Archive for the 'Police' Category

Questions on Changing Policing

written by allcoppedout from Allcoppedout's Blog

1. Public consultation seems to fail.  Why is this not being addressed?

2. I want to see crime addressed much more directly by officers equipped to bring results at the time they are needed and in circumstances in which they are protected, physically and mentally from violence and other aggression.  At the same time, the public needs protection from incompetent and rogue officers in a manner that does not provide a means for the crooks to escape justice or leave victims subject to intimidation from either the crooks or the agencies supposed to help.

3. There is a massive problem with false complaints and inaccurate reporting of complaints by all agencies.  This is understood in part, but needs substantial investigation and change.

4. “Complaining against police” is a nightmare and needs to be civilianised properly to protect both officers and public from a fatal nexus of bullying senior managers and politicians and ‘stat juking’.  Complex behavioural issues are involved and ignored or dealt with through stereotyping and victim bullying.

5.  All issues seem to be dealt with by people who are not likely to be victims and live professional lives well away from the problems, yet supported by salaries dependant on the problems.  We are all paying into Legal Aid with almost no chance of receiving any benefit from the system (95% will not qualify) and at substantial risk of being abused by lawyers hired to protect scrote or police and other agencies.

6. What is “criminal” is both dismally defined and over-defined.  98% of “crime” is dealt with through Magistrates’ Courts.  This at least suggests many of the problems are “trivial” and could be dealt with in another way.  I see the same criminals (often pathetic people) “dealt with” yet dumped back where they continue to cause the same problems that are not trivial to victims.

7. What is the ‘profile’ of ‘criminals’ in 6?  Across the road, a private house is rented to a benefit druggie with three kids and a recidivist thieving donkey with perhaps 2000 convictions.  They have ‘weird’ night time visitors.  Round the corner, two social houses have similar occupants.  The faces change a bit (though not much) and there is a clear network of ‘evil poor’ families involved in crime and community killing (we should scrap the term “antisocial”).  Their kids are clearly the next generation and involved in bullying and idiot violence not being addressed on a  systematic basis.  Cops turn up and say it might be better not to make complaints because there will be retribution.  They say this as though we don’t know!  Even decent local kids know.  The criminals are allowed to exert influence on kids.

8. The ‘ways out’ have gone.  Much of this was factory work or ‘running away to sea of the armed forces’.  The very idea now, that a burgeoning private sector solution is possible is a  farce.  So is that of the much touted ‘education’  solution.  We do need a jobs solution, but no one in their right mind would take these people into a private business.  In any case, work is now much more efficient than before and we can produce most of what we really need with much less work – and have to to remain in business under current economic thinking.

9. Laws are made by clowns, so dismal they produce laws that would stop them from committing offences.  ASBOs were the classic, but only one example amongst many.  I shudder at the thought of being caught shoplifting, but the law stops ‘me’ not the donkey across the road, or even a few pretty decent people I’ve found selling smuggled and stolen goods (even drugs).  Think of Blair telling us of his great ASBO and frog-marching drunks to cash machines (he’s an obvious clown-plonker) and then  think of the same clown meeting Bush and taking us into war, pretending he was fit to assess ‘intelligence’.

10.  Cops and other agencies are not serving the public and we need to investigate this, find out why and establish a system that tracks offences and offenders so we can see who they are and what is really happening to them.  If, for instance, the donkey across the road is typical, we are maintaining benefit sponsored crime and its continuance, not stopping it.  We are making victims and unpaid, ill-equipped jailers out of that section of the public these people are dumped into.  Much liberal nonsense about rehabilitation is just that – problem dumping – perhaps similar to leaving old people in hospital beds because the right ‘devolved budget’ won’t take them into the care needed.

11.  We should stop lawyers, judges and over-paid cops and Town Hall worthies making big bucks for failing.  What is more criminal – the squalid, low IQ evil poor raiding shops and businesses, nicking your bike and making you feel you can’t leave your home, blasting music, aggressive foul-language and threats, drugging-up, prostituting their kids – or the overpaid nexus of agency bosses, lawyers, judges and politicians leaving them to repeat over and over every day?  We should stop them claiming to be successful when the problems obviously get worse.

12.  Mad, selfish clowns who state that eviction solutions might lead to people complaining about neighbours because they don’t like them (JUSTICE – a cross party set of selfish, behaviourally incompetent loons).  This kind of ‘thinking’ is typical of the selfish mediocrity of schools and universities produce.  It leaves an intimidatory, violent, noisy few damaging many lives far more seriously than a serious beating and can go on for years.

13.  Bureaucracy is the problem, but we need to see what bureaucracy is and who it benefits, not talk about ‘red-tape’.  Sadly, the bureaucrats are the ones “looking to change things” – what a joke – this is leaving the foxes in charge of the chicken shed.

14.  All the right questions are being evaded.  Idiot “suggestions” like “more Bobbies on the beat” are regurgitated over and over – very safe ground for no change.

15.  Cops and other agencies work largely in secret and are responsible only to a rank system that needs to change.  One possible solution is to package jobs for action with those officers involved responsible to victims’ groups for solution.  This should include not spending resources on the crooks without sanction from such groups.  We should stop people being sent into idiot schemes and prisons.  There should be work solutions under severe discipline, including that discipline that can be exerted by those in the schemes on those who breach the conditions.  ’Screw up chummy and you screw all your ‘mates”.  Blaring music type stuff and local intimidation should lead straight to jail with no possibility of return to the community affected.  Cops know who these people are and  should have the tools to act, and know they will not be tolerated by communities they don’t help and be replaced.

16.  How much of all this starts in our schools, exclusions, no proper education designed for the non-academic, no jobs and the rest?  What can’t we blame our cops for?  Maybe we have to bring back corporal punishment (I personally hate this, but some kids are out of control and too many adults are remaining child-like on violence).

17.  The aim should be the eradication of community-killing and the production of a CJA able to focus on real crime, much corporate and embedded.  It will be hard work because we will have to accept that most of our society isn’t working and the underlying models have failed.  We almost need ‘martial law’ until we get a system working.  The current one is riddled with incompetence we won’t look in the eye.

18.  One aim should be to make policing a more attractive job for decent people to do – and we should look at removing ‘money-rank’ and ‘rank-abuse’ from the system.

19.  We need thought experiments to break open cop-prejudices of the kind the blogs are full of, without falling into political correctness and recognise there is truth in much of the complaints coppers make, including one of the frustrations.  Cops need to be able to stop rogues in their midst and we all need to be able to complain without being smeared.  There are new technology solutions to this – all being ignored while money is poured into vapid research and stat juking.

20.  At ’20′  the question is why there is no new technology, confidential yet open system for this debate to take place?

PC David Copperfield states  (p.96) ‘Police management is much more about the management of inactivity than is is about reducing crime, the real challenge being to do as little as possible, take as much of the credit for any successes as possible and blame the rest on society … We in the police have enthusiastically embraced the liberal vision of heroin-addicted burglars making good and repaying their debts by tidying up the gardens of their elderly victims … so we stay in the police station and fill in forms and complete our investigations while the junkies don’t turn up to do their weeding’.

