What are the Police for?

[Tonysmedley]

Which brings me back to my point. traditionally and historically the police were the first point of contact for the general public faced with problems. But today?

Tony

[buffy500]

I was going to bed the other night when my wife told me that I had left the light on in the shed, she could see from the bedroom window. As I looked for myself, I saw that there were people in the shed taking things. I phoned the police, but they told me that no one was in this area to help at this time, but they would send someone over as soon as they would be available.

I said OK, hung up, and waited one minute, then phoned the police back. "Hello. I just called you a minute ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now cause I've shot them all." And within minutes there were half a dozen police cars in the area, an Armed Response unit, the works. Of course, they caught the burglars red-handed. One of the officers said: "I thought you said that you'd shot them!"

I replied with "I thought you said there was nobody available!"..........

Cheers
Jon

Someone else who does not understand the concept of prioritising incidents.
Would you rather we spend time taking a £10 criminal damage report and not going to a lift threatening incident as it occurs ?
I hope that there was not a real life threatening or serious incident occuring at the same time which had no one to go as they were dealing with a non existent gun incident.
(I do realise that this is yet another retelling of a well worn urban myth)

There are a finite* number of Police units, and a significantly higher demand at almost all times of day, somethings got to give.

Under most circumstances, if its not "happening now", it does not really matter if the Police come in 15 minutes or 2 hours. Whatever is happening, has already happened, very little if anything is likely to change.


Just because the public don't know who deals with what issues, does not mean the Police need to hold your hand and make the phone call for you does it ?
Because they are messing about playing social services, traffic management etc..... means that there is less time to actually deal with things that most of the public would actually agree is a Police issue.


We do have a database of every postal address in the county, its just a shame some people are so hard work they can't pronounce or spell thier address, or know where they are at all. Maybe the person you were speaking to was not very good ? Not everyone is a super hero capable of finding every location in the world, I can, but I am good (and am powered by Google)
Our system struggles with commercial addresses sometimes as there's multiple ways of recording the address, ie Tesco Supermarkets 101 London Road or 101 London Road Tesco Supermarkets, Tesco Express London Road etc.....

Who ya gonna call ?

Street lights - Highways
Pot holes - Highways
Sewage overflows - Depends where its coming from, if its in the street, then the local water company would be a good starting point.
Dumped waste - Enviromental Health
Noise - Environmatal Health
Parking Issues - Local Council
Fires - Fire
Litter / Grafittii - Local Council
Lose Dogs - Dog Warden


Not sure how it can be hard to contact the Police on a Sunday morning, its not like they are not a 24/7 organisation.




* By finite, about 10% of what you probably expect

[Tonysmedley]

We're not going to agree on this subject. I have the advantage (or disadvantage) of having a vastly greater experience of policing than the rest of you (87 years and 9 months) In that time the police have lost the respect of much of the public, not necessarily of tbeir own accord, but because of the way in which police numbers have escalated but the perceived performance and availablity of the police has dropped dramatically.
As to knowing who is responsible for what I could also produce a list given the time. Do you have all those numbers at your fingertips when the need arises ( and by the way, street lighting is not as simple as you suggest)
Our nearest police station on a Sunday is 40 miles away; the staff do not know our area. You do not ring up and get an immediate reply. If you do then you are living an ideal world.
None of us is perfect, including the police, but that does not excuse being unhelpful. And I am NOT an awkward sod; I am of the old school and treat everone politely even when provoked.
These are my last words on this subject

Tony (the old one)

[jbilton]

Hi
I'd hoped readers realized I was posting an old joke .... a very old 'American' joke...
Which was in response to Stephens post .... where I believe the GMPs rule of thumb is not to respond to shots fired... only causalities.( I'm told dealers test fire there guns 2 or 3 times a day on Moss side).

However locally I'm with Tony on this one..... and the reason why.
To divert the Highway requires a court order, which covers to place signs to that effect.
This is timed.
Not to remove the signs after this order is finished is technically an offense under the Highways act.
The Police are employed to uphold the Law.

