If police aren’t investigating crime, what exactly are they doing?

[MyAmusedOpalCrab]

I keep seeing reports about police forces being stretched, backlogs of cases, and victims being told their crimes won’t be investigated. At the same time, we hear about officers spending time on things like social media monitoring, diversity training, or non-crime “interventions.”

Obviously, some of this is necessary but if solving actual crimes isn’t the priority, then what is? What exactly are they being paid to do if not investigate crime?

AIBU to think policing has lost its way? Or am I missing something?

Suppressing political dissent and managing inter tribal conflict

Yes. Care in the community and the effective ending of mental health services must have caused the police workload to rocket.

It’s the dregs. For the most vulnerable in society, this lot are an impressively huge PITA and predatory with it.

The police mop them up for us.

There’s an awful lot of policework as what used to be called a keeper not an officer - coping with mentally ill people who should be in institutions, but there aren’t any.

Don’t get me wrong, the work is bloody valuable - mentally ill men aren’t saints, drunks and junkies are very damaging to us all.

My husband is a police officer specialising in domestic abuse and he works insanely hard amongst the budget cuts and difficulties. It’s insulting that you genuinely believe they spend all their time “social media monitoring”. I hope to god you never have to call 999.

Are you serious? Saving a life isn’t a priority?!! What about family and friends who are left behind, the person who finds the victim and those who have to deal with the body, or nurse them if they survive the attempt…

This.

it’s like the paedophile hunters. Police don’t do nuffin, we’re catching the nonces for them.

the police do a lot. Just because they don’t live stream it on social media doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

i suggest you ask for a day ride along if you think they spend all day painting rainbows. It’s mainly stopping people harming themselves or others.

The police also have different departments/units - so the specialised officers dealing with protests aren’t the same officers who would investigate financial fraud, for instance. The allocation of resources (how many officers doing what) is a decision taken by the leadership (who spend their time in an office, not dealing with the public).

The kind of crimes that are ‘not a priority’ nowadays are often those for which there might have previously been a department investigating further (such as for burglary/robbery/assault) but that department no longer exists (budget cuts) and the investigation is the responsibility of the response officers, who are too busy to investigate because they’re dealing with 999 calls (as mentioned before, a lot of mental health/drug/alcohol issues).

Lots and lots of expensive training and courses.

Somewhat randomly, i have called 999 twice in the last 3 weeks. First was a man walking in the dual carriageway trying to get hit and the second was a house next door getting its windows smashed.
Both times the police were there in minutes- the second time I heard the sirens before I’d even put the phone down.

admittedly, I suspect these cases involved mental health and didn’t result in investigations or prosecutions, but the police were there protecting the public and people involved.

Btw I can’t believe people are saying assault isn’t a priority like it’s on a par with burglary 😭 of course assault is a priority.

I haven’t seen anyone say it isn’t a priority unless I missed it?

The OP (and others) are saying police don’t investigate burglary assault or car crime

‘The Police’. They aren’t a homogeneous group. There are many police forces in the UK, all with different management, management styles, budget allocations etc etc.

My (mainly) lovely understaffed colleagues seem to spend too much time on the same drug addicts, alcoholics, (as services for them are woeful), attention seeking menaces, and out of control teens causing havoc and writing endless reports after reports only to see the court system bail them time
and time again, or fail to punish under 25 years olds properly due to our lovely Scottish Gov policies. Wash rinse repeat. But the public are quick to shout ‘the police don’t do anything!’. They do their bit at their end. Sheriffs do hee haw.

I don’t think you picked up on what I meant.

In my town there's always at least half a dozen parked up outside a&e babysitting people there. Plus currently dealing with the vigilante group that has popped up and is a nightmare in the making.

And far too often they descend on my neighbour's house when they decide to beat each other up.

I don't think Joe Public realises the enormity of crimes that are being committed and, due to continued underfunding, we just don't have enough Police Officers or Police Staff!

Ive had to report someone under the Malicious Communications Act and today it escalated to harassment. I suspect from a relative of theirs

Policing tweets.

Your tone suggests I am criticising the police, which I am not, and none of my posts suggest I am. I am suggesting OP is mistaken if they think assault is deprioritised along with crimes against property like car theft.

Nope

I have no tone at all. I was replying to a post that said that the poster could t believe that’s assault wasn’t a priority. The op hasn’t said that at all. I think you have misunderstood.

Whose post was that then as I don’t understand why you have quoted mine?

@MyAmusedOpalCrab
Policing is a mess, has had poor leadership for a long time and needs to be reviewed. Now that many (most) crimes are linked to the internet and cctv etc, not all police work needs a warranted officer and many roles could be carried out by qualified civilians. Yet whilst each political party spouts about policing officer numbers, thousand of those civilian staff roles have been cut - many of those jobs no longer get done or are covered by police officers who switch to non operational duties. I think that the public would be shocked by the numbers of police in those roles too. More pressure is than put on front line response officers.
One only has to look at the poor conviction rates to see that the current system is no longer working - with the exception of murder rates.

I quoted you as you said you couldn’t believe posters were saying assault wasn’t a priority. I said no one had said that unless I missed it. Can you show me a post that said that assault isn’t a priority?

I’m sorry I don’t understand what you’re talking about and why you’re picking on my posts- I’m feeling quite suffocated reading it tbh.