He then turns the usual trick of such police writing to a case of in-bred evil poor neighbour disputing to show us how difficult it is dealing with these irrational scum.  Been there, have the T-shirt from 30 years ago.  This crap does go on, as David, Gadget and WPC Bloggs go on and on.  What doesn’t get much attention in these books or police blogs (there are exceptions – Hogday when he feels like – great rants on Complaining About The Police)) is what is happening to ordinary decent people try to do anything.  My experience as a cop and victim has been dire.

Otherwise good cops and the rump of idle fail almost entirely.  They right-off criminal complaints as ‘neighbour disputes’ of the kind the police books are full of.  The agencies involved become more ‘criminal’ than the criminals or loons, and it goes right up the system into PSDs and IPCC.  The HMIC is more ‘aware’ but treats the public as unworthy of its attention.  ’Remits’ are a massive problem.  I’ve seen police officers (ones I knew as otherwise committed coppers) ignore crimes including assaults on themselves in these circumstances, even acting like cowards.  They will even enter into conspiracies to pervert the course of justice to cover up their failings.  The very ‘evil scum’ they all claim to abhor get protected to the point you’d believe they were police informants.  The problems for complainants are compounded by severe lack of investigation and the attitudes David almost exposes.  All the agencies put complainants in harm’s way.  The system has no idea who is telling the truth and can’t tell a truth-teller from the kind of mad evil scum who are the problem.  The very officers involved pride themselves on being able to ‘see’ who is telling the truth (research demonstrates nearly all of us are hopeless at this), but in fact rely on dire stereotyping of the kind in the books-blogs and don’t have the guts to take the kind of steps Hogday reports on ‘travellers’ (Caravan Utilising Nomadic Thieves).  One or two may try, but these are rare, suggesting widespread problems in the rank and file, not just with liberal worthies and SMTwonkers.  You discover, as a victim, that they try to make you the problem and that elected representatives are as out-to-lunch as they were in the expenses scandal, very much part of the problem.  The complaints systems across the board prevent genuine complaint as there is no independent evidence gathering and much secrecy.  You know you must sound like a nutter as soon as you complain.  Indeed, given the stresses involved, as you property is targeted, false claims you are a paedophile and other made and even local kids start throwing stones at your windows (the perpetrators are networked into this and you are not), noise from domestic violence, music and constant odd visitors  … you do go ‘mad’.  The bullying from agencies is criminal – actually so when cops claim to have been where they could not be (an old copper’s ruse is to claim to be ‘in the vicinity’ when not) and start their own rumour mill.

Plenty of recommendations have been made about how to investigate, but you cannot get these enforced.  I suspect much equipment in use is so bad and incompetently used all it does is point the finger at you for further attacks.  The question Copperfields and Gadgets don’t address is what they would do when the complainants are real, not mad and under massive stress.  And almost no one follows up on complaints of bad police work and the even worse work of Town Hall agencies.  HMIC did in a limited manner (one problem being the agencies control who is listed as a victim).

We could look at these problems from victims’ perspectives, developed through representation and independent investigation (moderated by the victims and their representatives) and we could look at the effects of criminal families in the same way.  The questions on policing arising from such would be very different than the posing done by those able to draw big salaries from evading the issues.  There are massive, unasked questions about who is bearing the costs of our failing police and Town Hall agencies.  Part of the answer is ‘the disabled’ (HMIC).

Look at the costs of fostering – putting a child into care costs between £15K and £50K.  What then are the costs of living next door to druggie-thieving-violent-noise addicts?  One possible solution would be to give a group of neighbours perhaps £100K to deal with such a family, on a sliding scale on proximity?  If we weren’t ill, we’d give a child a home – the creeps who used to live next to us felt as though they invaded our home.  There were 5 of them and all needed either care or to be in prison.  £100K would have been cheaper- so why were we expected to take the hit (we lost much more)?  Decisions throughout the CJS would have been different if this factor had been in the resourcing debate!

If there are 100,000 such families, then £10000000000 (£10 billion) would need to be spent on neighbour victims on compensation and control.  How much do such families already cost in benefits?  If they get £20K a year it’s  £2000000000 (£2 billion).  They could be paid this via the neighbour watch fund, leaving £8 billion to find.  I’m not costing here, just hinting at the extent of the problem.  So what might be available to a ‘neighbour watch’ on what we spend now?  Given we don’t pay such victims for loss of quality of life, property and health, why do we pay compensation to injured police officers and prisoners (etc)?  Clearly such payouts are a privilege, not a right.  A doctor may get £500K for a needle stick injury she may have had some personal neglect in sustaining.  Victims of these scum have no role in their losses or injuries.

We could, of course, think of more realistic compensation, like the costs of moving and upheaval (say £20K plus legal aid costs) and place the burden on the landlord (with possible recovery from police and other agencies).  This would at least give victims representation in any ‘resourcing debates’.  This might well lead to housing placement problems, but so what – when you give a set of these scum a home you take one or more off others.  Unless, of course, you get their policing and ours right and they cease to be a nuisance in the locality you drop them in.

21.  Would you live next door to evil poor?  If yes, then volunteer now as a public service you lovely liberal.  If not, then work out you are selfish scum because you drop them on others and resign.

22. Can we make it a criminal offence for selfish scum to moralise in public about the evil poor, unless they volunteer to have a party wall connection or give up a room to them?

23.  Police and Town Hall agencies should have to maintain an open database on criminal and community killing cases.  This would be to stop false recording, but how could we make it work?  None of these agencies can be trusted with ‘confidentiality’ – they abuse victims through it and this must stop.  But how do we protect the innocent – not forgetting we often condemn them to the malfunctions in secrecy of these agencies?

24.  How do we track an individual case in detail so that we can generate true and useful  reporting in place of “statistics” that serve vested interests and not good practice?

25. How do we encourage good officers to stop bad behaviour by their colleagues?  The IPCC is a disaster, but is a non-bureaucratic answer possible.  Anyone needing to get a feel for how difficult it all is could watch ‘Ghost Squad’ free a LoveFilm.com.  Underneath the gloss, sex and dramatic licence some of the issues are raised in complexity (esp. episode 3).  Cops are not investigated like this, but the issues are real, if lacking in the important one of where we could get the evidence given bad cops from the few very bad to the jobsworths have control over it?  I saw very little criminal corruption by the way, though some.  I’d crash the PSDs and IPCC in favour of an ‘open’ reporting system and trained officers to be drawn from a pool doing normal police work.  I’d crash all Gadget’s HRM and give sergeants and inspectors proper line management discipline back, ‘open’ to public scrutiny.  Somewhere in this we have to accept it is both ludicrous to charge officers at Stockwell and let the brass get away with the lunatic defence of their incompetence and the cover up.  17 members of the public do not not hear ‘stop armed police’, AND no one should have shouted this in such circumstances.  People should have been sacked for the cover-up and attempted damage limitation.  All sides have to give up something in this, so we can get something.