I would contact my local councilor to ask who applied for the Highways order, and who is ultimately responsible for the signs removal.
I'm not sure now, but when I worked for Highways as a planning/enforcement officer, it was 4th floor City Hall Lincoln.
I would write a letter of complaint to the Chief Constable as well.

I would just add that I disagree though that the Police are over-staffed.
When Lincoln City had its own Force (pre 1966) it had 250 officers, just for the City..... and that was a city of 35,000 residents.
Lincoln now has 80,000 residents, and the whole County Force numbers around 1100 officers.


Cheers
Jon

[dkightley]

Unlike Jon, I can relate a true story that on the face of it is quite amusing...but does highlight Tony's concern.

My wife's elderly mother (who lived alone), late one Saturday evening, went to her outside toilet...not really "outside", but inside an unlocked outer back door and outside the locked door to her kitchen. On pushing the toilet door open, she felt resistance as if someone was holding the door closed. She called "Hello. Who's in there?" but got no reply. With no response, she retreated back in the house and locked the door.

Frightened by what she thought was an intruder, she called the Police for help, and she was told they would send someone round as soon as possible. After ten or fifteen minutes, she called one of her sons...who sped round as fast as he could to help....arriving around 20 minutes later. He also tried pushing the door open...with the same variable resistance. He also shouted a challenge...with no reply. The door wouldn't push more than a couple of inches open, so he went outside and forced open the toilet window and peered in, the scene lit by a torch.

What he saw was not an intruder....but a broom that had been stood upright, bristle upmost, in the corner of the toilet that had fallen over, wedging itself against the closed door. The pushing of the door had simply been compressing the bristles....and the puzzle of the "intruder" was solved. And after calming his mum down and waiting an hour or so for the police to arrive, he decided it was best for them to go to bed....and he then went home.

Monday afternoon, a policewoman on foot called at the door, saying she was calling re a report of an intruder.

I pass no judgement on the reasons why there was not an immediate response. I certainly think an elderly lady reporting a possible intruder in the house late at night is sufficient of a reason to send a vehicle urgently to investigate.....

[rufuskins]

The following is the Metropolitan Police's pledge:-

These are some of
our main Pledge
commitments
• We will always treat you fairly, with dignity
and respect, ensuring that everyone has
access to our service at a time that is
reasonable and suitable.
• We will work to keep you and your
neighbourhood safe from harm. Each ward
has a dedicated Safer Neighbourhoods
team that will provide a visible police
presence and will only work elsewhere if
absolutely necessary. They will spend at
least 80% of their time visibly working in
your neighbourhood, tackling your local
policing priorities.
• We will publicise the details of your Safer
Neighbourhoods team so that you know
who your dedicated team is and how to
contact them.
• We will respond to every message directed
to your Safer Neighbourhoods team within
24 hours.
• We aim to answer 999 calls within
10 seconds and non-emergency calls
within 30 seconds. We will always tell
callers what will happen next and give
an estimated time of arrival if appropriate.
• We will respond immediately to
emergencies so that we get to incidents
as quickly and safely as possible – aiming
to attend within 12 minutes and much
sooner if possible.
• When responding to non-emergency
cases involving vulnerable victims and
witnesses or agreed neighbourhood
priorities we aim to get to you within
60 minutes. (We use the word ‘vulnerable’
to describe someone who may be at risk
because of their age, disability or their
personal circumstances.)
• Alternatively, if appropriate, we will make
an appointment to see you at a time that
is convenient to you within 48 hours.
• We will attend regular public meetings,
at least once a month, to agree local
crime and policing priorities and give
updates about crime and policing issues
in your area.
• We will keep victims of crime informed
about the progress of cases at least once
a month.
• We will contact people who have been
involved in a road traffic collision
(accident) within 10 working days.

Presumably this is applicable in a similar format for most police forces.

Alec

PS But when "push comes to shove" policing like many other services is all about perception!

[lateagain]

Too quick to defend ......and probably the wrong people Dave?

We do have a database of every postal address in the county, its just a shame some people are so hard work they can't pronounce or spell thier address, or know where they are at all......

........but apparently can't locate a London Railway Line or EVEN the Stations either side of the specific stretch or it's junction with a canal in my case!!!! Furthermore commonsense dictated that closer liason with British Transport Police would have meant a faster location of my situation above? There's been endless debate about closer cross force cooperation for decades .

