I just don't trust any police officers..aibu

[Ihateboris]

Yet another predator in the police force. If we can't trust the police, who the hell can women trust?

www.lbc.co.uk/article/police-officer-arrested-lbc-grooming-probe-5Hjdjbx_2/

It is completely understandable and very, very sad that so many people feel like this. I have experience of working alongside the police and found that they varied - some were nicer than others and some were better at their job than others. I would have felt happy going to any of them if I needed help though.
DH is also in the police. He joined for all the right reasons and has stayed for all the right reasons. He questions himself daily about whether he wants to stay - the huge reduction in officer numbers and resources means that caseloads are ridiculous and officers can’t give as much time to victims as they should. He’s also disgusted by the horror stories that are coming out about his colleagues. He’s very “by the book” so would 100% report a colleague for racism or sexism, he wouldn’t hesitate. I think that just means that people know to watch how they speak around him though.

There are 11,000 male police officers in Scotland.

45 out of 11,000 is 0.4%

If a man was trying to bash your door in right now you would call 999. It's silly to say otherwise.

I know loads of police officers and they are all good decent people.

Are there issues in policing, absolutely. However, Google tells me that there are currently 82508 men in prison in the UK, that are there becuase of police officers doing their jobs. I would rather have the police, and those men be locked up, than the alternative.

the answer is "the good ones" not tolerating the bad ones.

you didn't read the post, did you. They have gone through the vetting of 3-400 and of those 3-400 48 are suspended.

The figures could suggest they aren’t being tolerated.

everyone is jumping to the conclusion that more officers being found corrupt means there are more corrupt officers being admitted.

but it could also be that there is less tolerance, so the corrupt officers are being reported and dismissed, and those are the reports we’re seeing. It’s not being kept quiet any more.

we don't need to praise them to high heavens for the minimum of doing their actual job.

I KNOW it is hard when you are an institution to change the institutional culture. That does, however, involve speaking up when you see wrong behaviours and attitudes. Escalating it. At the same time the higher echelons of the police forces, with help from the government, must swap out the dead wood in leadership and get in sound people who will not tolerate the bad behaviours.

It is very much doing a "not all men" to come in this thread and say "but my nigel is a police officer and he's lovely". I'm sure he is.

When i was a young soldier i, and some of my female colleagues (we were very few women in our unit with a LOT of men) managed to stop the troop commander making sexist misogynist comments at morning parade and having us do ridiculous things just for his own amusement, by a) asking him and then b) escalating it until someone put a stop to it. And until that happened our lives got a LOT shittier. Until it didn't and slowly in our troop the attitude changed. Had we managed to roll that out over the entirety of the army at that time, we wouldn't be constantly reading nearly as many (shocked) reports about rapes and so on of women soldiers.

Bravo! 👏

I worked in the Police for 5 years as a Special, and I can honestly say that in all that time, I didn't meet one officer that behaved inappropriately. I encountered no misogyny, no flirting, no affairs....and I was young and pretty back then. Even the most difficult people we arrested were treated with the utmost decency and kindness. I honestly don't know how they had so much patience! Some of the people we dealt with were vile - child abusers, drug addicts, rapists....they were all spoken to with decency, given a warm cell with a blanket & pillows, 3 hot meals a day etc.

I never did and I never will.
My dd's know not to engage at all with a male police officer unless they have no choice.
They know not to trust the police, full stop.

Can I ask why?

do you have a reason not to trust police or is just what you see and read in the media?

All of my female friends and family are also distrustful of the police.

It’s not comparable to ‘not all men’
because the women’s rights movement doesn’t say that ALL men are untrustworthy.

I do think there are issues within the police force, not more than any other profession/group of people, but it’s more problematic because of their powers and the size/scope of the institution - but that’s absolutely not the same as people ranting that all individual officers are ‘rapey’.

You wouldn’t say a certain racial or religious group is ‘rapey’ because it’s offensive. It’s just as offensive when you do it about police officers.

Why though?

how many people saying this are basing it on what they’ve seen and read, vs having an actual reason?

quite a few posts on here seem to be “after reading about x case” as a reason.

the press aren’t publishing the everyday achievements- like someone say if they reported all 82000 cases of the men in prison there’d not be room for much else. So they only report the newsworthy “bad side”.

Because they choose not to take the risk. I, myself, have had awful experiences with male police officers, so have my sisters. My niece was married to one who beat the shit out of her. She's now married to another copper who she's discovered is having an affair. My best friend had a few dates with a copper and ended it as she caught him looking at sexual images of children.

Absolutely.
I have been an activist and had too many incidents of being hurt by the police when I have never resisted and always remained non violent. And I mean really quite violent stuff.
I have also been involved in something since, not related to activism, where I was a completely innocent suspect. I was very badly bruised and subject to some really nasty intimidation tactics.
Couple that with experiences from friends and what I hear time and time again from news reporting, I have good reason!
There is nothing that can be done to regain my trust now. Too many experiences with too many police forces over too long a time period has cemented my lack of trust ( and I'm not going to lie, comete contempt for the police as a whole)
That is not to say that I don't treat each individual police officer with the same respect as anyone else. I have come across decent individuals.
But when they behave like hooligans in a pack, sometimes deliberately inflame situations, take individual power too far, target women and people of colour etc they are not fit to act with any sort of authority.

YANBU

I think I may have mentioned this here before. When my eldest now 20 was a baby, I had to take him to A and E one Saturday night. It was dark, raining and I was flustered and I skidded and spun the car. All was ok but I pulled over a bit shaken. A car stopped behind me and the occupant got out. He showed me his warrant card and told me he was a detective sergeant about to start night shift and asked if I was ok. I told him the situation and he said ok let’s get the car off the main road and I’ll take you both to A and E. So I did, and he radioed to his station that he’d be late and drove us there. And he did , it was all legit and we were fine. But nowadays would I trust a police officer with me and my baby in the same circumstance? Absolutely not

I have two males mates whop are in the police I trust them totally

I took the numbers to be vetted from the BBC article. It says 8000 members of police and clerical staff.

The fact that 45 members of staff were employed who would fail vetting is 45 too many.

True. My ex husband was a sergeant. He is the only person I’ve ever met who is properly evil. Obviously he put on a good act at first.

how many people saying this are basing it on what they’ve seen and read, vs having an actual reason?

So among other things mentioned on this thread, the following list is not good reasons to be cautious

• The police force having a continued and widespread culture of issues, including racism and misogyny.
• High instances of DV from male police officers.
• News reports of police officers abusing innocent/vulnerable members of the public like the lesbian nanna girl, or the Panorama documentary.
• Police officers sexually abusing or raping women.

Kind of begs the question, what would be a good reason to be cautious?

Scottish police have refused to charge my husband for domestic abuse even with a mountain of evidence and the fact he’s been charged in England too!

I mean saying "not all police officers" is directly comparable to NAMALT. Because it is the same principle: we just can't tell from outside. From inside? They need to do more to get them out and change the culture.

Female police officers are dangerous too for very different reasons. They need to make up their numbers but can't actually confront criminals so they "punch down" going after people on social media, or even children who make comments they then brand racist.

We lost a lot of experienced coppers and now much of the force is young and desk-based.

If he was already charged in England why would he need to be charged again?