25. How can we stop worthy lawyers making fortunes from public enquiries that are useless and the lying of almost anyone caught up in an enquiry in our public services?  Scrap existing complaints systems and go for open new technology solutions?

26. How can we sensibly target our cops (and other CJS systems) on what is needed by the public, poor kids abused by clowns and so on?  Could we decriminalise drugs and yet put more effort into the problems?  How?

27. Could we decriminalise (yet put more and more effective effort) into a whole wad of petty crime?

28.  Can we criminalise the abuse of the phrase ‘learning lessons’ and actually get on with getting good practice working?  Ban the phrase ‘community solutions’?  At least 80% of the community problem is the networking of the evil poor in intimidation.

29.  Engineering has long benefited from disaster.  They get properly identified and investigated.  Sacking people who have been claiming success when there was mostly disaster would be a start.  ACPO could go, but if we take this seriously we need a new election and all the political parties to stand down until we have a new constitution!

30.  Are we so dumb we really believe its better to have 8 million on benefits (it’s more if you include tax credits), keep importing workers and so on than to organise productive work for all?  The invisible hand of economics is as ‘real’ as any god.

31.  With neighbourhood crime the issue is getting the issue sorted out by response police under a get it right first time system linking police powers and the rest of the system.  It cannot be acceptable to leave the same recidivists and their intimidation networks in place to cause so much trouble.  Disasters in this are commonplace and go on for years.  Proper and tough powers to stop noise, threats and persistent ‘coming to police attention’ need to be put in place and culprits removed from their homes after no more than two or three official warnings – we can lose our jobs for less.

32. Things may be so bad that we need to accept our cops are not the world’s best or anywhere near.  I’m not sure this is the case for the cops but do feel it is true of the rest of our CJS (they ain’t really good anywhere, but much better in most of Northern Europe).  The fact we don’t know much in public debate about other countries’ systems is concerning.  There may be a good model to use as a template here.  I like the Dutch one – but the changes need to be across our systems from schools, through social services and courts.

33.  ’Human Rights’ organisations and people in this country seem clueless and concerned only with middle-upper class issues and easily get confused about the ‘rights’ of people hurting others.  ’Rights’ are not good as the basis for much intellectually (nonsense on stilts etc.), but we also forget we can also ground nothing in thought alone and end up in the ultimate selfishness of solipsism where even other people are just part of one’s own consciousness.  It is something like this drivel that prevents apparently competent people from understanding much other than their own perspective – selfish clowns with high IQs.  ’Balance’ is needed, but again this fails as soon as you watch the BBC trying to be ‘balanced’ and realise they are nearly all arty middle class goons.  None of us can generate all the questions needed and certainly not the answers – but we don’t recognise this half-enough.  We need to recognise Action Man is a plastic doll, but also that the cop with blood on his hands, an unconscious husband and who has just smacked the wife in the mouth may have reasons for the violence (like being attacked with a poker by one and stabbed with a shard of glass by the other whilst trying to protect both) and those who have never been in such situations almost always lack the knowledge to understand – and them remember that cops do use violence wrongly and panic, squirting off rounds because someone else pulls a trigger (Moat?) and putting the adrenaline boot in.  In rugby, you get sent off for the latter and there should be some similar punishment for cops in panic situations.  Instead we end up in lies and cop collusion.

34.  Our CJS needs to ditch “credibility” in evidence giving.  All research demonstrates we are useless at this and need to learn what evidence is and how far it is reasonable to stretch it.  Bent forensics are now with us as well as very intolerant juries, judges and the straw-men lawyers.  We could do a lot better on evidence, but again most of us need to learn we are not good at spotting what it is.  Many case brought to court don’t need to be and there is still heavy bias against defendants and in favour of those who can muster slicksters.  The vast majority of those I’ve seen in Magistrates’ courts are little more than children.  The parental gap could be better closed than through this system.  I would favour pleas for non-criminal restitution and for all other than recidivist convictions to be spent quickly.  At the same time, recidivists should be spotted quickly and tagged until they stop.

35.  Police officers should realise that they are now substantially overpaid and consider what happened to British industry; then ask what it is that is so different about them.  This is true of much of our overpaid public sector and is a substantial reason we have so few factories and work for those we once managed to employ in droves.  We take too much, are too selfish and stuck up ourselves.  The bottom-end, low IQ (yet possibly high skill) economy has been screwed because it was open to foreign competition.  We can’t educate people out of it and need to provide jobs and wealth instead of importing labour and pretending we are ‘better’  - ‘we’ were just less exposed to the competition.  ZanuPFNulabour was wrong to expand the public sector as it did – government should look after minorities and it failed the poor whites totally.  Average cop pay where I live in the castrated North is three times average take home.  That’s thieving too, though hardly Shaggerooney style.  Islam has it that if we don’t sort a fair society there can be no crime.  Not everything is rubbish from any source.  You cops take too much, I took too much and we left a few millions with no work.  Now we blame the evil poor.  If this is all we are, we’re crap and have rendered a section of society sub-human as readily as any clown eugenicist from the 1930′s (we had them too if anyone is thinking Godwin’s Law).

36. How much policing demand is Friday/Saturday/Sunday and drinking-drugging-sports-event related and demands little other than limited skills of presence-physicality-commonsense?  Could this be met by a part-time force and could other areas such as youth gangs also be dealt with by part-timers?  Not specials – this is always brought up and always fails.  There might be much more than cost savings in this approach.  Could we have the resources matched to recidivist housing allocations?

37. Is a lot of policing really “skilled” – if not could we get a lot more done on unskilled wages and a ‘mass production equivalent’ approach through local people who will not be entering a ‘career’ with all the associated costs?

38. What would really “demotivate” our criminals?  If we had proper ‘peace and consideration laws’ and quickly available bodies to stop vile behaviour could we get rid of the criminal family intimidation, street bullies, domestic violence and so on?  Something genuinely local?  Cop books-blogs have it that Swamps, Reservations (Everglades in mine) provide shelter for pond-life crooks and networks to sell stolen goods – yet my experience is that 90% and more want it all stopped and I suspect a ‘containment policy’ that does just enough to do just that.  Parenting is a key factor, yet why is our education so dumb it isn’t taught and yet ‘education’ so vital the rich pay a lot extra to get the ‘real thing’?

39. Teenage pregnancy, sexual diseases, shoplifting, chronic domestic violence, bullying, drugs, booze and so on just keep on and on in the UK.  There is little difference now in attitudes towards violence than when I was a kid in lower sectors.  Kids are often rude, excluded from schools in which there is a lot of bad behaviour.  Public transport is dire when kids are on it.  We only pretend solutions, yet politicians tell us it is being dealt with over and over.  The failures are obvious.  Is all this some ‘cunning plan’ to make the rest of us strive to earn enough to get away from it all?

40.  Could we have a policing plan that demarcated ‘villages’ again and organised communities that actually know each other again with cops living in them – motivated to make them decent places to live, not shit-holes to escape from?