Maybe the person you were speaking to was not very good ?

Well he was polite, asked sensible questions but was obviously struggling with a system to locate me. Not everywhere on the planet has "An Address" and this is where databases have always been a very limited tool. You can only successfully interogate a data base if it's "Semi Smart" or actually contains the information. If the system had worked this guy was certainly trying hard and ought to have found me. I gave up becasue after 20 minutes the incident moved on from my sight. The guy was still trying to locate me so obviously it did have a priority of sorts?

Who ya gonna call ?

Now "You can't beat a copper like an old time special...." or so the song goes ....but the "old time" special would have picked up on "SUNDAY"... You ain't gonna get the following on a Sunday....

Street lights - Highways
Pot holes - Highways
Sewage overflows - Depends where its coming from, if its in the street, then the local water company would be a good starting point.
Dumped waste - Enviromental Health
Noise - Environmatal Health
Parking Issues - Local Council
Fires - Fire
Litter / Grafittii - Local Council
Lose Dogs - Dog Warden

Well you obviously don't spend much time speaking to your local council Dave Getting to speak to who's ACTUALLY responsible for a given area nowadays means getting used for "pass the parcel" on semi automated telephone systems and finally getting through to a human who invariably says "Well it's not us. Who is it? Well I don't know. Could you call back in again to the main switch board? ....there's no need to be rude I'm just trying to help CLICK!" In the old days with paper phone books and when it would have rightly been considered important that the phone was answered by someone who was trained each department, the local council or any Utility company had a seperate number clearly listed for relevant departments. Now with one central number I reckon I have to listen to at least two minutes of rubbish before finally having to resort to pressing the number for "any other enquiry". The REAL laugh is to have to listen to "...and may be used for training purposes..." TRAINING???!!! Training who? The people who make lousy automated call channelling systems? That lot need "nicking" for sure?

What I find staggering is that education seems to have embraced IT whilst other public sectors either rely on outdated technology or have invested in vast expensive, complex and generally faulty customised IT systems.

They frequently ask at my local surgery if I have a fax??!!! They look rather old fashioned when I reply ....er no, oh and I don't have carrier pigeons either ..I suppose there's no chance you'll join the 20th century and get e-mail??? I've stopped doing that because the ludicrous justification for not having e-mail makes it's use in education for the last 25 years sound like we'd pulled off a minor miracle

Geoff

[davejc64]

For people to moan about, when they're fed up with moaning about the weather.

[buffy500]

Furthermore commonsense dictated that closer liason with British Transport Police would have meant a faster location of my situation above? There's been endless debate about closer cross force cooperation for decades .

It would be very handy if incidents could be passed to other forces without a phone call, but hey ho, you can't generally.

BTP's national contact centre is now in Birmingham, so wheres the local knowledge ?

Maybe the person you were speaking to was not very good ?

Well he was polite, asked sensible questions but was obviously struggling with a system to locate me. Not everywhere on the planet has "An Address" and this is where databases have always been a very limited tool. You can only successfully interogate a data base if it's "Semi Smart" or actually contains the information. If the system had worked this guy was certainly trying hard and ought to have found me. I gave up becasue after 20 minutes the incident moved on from my sight. The guy was still trying to locate me so obviously it did have a priority of sorts?

Stupid people can be polite to !
On a system where you need a location to process an incident, you can't really have a "non" address......
Although, a station should have one, as I said, I'd have found a location that worked..

Who ya gonna call ?

Now "You can't beat a copper like an old time special...." or so the song goes ....but the "old time" special would have picked up on "SUNDAY"... You ain't gonna get the following on a Sunday....

Street lights - Highways
Pot holes - Highways
Sewage overflows - Depends where its coming from, if its in the street, then the local water company would be a good starting point.
Dumped waste - Enviromental Health
Noise - Environmatal Health
Parking Issues - Local Council
Fires - Fire
Litter / Grafittii - Local Council
Lose Dogs - Dog Warden

Several of those services should offer an OOH service, they certainly do here.

