going to respond when they come for you)
I'm sorry these threads must feel like a personal attack on good officers, for many of us they're anything but, we desperately need good officers who will travel up the line, whose awareness is the best chance of changing the internal culture, if we manage to change the society and it's government, that most of the blame lies with.