41. Do we have management all wrong?  I suspect this as a management tutor.  The textbooks are vapid and we know they are.  I don’t want scrote families protected by high paid lawyers who live elsewhere, or directors of social services or ACPO posers and do not believe they serve any useful purpose to the general public.  We were supposed to get ‘flat management structures’ – what has happened is the imposition of tall structures with unaccountable clowns behind a mahogany curtain, sending out PCSOs and unqualified staff.  We need to scrap ranks and ‘rank culture’.

42.  Scrap lawyers in favour of law centres staffed by people universities can qualify, and let supermarkets compete on the same basis and pay scales to allow competition.  Get your representative by rote (prosecution too – so the CPS goes).

43.  Local parliaments and scrap Westminster – this is the information age.  Local networked cops on a national basis too?

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The original post can be found http://allcoppedout.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/questions-on-changing-policing/

ACAB?

written by Posse Galore from Travails across Safer Neighbour hoods

A couple of years ago I discovered a good line. Judged carefully, its use can transform situations where violence is going to ensue to situations where it ain’t. It goes like this: simultaneously pissed (US usage) and pissed (UK usage) twenty-something is just about to kick off rather than move on/come quietly/(insert other desired outcome of choice). At just the right moment I chip in with:
"You look more like a lover than a fighter to me".

Pissed up kid smiles, shuffles:
"Well, I’ve never had any complaints . . . "

. . . and moves on/comes quietly/(insert other desired outcome of choice).

Result.

Despite that, I consider myself more philosopher than psychiatrist.

I was in a funny mood last week. Didn’t think it showed but I was proved wrong by events . . .

Went to a funeral on Monday – my mother’s. Birth mother’s that is, having been adopted at an early age. It was all a bit unlikely in a ‘stenders sort of way:
Nice lady: "Thank you for coming. Where do you know my mother from?"
Me: "I’m you’re long lost older half bruvver you didn’t know you had . . . "

Went quite well really – my mum’s "official" family were very kind and welcoming.

Anyway, as I said I didn’t think it showed. But I was proved wrong when an ‘old school’ Detective Sergeant from down the corridor asked me quietly "Are you alright?"

Not really, no. So we got talking. Turns out his biological father wasn’t the bloke married to his mother, a fact not known to many of his family to this day. Which led me to wonder if people like us are naturally drawn to the Police (insert other uniformed service of choice) because it is a family. A band of brothers (and sisters).

Wrong that it wasn’t showing, maybe wrong that I am more psychiatrist than philosopher after all!

"KING LEAR" Act 1. Scene II:

EDMUND
Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

The original post can be found http://prolege.blogspot.com/2010/08/acab.html

Costs of Crime

written by allcoppedout from Allcoppedout's Blog

Crime is estimated to cost the UK economy about £78 billion every year.  This is a Home Office estimate.  Mine is higher, but let’s avoid the trap of throwing figures about only to discover we were all making them up in the first place like bankers on heat over junk bonds.

What I want to know is how much crime happens around me, and whether I want to stop it.  I know my former neighbours were committing crime more or less all the time, and that because they were next-door-neighbours sharing a party wall with us, they inflicted massive damage on us that was never recorded, and that cops and local authority agencies were even worse.  In the last month, someone over the road has rented to a notorious burglar and druggie via his buggie-pushing companion.  The landlord didn’t know, apparently, and has just taken a lot of property out of the house having been told.  ’Burglar Bill’ is now a ‘borrower-from-shops’ and has stated he means to reform, though he is visited by unworthy scum and one has doubts.

It’s hard to get crime figures right – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10338732 – but I can’t really believe as a researcher that the stuff police and the BCS produce is any good.  It all starts in the wrong place.

I’m really only playing with Zemanta at this stage, but comments welcome.  Probably safe to say this guy’s ‘crimes’ mostly went unrecorded either as crimes or in terms of the amounts involved!

Michael Milken

Image via Wikipedia

Looks like a fairly standard corner-boy from round here!  Crime is very difficult to pin down.  Miserable druggies shooting up and then making neighbours’ lives a misery with blaring music, almost constant domestic violence, thieving, corrupting others and kids is a crime, organised gangs of insurance muggers, even the general white collar crime of high fees as a ‘professional’.

I’m watching ‘Johnny Come Lately’ as I write this morning, an old Cagney vehicle with a delightful old lady standing up against small-town corruption.  He’s more or less one of the ‘evil poor’ and she’s taken him on at her newspaper.  I could do with the job!  Probably overqualified!  Life is sadly not so simple.  The crooks in the film are the rich bastards who build crappy houses and don’t sort the water supplies out.  They want the old dear to publish their ZPFNulabour editorials – she’s less of a pushover, broke, than our current lot.  We mostly have clean water here now, though I can’t use my hosepipe after three successive cricket wash-outs.

There are ways, even using ‘statistics’, to work out what crime is as it affects me, you and everyone, in terms of what it is and how it affects us.  We won’t get to that through some cub reporter on the Notlob Evening News of course.  I don’t have a black maid to clean up my clothes.  I guess I have relevant experience as a cop, detective and academic.  Maybe our blogs are the equivalent of the ‘Hicksville Argus’ – at least until we find a way to make them bothersome?  Cagney keeps bumping into decent people, but our lives are amongst the vile middle classes of the Australian novel ‘The Slap’.  Something in today’s Observer on that – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slap – something of the dull liberalism that seems to prevent us saying anything, prevents us getting at crime.  Cagney’s only had his job a few days, has a better suit than me and an offer of ‘riches’ from the crooks.  Where do I go wrong!  I like to think I would accept this offer,  but I’m too weak.

We can build the ‘statistics of crime’ from the ground up, using some fairly standard modern sociology and business estimating.  There’s a bit of an example -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10338732 – in the BCS experiment on crime affecting children.  We aren’t showing much willing for the larger debate though.  Even this Zemanta thing throws up quite a lot of relevant material, amongst loads of irrelevance.

I know what many of the stories would be.  In principle, we could go from Dawkin’s notion of ‘religion as a crime against humanity’, through Wall Street to the kid bullied in the playground.  Big task, and bigger for me as I believe we need a ‘New Enlightenment’.  I’m not talking about talking either – when it comes to a lot of very obvious, drug-related, thieving crime, we can’t rely on being able to report it safely and see it dealt with.  Translate ‘The Slap’ to someone trying to report a vile family of drug dealers and you might well find the same story.


The original post can be found http://allcoppedout.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/costs-of-crime/

WHERE ARE ALL THE POLICE OFFICERS?

written by Crime Analyst from The Thin Blue Line



Following the recent publication of the HMIC report 'Valuing the Police', Policing in an Age of Austerity, revealing that at best, only 11% of the police are visibly available to the public, we have today launched an in depth analysis that delves deeper into the visibility numbers. To see the report now click here.

HMIC warns that with looming budget cuts, the availability of the police to the public will be even further reduced, unless there is a total redesign of the police.



