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?

Dealing with mental health calls

I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to say that because some crimes aren’t investigated that the police “aren’t investigating crime”.

Theh are investigating crimes but there are simply too many crimes and too few police officers to effectively investigate every reported crime.

Plus, other public services are so stretched or non existent that the police are being used as mental health nurses, ambulances, mediators etc etc etc a lot of the time on call outs which takes up a huge amount of time and effort

Ooh, was reading this thread with interest wondering if "vigilantes" would crop up (taps side of nose in conspiratorial fashion). I think it's possible that opinions like the OPs will possibly encourage an uptick in such things if it's not nipped in the bud.

Used to have a business in an area with a large amount of vulnerable people, and one summer I think we did 8 999 calls in about 3 weeks for public disturbances etc . We only called when it was getting properly out of hand, I mean clear risk to passers by or signs of risk to life etc and mostly the sight of them was enough to send them on their way. And sometimes they'd take someone off to cool down and get other services involved.

So I've had a fair bit of experience being a service user so to speak, and like all professions, there's a mixed bag of experience, but overall I'd rather have the police with some training and oversight than a bunch of random types with misguided hero complexes, a fetish for hi viz and possibly dubious agendas. Just saying.

The police are useless, our judges are the most liberal you'll find anywhere and the whole judicial system is set up for lefty lawyers and human rights activists to keep criminals free and in Britain.

We're a lawless society heading towards anarchy.

My purse was stolen in a local shop a few months ago. The email I got from the police was "we've got the CCTV, but we don't know who he is, so we're closing the case". Unbelievable.

Vilgilante groups only pop up out of fear and desperation for law and order to return to society. It happened in New York with the guardian angels and then broken windows policing followed which saw crime dramatically fall.

It's a sign of a broken system.

Most people don't bother even reporting crime.

In defence of mental health services (since the narrative is that it’s MH that is taking up police time)

1. police actually have a new policy ‘right care right person’ in which they no longer respond to most MH related call outs. Which is actually fine by us in most cases especially of ‘high intensity users’
2. police have some powers that no one else has eg S135 and S136 MHA. Police are the only ones that can legally take someone off the street or from their own home. Mental health and ambulance cannot actually do this so there will always be a role for police unless the MHA is reformed.
3. in most places now there are initiatives such as joint response vehicles where the NHS provides a senior mental health nurse to go out with police to talk people down and save police resources
4. Being drunk or high is not a mental illness. There is nothing we can do on those ones either if people make the choice to take substances and behave recklessly
5. It is largely not people with major mental disorders such as schizophrenia that are causing police call outs. There is a lot of stuff getting put under an umbrella of ‘mental health’ that is behaviour not stemming from any kind of treatable disorder and to which there is no easy solution for any service to administer. The solutions are much wider to do with poverty, deprivation, unemployment etc etc

Manchester force program on TV last night. They appear to be dealing with drunk people fighting quite a lot.

Does your force keep stats of what they deal with?

We had a very positive experience with Police yesterday when my sons car was stolen from the airport multi-storey when he flew back from holiday. They were great and really responsive.
Not interested in adding more complaints to a police bashing thread, the job is difficult enough and they do their best to respond when you really need them (far more serious cases than ours).
Try doing their job for a day and you’ll change your perspective. It’s impossible, but the very many good officers do try to make a difference.

I don’t really know what you expect them to do in the case where a purse was taken and when someone was burgled - what do you want to happen - they have zero info on the culprit - I spose they could stand in the supermarket and ask everyone if they know this man but surely if you do know him you might decide not to admit it cos you don’t want him to get into trouble and how many days or weeks should they spend doing this? And the burglary -they could knock in dozens of doors asking if anyone saw anything but it would be easier for the victim to stick it on the neighbourhood fb.
All the things listed- burglary, car theft assault are down in numbers for various reasons.

In my area a group has suddenly appeared and are at logger heads with the local police and council. I dont feel comfortable at all with this group, they are all a certain type of person and it is destined to something escalating.

It's definitely a concern but I can also see why they have popped up.

I was just thinking the other day about this. Luckily I haven't had much call to deal with the Police (touches wood) but I don't think that I, or any acquaintance of mine, has ever had a matter resolved by them.

I'm another one who has given them the info to do the job and they did stuff all.

Also, instead of attending festivals to do the 'public relations' thing, how about opening up police stations (those that haven't been closed down) so that we can contact them. Ours are shut up like Fort Knox, as if they are scared of the community that they are supposed to be serving.

