For “ordinary members of the public” who read this blog, here is a brief summary of how weekend night shifts work. At about 4.00 pm on Friday, a tsunami of wasters leave their richly carpeted offices, make their way to specially designated parking spaces in the yard at the nick and then go home for an uninterrupted weekend of domestic bliss, or whatever it is that people who actually get to see their kids grow up do at weekends.
The police station is then left to the rest of us; those who actually work for a living. I refer to the uniformed front-line officers whatever their stripe, the custody teams and support civilians such as CSI and Front Counter staff. There will also be the occasional hand wringers left in CID, but only until about 10.00 pm. Qualification for the later department seems to be the ability to spot a uniform coming for help or advice at 100 paces, and the ability to say “no” in five different languages.
The laws of natural selection mean that those of us left standing, are the only ones who are stupid or mad enough to not only care what is about to happen in our alcohol soaked, vomit covered, kebab littered version of Beirut, but to stay and do something about it. I include our colleagues in the ambulance service and NHS in this. Officers are always approaching me and complaining about the exodus on Friday afternoon. I tell them that this is a good thing. The last thing we want is number crunchers and paper pushers around, making everything more complicated, just when things are about to get interesting.
I will spare you the statistics of what happens in the next 48 hours; take it from me that a relatively small number of officers service a huge demand, often in dangerous or tense environments, following an ever changing set of local or national protocols (a mistake in any one of which can lose you your pension) making decisions (often potentially life-changing) in quick time. Fights, road accidents, suicides, deaths, domestic violence, mini riots and burglaries for the street cops, complaints, custody reviews, PACE authorities, resourcing issues, welfare (and the street cop incidents if I can get to them) for me. Shouting, violence, mental health, paperwork and risk assessments for the custody team.
If I gave you the numbers of officers serving the tens of thousands of people living in our town, you wouldn’t believe me.
Most of us doing this absolutely love this job. We wouldn’t have it any other way (except perhaps for more human resources). We do it because we want to. But then there is always Monday morning. The tidal wave of refreshed “ivory tower dwellers” return and begin the process of criticising everything we have done over the weekend. We don’t mind because we have made a real difference and we can sleep easy.
And I thought my job was difficult.
I do meet some real troglodytes on building sites in my job, and have to try and tell them what to do in the nicest possible manner, I still have that lever, meaning that if they insist on being a pain in the backside I might be ‘difficult’ over their certificate at the end of the month. Which means they won’t get paid.
At least I don’t tend to get vomited upon, hit or stabbed. Or not yet, anyway.
Can I ask who you mean by wasters?
And then, of course, there are the mad people like me who come in at the weekends to help for free (Specials). All we see of the job, mostly, is Friday and Saturday evenings and nights…
Although the plus side is that most of the people you refer to who work only during the week are just a a myth or a name on an email to us!
I prefer to refer to the ivory tower dwellers as the nine o’clock jury, because on Monday morning at a sociable hour being fully equipped with hindsight they never make a wrong decision but judge everyone else who has. Despite the fact that many got promoted to get away from front line policing in the quickest possible time they don’t realise that when its late, and you’re outnumberd and the only sober person along with you is your colleague, scuffling and fighting, that decision making takes a second place to survival.
Ah the blessed Ivory Tower dwellers. What a sweet race they are. Protected and isolated from the reality of not just policing, but everyday life. At 1700 on a Friday they leave the Nick and simply enter a capsule that insulates and protects like the womb. They are then released, refreshed and raring to go to fight crime…sorry to slander bobbies, to create new and fresh policies…sorry pain in the ass paperwork….
God I love my job!!!
Goodness me, 1700hrs on a Friday, the tumble weed is blowing through our back yard at about 1500 on ‘POETS’ day.
I think justacop and I work at the same nick. The light duty brigade have well and truly left the building by 15.00 along with the pen pushers and those that have reached the rank on chief inspector and above. I can say for sure there is no chance I will ever join them.
I’ve long been a supporter of the army attitude, ie. you’re a soldier first and foremost, regardless of your specialist role - therefore you’re expected to keep up to speed on that role.
Every copper, of every team and every role and rank should have to do a minimum of 1 shift per week on the front line - everyone from the top down, including CID and domestic violence teams.
would put more experience on the front line, and also remind everyone just what the strengths and weaknesses of their system are.
I’d also be a proponent of getting all these ponces in their C&A suits back into uniform - better for the public and would remind them that they are coppers, not office workers!
Labrat, well said. The new National Policing Standards (yet another unecessary police organisation set up to police the police) lot are touting that chief officers will do one day a year ‘on the streets’, whats the bet it will be something like a Wednesday day tour when the demand is at its lowest. Police officers are still police officers regardless of their role and they get paid for what they ‘may be called upon to do’, not necessarily what they do. The buck stops with front line officers, after all they have nobody else they can pass the latest job to, which incidentally has just been passed down to them.