If only 11% (at best) of warranted officers are engaged in visible policing, the question that screams out to be answered is "WHAT ARE THE OTHER 127,000 OFFICERS DOING?"


We went in search of the answers and can reveal them in our report today "Where are all the Police Officers?"

The findings found us asking more questions:
• “Where are our police officers?”
• “What are they doing?”
• “Why are they NOT on our streets?”

The answers cast doubt over the abilities of Senior Officers to effectively manage resources through times of austerity, ensuring that the safety of the public and officers remain a priority.

This report looks at the recent findings of HMIC, Audit Commission and Home Office, delving deeper into the numbers, revealing by force area, the numbers of officers assigned to each of the function categories.

For each of the 43 police forces of England & Wales, the HMIC produce a 90 page “Value For Money” profile. Here, for the first time, in our new report, we have extracted the totals by category from each of the profiles.


The report goes into great detail, listing all 43 forces and revealing the numbers of officers assigned to each of the 62 Home Office defined police functions. The results will be no big shock to front line officers and police bloggers, who have been telling us for many months now, that there are enough police officers to do the job, there are just too many of them tied up in 9-5 office roles.

What may suprise you, are the actual numbers within the forces assigned to the various job functions. To give some indication of the functions contained within each category, we have reproduced a table to help. Within the report, there is a full 62 function definition list.



We were staggered to discover just how many officers are engaged in non operational roles. From their first hand knowledge of their force resources, front line officers could undoubtedly identify areas within each function where departments are significantly overstaffed. Without such intimate knowledge of each force and its use of resources, we will stick to the glaringly obvious areas where staffing appears to have been misallocated.

It would be the responsibility of the respective management teams within each force to justify the number or resources allocated to each function. Undoubtedly among the diligent, industrious and committed officers, there will be a number who are what used to be called “Uniform Carriers”. The drive for value for money from forces, alongside the cuts being imposed on the public sector by the Government may force the management teams to look more critically at the way they use their resources.

We refer to the HMIC and Audit Commission findings in some detail in the report, where similar observations are made. The shift in 1429 officer numbers away from front line duties, and the surge in “specialist” numbers by 1526 is one example illustrated.

Police Officers reading the report will have an inside practical knowledge of the departments, but may not have been aware of the extent to which these empires have grown.

IMPORTANT NOTE

What must also be born in mind, is that within the 63,845 officers assigned to “Community” reflected in the national numbers in the table above, there will be a number whose role is classed as Operational Support. So, although they will appear under the “Community” heading, many of these officers provide operational support from an office base and are not therefore visible to the public. This lends greater weight to the argument that 63,845 is an overstated number for potential visible officers and that the reduced number of 56,542 (explained in the report) across all reliefs is more likely to be closer to the truth.

NATIONAL SUPPORT

This global category contains 6,075 officers. Among these numbers are ACPO ranks, Crime and Incident Management, Operational Planning, Staff Officers & Departmental Heads. We have argued vociferously in previous reports that forces appear massively top heavy with senior management, with too many rank levels and a poor manager to officer ratio. There are massive savings in the many millions that could be achieved by rationalizing the rank structure, with much of that saving contributing to the Government cuts and preserving the frontline visible numbers. The Metropolitan Force is an excellent case in point.

Examination of their staffing levels begs the question “Why do they need a managerial structure that in addition to Senior Police Chiefs – A Commissioner, 4 Assistant Commissioners, 7 Deputy Assistant Commissioners and 26 Commanders, they also engage 49 DIRECTOR level managers, each of them being regarded as equivalent to Assistant Commissioner, Deputy Assistant Commissioner or Commander rank?"

The list of personnel and their roles is staggering. What is even more concerning, is the value they bring and the cost associated with their employment. Here is the list:


These personnel substantially outnumber the senior Met police officers - 4 ACs, 7 DACs and 26 Commanders. Source : http://www.mpa.gov.uk/about/

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

This function is heavily populated with some 2,382 officers and 9,262 police staff. Both from an Officer re-allocation and police staff requirement viewpoint, the growth of this department within the service has rocketed through the last ten years. 20 years ago, more officers were visible for longer hours, were man for man more effective and still managed to prepare their own court files and fulfill all of the other obligations listed. This suggests that a bureaucratic empire within an empire has arisen. Senior officers should be questioning whether more uniform officers could be redeployed and recruited and trained to complete their own prosecution files in their entirety freeing up much of the human and financial resource currently tied up in this area.

BUSINESS SUPPORT

2,490 officers and almost 20,000 police staff are engaged in this area. The functions include complaints and discipline, corporate development, finance, IT, other admin, Personnel/HR, press and public relations, staff associations, operational planning and welfare. As the largest non operational group, it represents the largest drain on overall human and financial resources. Centralisation of many of the functions is being considered by HMIC and forces, and success in this area would release millions of financial resource back to frontline duties and contribute toward the required Government cuts.

We would be interested to hear observations on the numbers, particularly from serving, retired and former officers.

Visibility Numbers

When we heard the overall figure quoted that as little as 11% of warranted officer numbers are engaged in visible policing, we applied the percentages for smaller and larger forces to arrive at the average numbers of officers visibly policing for each force over three example shifts. Again, from within the forces, officers may be surprised to learn how precariously low these numbers are in their areas.


Taking the numbers from these reports. we identified that the workload of visible officers is 10 TIMES greater than previously published in crime statistics and population figures, with each frontline officer responsible for an average of 303 crimes (30 suggested in Home Office figures) and for 3,431 members of the public versus 300 or so previously reported. The table below illustrates the workload in terms of crime incidents and population per visible officer ratios. (Home Office statistics have previously chosen to display such ratios compared to the total warranted officer numbers. This was never a true reflection of workload, when such a large percentage of the policing community are not public facing).



The report contains many more revelations, observations and recommendations for reform and we would be pleased to hear any comments readers might have.

The report also refers to a number of other useful and related publications on police strength, efficiency and visbilty. Click the links below to view any or all of them.

Related reports & articles from Thin Blue Line UK and related documents referred to in this report.

Police Response Numbers In England & Wales 2010”
It’s Official – The Dangerously Thin Blue Line Is Now A Dot . . . .

Police Visible Strength Analysis – July 2010
HMIC 43 Police Force Value for Money profiles

HMIC Valuing The Police – Policing In Times Of Austerity
HMIC 43 Police Force Value for Money profiles
HMIC, Audit Commission & Wales Audit Office “Sustaining Value For Money In The Police Service”
Home Office Police Strength as at 31st March 2009

House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Report on Police Strength (March 2010)
House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Report on Police Strength (January 2010)
Home Office “Policing in the 21st Century” July 2010
Home Office British Crime Survey Crime in England and Wales 2009/10
Policing for the People - Interim report of the Police Reform Taskforce
Home Office Diary of a police officer

Police Federation Views from the front line


Policing and the problems associated with it, is one of the most reported subjects at the moment. There are a plethora of official reports now in the public domain. We have taken extracts and contributions from the major reports and added our own thoughts, findings from our analysis and observations.