I think we may be in the same area.

I can see the why, but as you say, it seems dubious and local social media is very divided.

I go out less and less these days, and I'm even less inclined now.

"Responding to concerns for safety - a highly distressed individual about to take their life.
Suicide is not a crime and should not be a policing priory."

Eh? Who is going to do it then? If somebody is standing on the parapet of a bridge over the motorway threatening to jump who is going to close the motorway to protect the public? Who is going try to get into a precarious position near somebody mentally very unwell and possibly off their face to try to change their mind?

In the past few weeks fairly near me, police have gone out to a house and found a woman and her daughter shot dead, son fatally injured (got as far as hospital but died), father had botched his own suicide with the murder weapon. Several ambulance crews and the air ambulance attended, but the police will have been the first ones in the door. Police in the next biggish town over attended a burnt out car with a body next to it- which I think was a suicide, but only the police can establish that. If someone jumps into a river it's the lifeboat crew who fish them out if possible, otherwise it will be police divers.

For the more common methods, who attends? I asssume you need forensic photographers before you cut the rope, or move the body on the bed with the empty pill bottle next to it, just to help in case in the unlikely but possible event the suicide was under duress or staged by another.

If the chair kicking or pill swallowing hasn't happened yet, and the person has made a phonecall, who is going to kick in the door? If the suicide is completed, who is going to walk up to the parents' house, take their hat off and ring the doorbell?

Why is that unbelievable? They aren’t psychic, if no one recognises them how do you think the police will find them? They don’t have a magic wand.

"how about opening up police stations (those that haven't been closed down) so that we can contact them. Ours are shut up like Fort Knox, as if they are scared of the community that they are supposed to be serving."

Lol. I think you need a time machine. Back to Dixon of Dock Green era might suit.

I think if the general public knew how thinly stretched the police are and how massively overworked they are, they’d be horrified.

I wish we could go back to the older ways that worked, with police on active foot patrol in order to deter crime. Little point in the reactive policing we do now and turning up after the fact. You can’t be un-mugged, un-attacked, un-robbed. The damage has been done.

Our cop shop has a take a ticket system when it's open. Pity they can't add in a buy a sandwich and a drink at the end for your interview as sometimes it's a loooong wait......

The local ones round here always seem to be parked up at the BP garage eating sausage rolls.

On my morning dog walk, I found a woman who had hung herself. She was gone, nothing could be done for her. I rang Emergency Services and enough Police turned up to stop a riot. Then Two Ambulances, and a Fire Truck. I had to stay to tell the Police how I found her etc, I understood the Firemen, they were attending to the lady, and I understood one Ambulance, I even understood a couple of Police, but when I hear people are in danger and nobody turns up for days, or when someone with a medical emergency cannot get an ambulance, I think of this, and wonder what they're doing?

dealing with a forever protest in Epping.

Fire truck to get her down , two ambulances because they cant take your word for it that she’s dead , and usually If CPR is going to be needed that takes two crews , or at least one crew and a first responder because bluntly , CPR is bloody hard work , and they need lots of hands to try and bring them back . More than one police unit , because they have to investigate the circumstances thoroughly on behalf of the coroner. That will mean one officer to accompany the body to the mortuary for continuity purposes , and then there would probably been a scene - it may look like a suicide , but they have to be thorough and make sure she might not have been strung up by someone else . You do want police to do their job properly after all . This whole thread is complaining that they don’t.

Probably the only food they'll get in their shift. Would you grudge them a 10 min stop to grab something to eat between or en route to a call

"Every agency is broken, but the police are the bottom of the dumping ground. If SW, your GP, ambulance control, personal alarm companies run out of time or resources they dump the call on the police."
Add dog warden duties to those Friday night specials. Our local dog wardens are great but out of hours, if there's a stray playing in the traffic late at night, it will be the job of the police to try to catch it, transport it and dump it on the nearest OOH vet. I got an XL bully out of the back seat of a cop car in the vet carpark at midnight once for the pair of brave and enterprising, but not very dog-savvy, petite WPCs ( probably weighed less than the dog ) who had captured it off the middle of the most dangerous A road in Northern Ireland, fair play to them. They thought it was a Boxer. We've taken in other dogs brought to us by the police OOH when the owner has been arrested and no family member wants to take reponsibility for the dog.