How significant is this report that claims the public feels police officers are "more interested in being woke than solving crimes"?

[JellySaurus]

Home Secretary should reform failing police forces - think tank https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-627323366^

Very pleased to see this statement, and the BBC reporting it, but is it going to make a difference?

Do you people just come on here to tell us we are wrong or do you ever actually do any research into what it is we are saying?

We've been documenting it on here for a good 6 years now. There really is no excuse.

Tbf, people have been documenting the flat earth for longer than six years.

And if a child was hurt at the school by Mr Smith, you'd be happy to say to the family that there was nothing could be done to prevent this due to our 'core principles'

If we abandon the basic principles of our justice system (right to a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty etc.) then we abandon our society to tyranny.

Datun

Felix125 i'm not being funny, but your determination to try and prove the opening post wrong is not done by inventing weirder and weirder scenarios to justify it.
but you either have a principle you stick with - or not. Do we record everything or not?

Dear lord, Felix, are you really this hard of thinking? There are plenty of people saying no, you bloody do not.

Personally, I think if you are trying to pretend that gathering intelligence with regards to a serious crime being committed is the same as investigating stickers, you're not posting in good faith.

If the police really, honestly, cannot distinguish between stickers and child rape, then fucking hell, being accused of wokeism is the least of your problems.

And I seriously think you should stop trying to represent them. You're making it so much worse, it's difficult to believe.

I think the problem is that the police have become a "service " and people now ring up 999 and 101 to complain about things are NOT crime . One example from last week - middle aged woman rang 101 to complain that the previous occupant of her house had twice in two years forgotten to change her address on a boohoo order . She said it simple isn't acceptable!

Well it might not be but nor is it a bloody crime or anything to do with the police !

And yet - because the people who answer the phones are not police - they said "there there , let's get an officer out to see you and they created an INCIDENT.

Now an INCIDENT is not a crime report.
It is just a few lines on a computer system . Eqch if those INCIDENTS get piled up on a list that are graded on how urgent they are . This went on as an incident . So then , now that INCIDENT has been created it gets passed to the dispatch dept. Now that INCIDENT has been created , somebody has to read it , and decide what to do next .

So - it came to me as I'm a police officer. I rang said lady - told her this was not a crime , not a criminal offence and not a police matter . Because no crime had taken place , I simply closed that INCIDENT . And it goes "poof " off the list . And that's that . Done and dusted.

So then in to next INCIDENT that the call handlers have created.That might be a report that someone has noticed their neighbours window is smashed and they know their in holiday .

So that incident comes to me . I read it . I go out to the address. Yep - someone has smashed the window and the telly is gone .so that's now a CRIME of BURGLARY. So then My job is to create a CRIME REPORT . This generates a CRIME NUMBER . Now this is a confirmed CRIME I now start to investigate that crime . Let's say there's blood on the window - and I get CSI out and they take their samples and 2 weeks later I get notification that a suspect has been identified. I go out arrest that person , we've gathered all the evidence , there's cctv , it's them , the blood is theirs , we prove that we have enough evidence and we send everything to the CPS , they say "yes charge him " only then does that crime get filed as SOLVED . Poof . It comes off my CRIME list .

Let's say now that there wasn't any blood or cctv , CSI come but don t find anything that could identify a suspect. Door to door been done, no further line of enquiry. I now file that as UNSOLVED - no suspect identified. Can't do any more . Poof . It comes off my crime list .

Every time I get given AN INCIDENT doesn't mean it's going to be crimed .

Let's pretend I got sticker incident . I read the INCIDENT . It says caller reporting that during their working g day they've seen a sticker in a window that's offensive and upsetting about transgender people. The incident doesn't say what the sticker says. Just that it's offensive and upset the caller.