Within the many advisory and commissioned reports on policing, there are plenty of sensible, workable suggestions for reform. We believe that any change MUST start at the top and INCLUDE those at the top, namely thse who carry the responsibility of Governing the police. Of all the suggested requirements for reforms we have examined, these are what we believe should be given top priority.

GOVERNANCE. Sort out the Governance model of policing once and for all. The tripartite model of Home Office, Police Authority & Chief Constable is at best opaque with a mass confusion over roles and responsibilities.

Sort out the professional governance of the police service (the whole HMIC / ACPO / APA / HO / NPIA / HMIC / SOCA / 43CC / IPCC etc is a confused mess and needs a shake up). Elected Commissioners, phasing out of the NPIA and the changes to the SOCA model are an indication that the Coalition are treating the challenges seriously. There are far too many quangos and bureaucratic empires and fiefdoms. The expertise and skills contained within the various departments need identifying and consolidating, applying the value for money formulas for individuals and areas.

The status of ACPO, together with its 349 members needs to be remodeled and repositioned so that its accountability is increased and transparent. For confidence to return, it must start from the top, with a governance structure that makes it accountable to those who fund it, rather than the self perpetuating oligarchy that pervades at present.

Is there a need for 43 different separately governed forces within England and Wales? Make collaboration and mergers really work this time. Beyond a few notable projects - many of which were bank rolled by the Home Office - most of the rest are stuck in quagmire of details.  

The structure of the police must enable them to fight serious crime while enhancing and sustaining community policing. This means either the existing 43 forces co-operating much more effectively, or a new national force taking responsibility for serious crime while much more localised forces focus on volume crime in their areas.

COSTS AND CUTS. After years of growth the service is under increasing pressure to demonstrate they are more financially efficient. Shared service and shared procurement are becoming more essential.

Many of the proposed cuts and savings could be effectively delivered by smarter volume central purchasing arrangements and sharing of resources. HR is an example. Why do 43 forces have 43 HR departments when massive savings could be achieved with one central HR function?

The same principle should be applied for all areas of procurement. Equipment and services sourced centrally would deliver millions in savings. HMIC predict that £5billion could be saved by better procurement over a ten year period. The challenge is demonstrating that as a public service the police are strong on value and low on waste. Inspection bodies such as the HMIC and Audit Commission are creating more scrutiny on Forces and the Authorities that govern them.

STOP paying interim ICT consultants vast sums of money for doing maintenance work or else assembling cases for next piece of spend.

RESOURCES. The most effective application of human resources.

From the top down, forces must look at the roles occupied by senior officers right down to the management of the front line. Of 143,000 warranted officers, only 11% are at any one time visibly policing the streets.

How can ACPO justify 349 ACC ranks and above, when only 220 are engaged directly in force duties? A critical analysis of the rank structure is well overdue.

It has been suggested that the Chief Superintendent and Chief Inspector ranks are superfluous to operational needs. Why are there so many supervisory, rather than 'doing' ranks within the service? How many ACPO officers are really needed?

The police’s hands must be untied to give them the discretion they need and to release officers for front-line duties. Forms and processes which do not help the police to deliver a better service to the public MUST be eliminated. Any remaining Centrally imposed short term fixes, direction and targets should be replaced by locally accountable leadership and priority setting. Civilian staff or the private sector should be employed to do jobs which sworn officers do not need to do, and the police ‘family’ should be extended.

Civilianisation running at 82,000, costing £2.7billion (£62 million in non forecast overtime) people has clearly escalated out of kilter. Box ticking, flow chart creating departments and individuals, many of whom impede the delivery of common sense policing rather than support it, must be justified as truly necessary or not.

Assuming that 40'ish% of warranted officers (allowing for shift patterns and rest days) are assigned to front line roles, this raises the question, "What are the other 85,000 officers doing?" Accepted that some back office functions require a warranted officer, surely there are many thousands that should be redeployed back to directly policing and serving the community. This measure alone would increase visibility and start the process of restoring public confidence and cutting crime.

The PCSO V's Coppers debate. There are those that say this represents everything that is wrong with the system, soft, ill conceived politics playing numbers and lying to the public.

Get more coppers out on the street, get rid of 50% of the IT systems within police stations where they are not required and when that is done 50% less time will be spent on emails. Audit just one Force and see how many emails travel through their system each day and how many are work related and could have been performed by supervisors.

Inspectors and Sergeants must be freed up to go for a walk, in uniform, and meet with their Constables and do another thing that is lacking in the job today, talking and listening. Introduce far more job flexibility, trust and discretion - How much talent is lost to the service because of out dated and rigid working arrangements that pay little heed to a) public demand and b) preferences of frontline staff.

The complexity and demands of modern policing mean that the workforce must be reformed to ensure that it is flexible, well trained and highly motivated, with a diverse range of skills and expertise.

A key goal MUST be to enhance and monitor the ability of police chiefs to manage their workforces more effectively than they have to date.

The police must be made properly accountable for their performance as well as their conduct, and their performance management framework must only reward activity that delivers a better service, not activity which keeps officers busy ticking boxes or senior officers manipulating figures for self serving reasons.

The quid pro quo for reducing central intervention is strongly enhanced local accountability, with a new emphasis on more effective partnerships and the empowerment of communities to ensure their own safety.

CRIME AND DETECTIONS. Reducing crime and increasing detections.

The problem here has been the historic one. Set Senior Police Officers a target and hook or by crook they will show that they have achieved it.

Connecting performance to senior officer bonuses has whittled away any confidence the public and frontline officers may have had in the crime figures. This mistake MUST NOT be repeated by the new Government if public and front line confidence is to have any hope of being restored. The Coalition must beware of the accusation that the new broom is failing to sweep clean.

The practice of "Gaming" exposed by Dr Rodger Patrick, a former DCI with the West Midlands force revealed that Senior Officers either encourage or condone the practices associated with "Cooking the Books" and have done so for many years. Statistics may not be critical, but the deceitful manipulative practices are self serving and destructive.

The techniques of "Cuffing", "Stitching", "Skewing", and "Nodding" are known as gaming but police officers would call it fiddling the figures, massaging the books or, the current favourite term, 'good housekeeping'. Serving police officers confirm that the practice is rife across England and Wales and has badly eroded confidence. (The importance of eradicating this practice cannot be overstated - without doing so, any future success in the achievement of the Governments primary objective to "Cut Crime" will be treated with the same doubt, derision and suspicion as their predecessors.

Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the Police Federation, which represents front line officers, said: "This practice demonstrates that senior officers are directing and controlling widespread manipulation of crime figures. The public are misled, politicians can claim crime is falling and chief officers are rewarded with performance-related bonuses."

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and the Police Standards Unit have shown "general tendency to underplay the scale and nature" of gaming. They have failed to tackle the problem. Tere are no examples of chief police officers being publicly criticised by inspectors for this type of crime figure manipulation. Instead, HMIC tended privately to refer examples of widespread gaming to the Home Secretary or the police authority rather than "hold the chief constable to account" because of the risk of political embarrassment.