Well you obviously don't spend much time speaking to your local council Dave

To be fair I do spend a lot of time talking to a lot of local authorities, every working day. Mainly about, dogs, road conditions, parking issues etc.....

You can write as much as you like in a Policing Pledge or some other carp, but when you've run out of resources, you've run out of resources and unless it is "more important" (and really more important, not just important "cos it's about me") than everything else, you will have to wait for a free resource...
When you REALLY need to find a resource, you will find one, that does not mean they are actually "available" for the run of the mill cobblers that most jobs actually are.

The bottom line is that not EVERYTHING in the world is the Police's responsibility or in our control, just cos you think it should be does not make it the way it is.

Well chatting to controllers 15 or 40 miles away who have no local knowledge is in NO WAY efficient or effective.

If it's 'effective' is possibly up for debate, but its certainly 'efficient', you don't need to be 'close' to have local knowledge, theres lot of people who commute a reasonable distance to work, nothing to stop you controlling an area you know, or live in.
Lots of small groups of people are not as efficient as groups or larger people.
If you have 5 people call taking in "local town a", if one goes sick then your call taking capability is reduced by 20%, if you put together 5 of these small groups, 1 person going sick is much smaller abstraction. It also needs much less "supervision".
Even before the hideous cuts that are coming, I'd not say that call management has ever been drastically well resourced in any force.

And I do know what I'm talking about with direct experience.

[davejc64]

Just an observation on things in general but it could be applied to this thread and that's why I'm posting it here. I have noticed that you only ever hear of the complaints people have about differant organisations, when they get something wrong, you never hear the praise for when they get things right and I'm sure that occasionally they do.

[dikkidee]

Hi All,

I really do empathise for Tony Smedley and fully understand what he and others are saying and feeling. However having spent 30 years obviously in the same line of work as Buffy500 I have to fully support what he is saying. I retired 3 years ago. I know what it feels like to start a shift (Parade On we used to call it) be permantly short staffed, be chased from bumhole to breakfast time every day without time for a break going from one job to another and then chastised because "you are down on your arrests this month." Unfortunately this is governed by two things 1. Before you arrest anyone there is a thing called "evidence", 2. For most of the time you become a ". Call Attender" dealing with things like, perhaps, roadsigns left out too long by errant contractors?? My neighbours chucked some dog . over my fence and I want him executed on the spot, with calls like neighbour disputes it is also the Great British Public that has also lost the art of talking to each other in the first place.

I like all my ex compatriots knew what is like to go on duty in a large, violent town knowing that you were one of only two single crewed patrols out and your mate was in 'The Bin' for the next four hours dealing with the bueracracy of an arrest or twenty or thitrty minutes away on the other side of the area dealing with a '. Call' I know what it is like going to twenty people fighting, a violent domestic, a serious road crash, on your own with no backup whatsoever - Oh and lets talk about Bank Holidays - the busiest days, what do Police Managers do - Oh we have not got the overtime budget so we will put one vehicle out in this area and one out in the next 30 miles away and we will 'Risk Manage' Yep they manage and we take the risks!!! I was a Police Federation Discipline Friend and in the last few years I grew sick not of representing my Officers but having to represent them for the complaints that were being received which in the main werre wholly not deserved, totally fabricated or worse still they were in dire danger of losing the livelyhoods because they were so under pressure chase arsing about that they cut a few corners failed to dot a few I's and cross a fewT's. The Police Force is a mirror of society and if society is broken, which it is, then so will be the police.

Sorry Tony, John and several others, I have the utmost respect for you all, but to be honest this society has got the Police Service it deserves and now with the present government it is going to drastically nose dive. In the last 10 years burglary, once the most common of crimes is so low as it is almost insignificant in the big picture - you watch it rise dramatically now!! In 1978 I was a young probationer in Luton, Bedfordshire - we paraded over 30 Officers a shift, when dear old 'Maggie' came to power and in her cutbacks within a year we were lucky to be putting out three officers.

Just to clarify any misconceptions that I worked in some 'Carrot Crunching' area of the UK I spent 9 years in Luton Bedfordshire and 21 Years in the Medway Towns of Kent.