All I have on that INCIDENT is a address where this sticker is meant to be . I can't verify what it says . So I have this INCIDENT to deal with - either close it , or crime it . Well I need to know what it says don't I ? The caller does ya see the phone when I ring them to ask what it says . So I've still got this INCIDENT to deal with . I'm going to make an arrest attempt over that side of town - so I say "I'll swing by the address on my way to arrest Willy Hatband - so I take another cop cos I'm gonna go and try and arrest Billy after this .
I get to address- see A sticker in A window . Ah right . Is that the sticker this caller is on about ? I don't know- are there stickers on the back windows ? I can't see through - so I knock on the door .

Lady answers and I say HI ARE YOU MRS STICKER LADY ? SORRY TO BOTHER YOU WEVE HAD THIS REPORT ABOUT A STICKER . CAN WE COME IN A MINUTE? SO YEAH THIS INCIDENT SAYS YKU HAVE AN OFFENSIVE STICKER . IIS THIS THE STICKER IN THIS WINDOW ? YOU DO T HAVE ANY MORE DO YKU ??

mrs sticker lady is shocked and upset , says no I haven't got any other stickers . This is ridiculous.

I say yep . I agree . Sorry to have bothered you - I leave the address and I close the INCIDENT - NO OFFENCES. STICKER IS INNOCUOUS. Incident gets closed . Drops off the list if INCIDENTS . Nothing further should have happened.

There is a difference between the list if INCIDENTS and my CRIME list . The CRIME list is where an offence has been confirmed. So now that needs investigation.

THe INCIDENT list can be anything. And till a police offficer has looked at it - it sits there - it can be dealt with by any officer , it could be absolutely a load of old baloney, or it could be an actual offence which need's CRIMING and INVESTIGATION.

I'm spelling this out because I think no one except the police know how any of this works . Incidents can be a crime or might not be . If not it's closed . End .
If it s a crime - it's recorded as a crime and investigated.

We get maybe 4 or 5 INCODENTS each to look at and decide if it's a crime or not . This means we have to talk to people. Like in the example above . It's not malevolent. It's to suss out what is going on . Is it a ceime ? Can we close it or is it a crime ? You can only work that out by talking to people.

That's how the system is . There are no "ticks in boxes" . We do t get employee of the month for the most crimes .

I hope this clarifies how response policing works and helps .

Do you want to know about NON CRIME HATE INCIDENTS?

Or NON CRIME DOMESTICS ?

How they're recorded ? They are in no man's land . Neither a crime , but something we have to record that has happened. It's not an offence . But we need a record of it somewhere. This is the home office directive . A govt dept that governs the police service of England and Wales . It doesn't matter if I as an individual do t agree . Because even if I try not to record it - it will be reviewed by audit and governance, and sent back to me with a directive to record a NON CRIME. That's not me being "woke ". I may well think it's bonkers. But I can't get round it. It's a home office dept saying it has to be done this way .

So is the home office woke and police forces are taking the flak ??

stillvicarinatutu
That's pretty much how ours operate too. Call takers are inundated with calls, so usually just document the calls. The filtering system comes at the dispatch stage, where they often call the reporting person back for clarification.

Let's pretend I got sticker incident . I read the INCIDENT . It says caller reporting that during their working g day they've seen a sticker in a window that's offensive and upsetting about transgender people. The incident doesn't say what the sticker says. Just that it's offensive and upset the caller.

This is my point on here - nothing on here has been disclosed to say what that initial call was. If it was as you stated above, it might have been closed at the dispatch stage. But if the reporting person has embellished & lied on the initial call to make it sound horrendous, it will result in officers attending. Perhaps that's what the initial caller wanted all along.

Because - who knows - the 'horrendous' aspect given on the call might actually be true when the officer attends and is approached by neighbours who conform what the initial caller states. Might even be sufficient for a crime to be recorded.

NON-CRIME incidents which are not HATE incidents.
Were you around for the 2012 Olympics? We had loads of 'disrupters' planning to disrupt the games, which we had gathered intelligence & reports on prior to the games.
Remember the guy who was able to dress in fancy dress and run down race track at a Grand Prix prior to the games.
People like him were largely stopped due to the information & reports gathered on them which were not non-crime non-hate incidents.