HMIC inspectors should be made accountable to Parliament rather than the Home Office, and should be drawn from other professions rather than solely from senior police ranks.

OPERATIONAL PRIORITIES. Refocus the priorities of policing back to the Peelian principles, the main emphasis should always be the protection of life and property, the prevention and detection of crime. Anything else is a distraction.

The founder of modern policing, Sir Robert Peel, famously said: “The police are the public and the public are the police”. Police forces grew out of the localities. Restoring the accountability of the police to local communities will not only improve the fight against volume crime; it will be an important counterbalance to the areas where more effective national co-ordination of policing will be required, notably in relation to the development of technology and the fight against serious crime.


Many of the proposals are challenging. But we are convinced that they offer a better future for both police officers and the public.

The police will be released to do the job they want to do, consistent with the key theme of trusting officers for the professionals they are. Central interference must be minimised, professional discretion must be restored, and committed officers rewarded transparently and legitimately for their success.

The empowerment of local communities in the fight against crime will be a substantial element of the renewal of civic life and the democratic process. Above all, it will be an essential step towards rebuilding the bridge between the police and the public – and delivering lasting and genuine, NOT MANIPULATED reductions in crime and increases in detections.

The public will benefit from localised policing which is more responsive to their concerns, giving them a real voice and control to ensure the safety of their communities. Police officers will be returned to the streets where the public want to see them and the question that forms the title of this article will no longer seem as relevant as it is today.

POSTSCRIPT BY CRIME ANALYST

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr G from http://bankbabble.wordpress.com/ for his invaluable contributions to this article. His site is well written with informed content and I would recommend visitors to pop over to his site and enjoy his musings opn police, justice and life in general.

The original post can be found http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThinBlueLine/~3/ps1DbmwV83E/where-are-all-police-officers.html

Customer satisfaction

written by The Blue Light Run from The Blue Light Run

Like most major towns in the UK we have a sizeable drugs problem. The powers that be have made sweeping statements to the local press that the problem has been addressed and those responsible have been dealt with. Wrong.
Not sure why this press statement was ever made but Joe public are not stupid and could see the drug dealing still going on under their noses, whilst the police are nowhere to be seen. We constantly received calls from a concerned community and attended when we could. Given that our drugs problem had been 'eradicated', calls of this type were given low priority. This sad state of affairs continued for about a month before someone higher up the food chain saw the type of comments that were beginning to appear in the local press about the police and their blinkered attitude to drug crime. In no time at all a warrant was obtained and a rapid entry team, sniffer dog and various other specialist officers found themselves outside the door to a flat at 6am on a summers day. Funny enough, so were the press. The door went in and six were arrested for drugs possession. A thorough premises search found more suspected class A. The job was hailed a success...six arrested, on bail pending forensic examination of the drugs, the suspects were kicked out of the flat they were dealing from and seemed to disappear off the radar. The local press lapped it up, it made front page news. Photos of those arrested being taken away in handcuffs appeared in the paper. The community celebrated that their perseverance had finally paid off and the police had listened and actually done something. A good job all round although had someone somewhere of a higher rank not have been so belligerent we could have moved sooner and kept our community happier. Still, they have to live with the bad press, not me, it's not my face and previous press statement quoted in the paper. There's a career move for you.
Despite this being a sound job, we cannot afford to become complacent. Intelligence already suggests that those arrested have set up shop in another part of town. Somehow I don't think the upper ranks will be quite so willing to denounce the drug problem this time.


The original post can be found http://thebluelightrun.blogspot.com/2010/08/customer-satisfaction.html

In Which A Little Local Knowledge Overcomes A Little Local Difficulty

written by Posse Galore from Travails across Safer Neighbour hoods

Back in uniform for a meeting. Different town. Drove to local nick. Walked from there.

On the way back, enjoying the warm summer evening air my happy thoughts were suddenly interrupted: "Help, officer, help!"

Young lady outreach worker very relieved to see me. She has had a mobile telephone call from an alcohol dependant epileptic client to tell her he "was round the back of the shops" and felt a seizure coming on . . .

We started to search on foot and I called up Control to ask the cameras to join in. I had barely finished the description when a collar number I identified as a PCSO called up. He had found the gentleman – knew him by sight, knew him by name, knew his regular haunts.

Ambulance summoned. Happy ending. Not sure there are that many PCs who know their patch and its regulars so well, but then they’re hardly likely to get to know them travelling around in a metal box at an absolute minimum speed of 30mph.

Made be ponder this week’s and last’s interesting spat across the letters page of "Jane’s Police Review", sparked by the chairman of Kent Police Federation criticising PCSOs as a "colossal waste of money". He should get out more.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot." Albert Einstein

"They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance." Terry Pratchett

The original post can be found http://prolege.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-which-little-local-knowledge.html

So, who’s good at juggling?

written by The Blue Light Run from The Blue Light Run

Why is it when I'm 'acting up' (to Sergeant role), the world and his wife wants to come out and play? Why is it pretty much guaranteed that there will be a serious stabbing / RTC / robbery / concern for welfare / high risk misper come in at or around the same time just an hour before I'm due off? (this list is not exhaustive by the way).

There is a perception by the public that there is a plod on every corner, we drive around doing nothing all day, drinking coffee and donuts, pick on motorists because it fills government coffers with fine revenue or are just plain lazy. We are useless, rude, never around when needed or have little or no knowledge of the law. Well, I can't argue with some of those points as there are officers who fit one or two of those criteria, but we are only human, and therefore fallable, apparantly.

I work in one of the busiest towns in my part of the country. It is a diverse, multi -cultural community, deprived in most areas, afluent in others. Like most big towns it has a drugs problem, along with the crimes associated with feeding it. It also has a very busy nightlife. Street crime is rife, as are domestics and violent crime. Desite public perception and a very small minority of officers that may fit said criteria, across the division in three sectors we regularly parade for duty with a full compliment of 3 Sergeants and 24 officers. In my sector its 1 Sergeant and nine officers. This is to police a town with a population of 165,000. Of course thats not 27 front line officers that are available...supervisors have to supervise, prisoners need to be dealt with, constant observations on prisoners with mental health or suicidal tendancies have to be covered. This list goes on. Officers have crimes to investigate, enquiries to follow up for bail backs. Also lets not forget abstractions (specialist skills officers abstracted from duty at the drop of a hat) and training courses. And there are boundaries to consider....a Sergeant from a neighbouring sector is unlikely to free up any of his units to cover outstanding jobs, as they will be left short. In summary, if Joe Public really knew how short on the ground we were most of the time then they would be horrified at the proposals being put forward by our coalition government to save money by reducing officer numbers. See link. I'm all for change, if it makes better use of officer's time and increases productivity and therefore public confidence and satisfaction then great, BUT cutting numbers too much and too quickly will send us down a dark path. We live in a world where arresting someone for fraud can turn into an investigation into terrorism, where human rights apply more equally to suspects than victims sometimes and where organised crime is finding its way deeper into suburbia. These are not scare tactics, this is fact.