Three years ago I did not just close a door on a period of my life - I SLAMMED IT SHUT!!

Onn a lighter note - still bevering asway at MML Steam/Diesel era.

Regards, Dikkidee.

[lateagain]

The Saddest part of your post Dickidee is how it ends. It is pretty much how I and a good many of my colleagues felt when we left a lifetime in education.

You're wrong about one thing though. We don't have the Police Force/Education/any other Public service we deserve. We have the system that our current "democratic" system allows those who reach power to foist upon us!

Add to that the current situation where part of a coalition has completely reneged on a fundamental promise (something incidentally that would draw a sentence for contempt in a court of law?) and you have a can of worms.

T****** (not against forum rules, but I can hardly bring myself to say the name) was "democratically elected" by such a miniscule % of the population and yet had the ability to change our society beyond recognition of anything that those of us born since WWII would regard as good! In reality we have about 10 minutes in a lifetime of "democracy". That being the time it takes to tick a box in all the elections we'll ever get to attend.

So with respect I don't think most of us "deserve" what we've got. Many of us have voluntarily given our time, effort and countless amounts of emotional distress to try and repair the damage done by our democratically elected leaders.

There are many decent selfless folk still out there with the intelligence and commitment to voluntarily try and heal the wounds inflicted by those motivated mainly by self interest.

They at least don't deserve what they've got ...and neither IMHO do those who haven't yet woken up to what's been or is about to be foist upon them?

Geoff

[g0fthick]

The police are there to deal with upholding the law, this seems pretty obvious I would have thought.

There are increasingly less staff being employed by the force, and with the recently announced budget cuts that will only get worse. And with all of the paperwork involved in modern day police work, a substantial amount of time is spent in offices rather than being out on the beat. Of course criminals don't rest whilst the police are stretched to breaking point, so how do you win? The staff that are available will always be sent to serious criminal offences as a matter of urgency, and everything else will be seen to in order of priority.

I'm not saying the force is perfect, I know it's not. But it's not the fault of those employed by the force, they cope as best they can.

My father worked in a small village for a few years with three or four offices whose constituency covered 4 small villages in the area. Owing to the relatively peaceful nature of the place this wasn't a major issue, but my father would always joke that it would take very little organisation to get away with murder, knowing that four officers can only ever be in two places at once.

Unfortunately he's now essentially stuck in an office due to his CFS, thankfully the force has treat him well through it. Regardless of the public image put forward by tabloid papers, they do their best in what is a difficult job. If you don't feel it's your job to find out who to complain to, maybe you shouldn't be complaining.

[lateagain]

There are increasingly less staff being employed by the force, and with the recently announced budget cuts that will only get worse. And with all of the paperwork involved in modern day police work, a substantial amount of time is spent in offices rather than being out on the beat. Of course criminals don't rest whilst the police are stretched to breaking point, so how do you win? The staff that are available will always be sent to serious criminal offences as a matter of urgency, and everything else will be seen to in order of priority.

Let's edit that JUST a bit.....
"There are increasingly less staff being employed in education, and with the recently announced budget cuts that will only get worse. And with all of the paperwork involved in modern day education, a substantial amount of time is spent in offices rather than being out with the students. Of course students don't get taught whilst the staff are stretched to breaking point, so how do you win? The staff that are available will always be required to have a minimum contact time with students, and everything else will be seen to in order of priority."

Doesn't sound like the Police Force OR the Education Service we deserve does it? Furthermore THE priority is becoming more and more paperwork and less and less "Core Task".

BTW just to break one "holy mantra" of the last year.... We DON'T HAVE to have CUTS! We could stop blatant profiteering, raise taxes (Income tax has rarely been as low as it is now FACT!) and improve the services.

Why don't we do that then?

Because those with a vested interest in "being in power" would never get elected on such a platform!!!! Good this democracy isn't it?

Well that's probably got me on a list!!!

Never mind Dickidee and I will just merrily enjoy the perks and bonuses we public sector employees "apparently earned" along with our inflated salaries and "FREE" pension whilst you debate the point..... Give me strength

Geoff

[rufuskins]

On cuts I believe Mr Micawber in David Copperfield got it right

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Alec