DdraigGoch
If we abandon the basic principles of our justice system (right to a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty etc.) then we abandon our society to tyranny.

Right, that's fine - so you would be happy for Mr Smith to work in the school and would see no issues if anything goes wrong. After all, Mr Smith has committed no crime - he plays out sex scenarios on dolls - no offences and nothing for a trail to be proven guilty or innocent of.

And you would support the police in this when the family of a victim states that more should have been done to prevent it. The police knew the information on Mr Smith, but didn't disclose it.

Datun
Personally, I think if you are trying to pretend that gathering intelligence with regards to a serious crime being committed is the same as investigating stickers, you're not posting in good faith.
If the police really, honestly, cannot distinguish between stickers and child rape, then fucking hell, being accused of wokeism is the least of your problems.

BUT

No serious crime or any crime has been committed. No 'child rape' has been committed. Mr Smith plays out his 'interests' on dolls. No offences.

I am giving you two extremes to test the principle

Of course one sticker with a non-offensive opinion on it and what Mr Smith is doing are two extremes and polls apart - but both are non-crimes.

So if the principles holds - do we not record any information on either scenario?

For the principle argument - either the argument is good or the argument is bad

OR

Do we have some sort of filter where it can be determined what information should be recorded and what information shouldn't

And if so - what would be the process of this filter and who would determine what is recorded and what isn't?

Documenting what?
What I'm saying is based on 22 years service in the job

It's no different to the routine attempts by a succession of governments to tighten up on civil liberties in the aftermath of a terrorist attack (such as control orders, or when the government wanted 90 days detention without trial). The attack is tragic for its victims and their families, but we have to remember how rare such attacks are, introducing draconian new powers in order to prevent a reoccurrence should not be done lightly. Once we lose our freedoms in the name of "the greater good", we're not getting them back.

I don't have time to wade into this discussion again - work calls.

But I wanted to say that I am struck by the utter lunacy of @Felix125 placing 'likes to fuck child sex dolls' in the same category of suspicion as 'believing sex is immutable and that trans ideology is harmful'.

Totally through the looking glass. Fucking nuts and, frankly, grossly offensive.

So your answer to my question was - Yes

I would answer yes, too.

People do shit things. A police state is not the answer, however much you would like it to be.

I've literally said:

I am giving you two extremes to test the principle

Of course one sticker with a non-offensive opinion on it and what Mr Smith is doing are two extremes and polls apart - but both are non-crimes.

So if the principles holds - do we not record any information on either scenario?

A hence it follows that

For the principle argument - either the argument is good or the argument is bad

OR

Do we have some sort of filter where it can be determined what information should be recorded and what information shouldn't

And if so - what would be the process of this filter and who would determine what is recorded and what isn't?

And I've said a number of times now that we don't know what was originally reported in the 'sticker' incident - so we can not judge the police officer's response.

I have asked for a transcript of the original call - but the only thing I got was a script from Monty Python and being accused of mansplaining. And I thought this was a serious issue for people that needs addressing

So you would have no problems in sending your children to be taught by Mr Smith or spend a weekend away with him on a school field trip.

And if something bad happened between Mr Smith and a child - you would say that there was nothing that could have been done to have prevented it.

So you would have no problems in sending your children to be taught by Mr Smith or spend a weekend away with him on a school field trip.

Yes, I would have a problem with that but I do not think that imposing a police state, with what amount to thought crime laws, is the answer. We need better laws around pornography and child sex dolls.

And if something bad happened between Mr Smith and a child - you would say that there was nothing that could have been done to have prevented it.

No, I would not say that. Read my previous post. I answered this point categorically.

You're not actually reading at this point, are you. You're just lashing out.

And I've said a number of times now that we don't know what was originally reported in the 'sticker' incident - so we can not judge the police officer's response.

And I say again: if the woman who was the subject of this incident had been accused of something other than an "offensive" sticker, she would have said so! Why wouldn't she?

You are looking for any excuse, "there must have been more to it". Well there WASN'T. Own it.