One government monkey on breakfast TV gave a figure of reducing police officer numbers by 28,000. There are 144,000 officers in the UK. You do the math.

So when that serious stabbing / RTC / robbery / concern for welfare / high risk misper comes in and I look in my magic top drawer for more police officers, where will I go when I find it even emptier? Food for thought.

The original post can be found http://thebluelightrun.blogspot.com/2010/07/so-whos-good-at-juggling.html

The Most Unkindest Cut Of All

written by Posse Galore from Travails across Safer Neighbour hoods

I don’t think the penny has entirely dropped yet. Actually, I KNOW it hasn’t . . .

Chatting to a non Operational PC yesterday. After the inevitable football post mortem (not that there was a noticeable pre mortem, but let me not digress) we got on to budget cuts. "But we won’t be cutting Police numbers though" he remarked confidently.

Never one to shirk my duty, once I had eased my sagging jaw back into its proper place I resolved to "talk him down" to the real World (quite apart from the inevitable logic that we have suspended recruiting "for the foreseeable future" (2 years? 3 years? (My speculation only)) and officers are continuing to retire an immediate dip is inevitable, let alone a longer term adjustment to a new financial reality.

"Err, we have to save 25% Steve".

"Yes, but they’ll cut civilian staff not Police officers won’t they?" he replied. "Otherwise the public won't stand for it".

I haven’t done the figures scientifically, but I reckon that getting rid of every single civilian member of staff wouldn’t save 25%. Every Crime Scene Investigator, every Station Desk Officer, every CID aide, every accountant, every press officer, every PCSO, every Vetting Officer, every CRB Officer, every vehicle technician, every civilian DV Officer, every civilian Child Protection Officer, every pa to the Chief Officers, every IT and networks techie, every . . . . well, you get the idea. And, of course, getting rid of Sandra the Uniform Aide at my old station, who organised kit/stationery/lockers/paperwork/admin/parking/building maintenance and fresh milk. Without her I suspect the whole town would descend into chaos within a week and be a couple of verses short of the Book of Revelation by month end.

It’s not all bad news though. The Police Service does need to reorganise – it looks like a bit like a brussel sprout made of Mecanno to me – bulbous bits added on almost at random. We don’t want to do "more for less", however "less for less but better" should be possible, and the "less" budget bit is a catalyst, an incentive, a trigger, an imperative, a mind concentrator. Should force the service to ask the fundamental questions –
What are we here for?
What should we be doing?
What’s the best way of doing what we should be doing?
What do we do that we shouldn’t be doing?

Answer that lot correctly and you will end up with a better service that costs less.

What we don’t know yet (do we??) is over what period we have to make the 25% savings . . . over five years, should be positive. Over one year, two years, then it will be a mixed metaphor of salami sliced slash ‘n burn.

The original post can be found http://prolege.blogspot.com/2010/07/most-unkindest-cut-of-all.html

Reality bites

written by The Blue Light Run from The Blue Light Run

The reality of policing is that you never know what's around the corner. This is what makes the job so challenging and ultimately so rewarding. If you don't like surprises, then don't join the police were the wise words of my old tutor. These words still ring true, from the ridiculous and bizarre to the downright dangerous, life as a bobby has a habit of grabbing you by the seat of the pants and hurling you face first into the furore.
I had a moment last week where I had cause to rethink my actions and to question myself. To cut a long story very short I chased a man through three gardens, over two fences and came face to face with him when he ran out of escape routes. A scrap ensued, we both ended up in rather large bush clawing at each other, trying to gain the upper hand. My radio was now on the floor, my asp still just about in my grip. My CS was out of reach...my only real weapon was harsh language accompanied by various palm and elbow strikes. In the end my partner applied CS spray to both of us in an effort to control the situation. It worked, although rather too well in my case as it knocked me for six and at best I could only offer token assistance to the handcuffing procedure.
So, why the chase? What was I thinking?

Reports had come in of a male walking down the street brandishing a knife. The description was of an asian male in his early twenties. As the report came in my partner and I were a minute away. As we turned a corner a male matching the description was walking towards us, a large kitchen knife in his right hand. He stopped. We stopped. He then ran and we both gave chase. The last thing on my mind was calling in a taser team (they were in another part of the division). By the time our scrap started, there was no sign of the knife. Turns out he ditched it two gardens back (recovered), for which in hindsight I am eternally grateful.
When I got back to the nick my sergeant tore me 'a new one', wanting to know why I had chased an armed suspect, why I didn't wait for backup. To be honest I also wanted to know the answer, the repurcussions to me and my family were immense. In all honesty I don't know why I did what I did. Tasers, dogs and helicopters are available, provided you could wait. Unfortunately I felt I could not stand around waiting for anyone, not with a potential mad man walking around with a knife in my town. Isn't that why we joined up? My sergeant now thinks I'm reckless. Can't win them all, eh?

To date I haven't told my wife the full story, I'm sure she would force me into a cosy little desk job somewhere.

-- Post From My iPhone

The original post can be found http://thebluelightrun.blogspot.com/2010/06/reality-bites.html

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

written by Posse Galore from Travails across Safer Neighbour hoods

"I didn’t think Police still wore those . . " remarked a lady crowded on the pavement outside a packed themed sports bar..

"Oh God, what happened?" asked my loved and loving one noticing the red mark on my forehead when I crept in at half past two in the morning.

Yes, I’d been wearing my 'Custodian' helmet for foot patrol round the party town of Distopia-on-Sea during England’s first World Cup Match. Acquired a young colleague to join me, and thought we would set an example by:
a) Walking;
b) Wearing the correct headgear.

I’m not sure whether it was decision (a) or decision (b) that caused most incredulity among the Response and specialist Public Order officers gathered for the "Op England Embarrassment" briefing.

The final score (no, not that one) was:
Laps of town centre: 12
Members of public engaged with: 857(ish)
First aid to Type One Diabetic who had overdone the Bacardi Breezers and underdone the Insulin: 1 (personally I reckon that any Bacardi Breezer whatsoever is overdoing the Bacardi Breezers, but I have no pride and am quite prepared to endorse the product for cash);
Football related violence: nil.

And I would like to take some credit for that, just at the margin, tipping the balance by being on the spot, looking the job, intervening early and - yes - talking to people. I think the pointy hat helps. And I enjoy wearing it occasionally (red weal on forehead notwithstanding) – a link back to our heroically moustachioed Victorian forebears who stare out of the old photographs that hang in the staircases at HQ.

Interestingly, there were problems in the next town up the coast, Foulmouth – I know because our dog and our ARV were called up there at about 11. Bet they didn’t have anyone on foot in a pointy hat! Positive aspect of the coming budget horror story might be more walking to save on fuel.

PS According to Wikipedia the Custodian helmet was introduced in 1863.

The original post can be found http://prolege.blogspot.com/2010/06/quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes.html