And if you mention once more the amount of time you spend on safeguarding, I may actually scream.

It's a bit shocking to see the degree to which people don't believe in the basic principles the justice system are based on, and are quite happy to have a Stasi style police.

No one would be happy for Mr Smith to be in the school.

But you can't fucking spy on people and pass their private information around in the hopes that you can prevent any bad things happening.

Do you seriously not understand what the police are like in places where that is the norm?

To get back to the question of the police being seen as "woke".

Something that has struck me in a few discussions lately is the extent to which people defending this stuff seem to focus only specific instances of something bad, and completely fail to see the big picture.

So they only see that stopping someone from speaking about some topic in a meeting might prevent someone from feeling bad or maybe keep people from spreading disease.

But they don't seem capable of understanding where that kind of principle will take society as a whole, when it is ok to stop people meeting or speaking so long as they can justify that it will prevent some specific lesser harm.

thedancingbear
If you don't have a problem with Mr Smith working at the school - that's fine, but i suggest a lot of people would.

If I put a post on the AIBU section - to object to Mr Smith working at my local school based on what the police found at his address - I suggest the vast majority would agree that he should not be working in the school.

And what do you think the suggestion would be to prevent him from doing so?
What for a crime to be made law OR
Record the information the police have found at his address & make it disclosable to the school

No, I would not say that. Read my previous post. I answered this point categorically.
You haven't answered it all. Create stricter laws on child sex dolls doesn't cut it, there is no law in force on sex dolls at present and not likely to be anytime soon - so what do we do in the mean time?

ScreamingMeMe
Exactly - we don't know what she was accused of as we don't have the initial call
The police officers won't level the entire call at her. They will attend and speak to the reporting person to establish what they have said, what information they have to back up their claim. If part of the evidence isn't there, the police can't exactly accuse the other person of it.

But we really need to know what it was before we can judge the response, don't we - otherwise we are just getting one person's account.

I have asked for this initial call (as people on here say all the information is available) - but so far all i got was a script from Monty Python

Safeguarding - I will mention it because it is relevant if you are looking at police resource management. Each day, we will get 500-1000 jobs requiring police. Of these a tiny proportion will be 'woke' type things. These will drop down the event queue, leaving the emergencies at the top.

So the burglaries which have happened overnight, or assaults which happened in a pub the night before are crimes, but won't be emergencies now due to the reduced risk level. And we still have enquiries which we need to progress from attending the previous emergencies. We can not progress these due to the next emergencies coming in and the safeguarding attached. This is where your resources have gone and why those crimes can not be progressed efficiently.

So I have asked if there is a solution to this - but as yet, no one has answered.

MangyInseam
I'm happy with crime judicial system and I agree with you - innocent until proven guilty

But what do we do with intelligence on someone? So what we observed at Mr Smith's house for example

If you see suspicious activity - say you see one of your neighbours always seem to be changing the number plates of his car - you can't see what to as its always at night - but it looks suspicious.

Do you call the police?

Do you want the police to record this information - as it may be relevant to a future incident?

Or as he has actually done nothing wrong and guilty of nothing - do we just leave it and not record anything?

If Mr Smith takes up his position and something bad happens to a child - what would the general public say. More should have been done to prevent it? What would the family of the child say?

But would be happy that nothing on Mr Smith was recorded at all because we don't have a 'Stasi style police.'

So what is your solution going forward:
Not record anything
Record everything we come across, just in case
Have someone judge what is recorded and what isn't

So I have asked if there is a solution to this - but as yet, no one has answered

It’s a bit above our pay grades to come up with a solution to that, don’t you think? Unless the Home Secretary is posting here under a pseudonym.

You are undoubtedly describing a very real problem that is not the topic of this thread. It’s not unrelated to the topic of this thread - I’m sure the time pressures on police don’t help them make good judgement calls, and also that the working conditions may be driving out good officers, leading to lower quality officers who make worse decisions being employed. But it’s not what the thread is about.