At the risk of being hung out to dry by an avalanche of pissed-off coppers, can I suggest that an organisation as complicated as the police does actually need a few administrators ? The thing is that some of the shiny-arses might be better at number crunching and policy making than breaking up fights, so you might not actually want them backing you up on a Saturday night. You (and the public) might benefit though from having them do a good job at what they do (and it probably doesn’t have to be done at the weekend). They don’t of course have an automatic right to slag off what you have been doing when they get back to their desks on Monday morning.
Hey boss, good post. Its always amazing to see how empty the car park is come 16:00 on a Friday.
Yet the weekend is when we get the most reported crimes!!
Would you open a shop on the weekend with only a handfull of staff?
In fact on that subject the local tescos has more staff over the weeken than police patrolling the entire city.
HARLEY the wasters would be the CID whose favourite phrase is “sorry mate not in our remit” i.e a male gets arrested with 20 rocks of crack 9 bags of cannabis and 4 wraps of apmhetamine along with £600 plus cash. To you, me, the man walking down the street and every other person that is possession with intent to supply, to the suits..”oooh your pushing it for supply i’d say personal” translated means “i cant be bothered to deal with him”…thats just my experience of the local CID as a front line officer…not that im bitter!!
“The thing is that some of the shiny-arses might be better at number crunching and policy making than breaking up fights, so you might not actually want them backing you up on a Saturday night”
but the thingthat everyone knows is that at 23.15 on saturday, the thing thats needed is bodies, drivers, people to take statements about how someones boyfriend twatted someone else…
just not going to happen with 6 coppers on duty and 40 pubs to police
while I’m on it, get rid of the PCSO’s and form a paid “territorial police force” out of the specials - “reserve police officers” as it were.
Nice one labrat, lets get rid of the PCSO’s after all where are they on a Friday and Saturday night when it’s all gone wrong in the town centre, not that I blame them, as they are the invention of the home office under Blunket.
The government wants another 10,000 of them to help reassure the public that the streets are well Policed. I don’t think joe public are fooled by this half baked plan to show that there are Police on the streets, after all come midnight they have to be off the street and out of danger. The streets are too dangerous for them but safe enough for Joe public.
What a total waste of public money and resources.
Had a CID team that took turns to proactively cover the late turn for a couple of years. Got stopped thou by suits at HQ cuss of the cost. Agree entirely regarding the numbers on shift and how horrified the general public would be if they knew. We had one busy Friday night where the entire late turn was covered by 6 pcs and 2 specials… for a town of 135K people… dangerous times.
You still have us lot of mad fools to help you. I hate to think what would have happened on a number of occassions had we not doubled the numbers on shift on a weekend. We are here to help you, just ask!
re PCSO’s, remember that ACPO slavishly supported the move, probably even suggested it via Ian ‘Leave yer doors open’ Bliar. Whilst PCSOs aren’t much use practically, they provide evidence of the increase, percentage wise, in the various quotas necessary post ‘macpherson’ regarding the ethnic makeup of the police service, especially in London. The horror stories about these ‘new police’ from the Met increase daily, but then we’re not surprised by anything anymore, are we?
The last time I visited London they were roaming the street like gangs in threes and fours, is that still the case?
Personally I like the weekend.
I go into work and there’s no crap e-mails telling me I haven’t done this or should have done that, the bosses are safely out of the way and CID aren’t clogging up custody with re-bails.
It’s almost like real policing for an idyllic few days every week!
Nice post there gaffer. However, I am vexed about some of the comments about the CID on this page. Me and my crew work some of the most killer hours you could shake a stick at. We work nights, days, lates to earlies, no-notice shift changes and extended tours of duty are normal. I class myself as a front line officer and I work to the radio, supporting my mates and colleagues in uniform on my patch on local, sector and response when the shit hits or they need a plain clothes. I reap what I sow. I ease their burden and make work for myself on hourly basis but that is the ethic in my gang. I’m sorry some of you have a jaundiced view of the CID but I reckon some of you haven’t worked the main office and seen the punishing stuff we do. I could out-respond loads of coppers who criticise my crew and we ASK to work the Friday and Sat and Sunday nights but the management wont pay us to play.
I agree with all the stuff about the Friday afternoon gang though. But we don’t allow the armchair coppers to make comments about us without a fight back! Grrrr.
Spot on boss, the best description I have seen of the weekend.
We have a few good CID who want to play but they are a rare breed, most hate anything after ten unless it involves a murder and there is a good o/t budget
Quite agree with the PCSO comments and I’m about to become one.
But I’m a special right now and doing it for free, so I’ll be paid to do nothing and not get involved in anything in case I get hurt.
Possibly my attitude towards the job doesnt match the Lieblair concept, but it’ll pay my mortgage until I can get a real job again.
Sorry PO’d that you have to go down this route. A number of PCSO’s just seem to be using this as a stepping stone to the real police, so this may work for you. Seems everyoned wants to recruit PCSO, but not police constables currently. An intriguing dilemma, are you still a special constable with the extra powers as a PCSO, or can you only be a PCSO and not use your SC powers?
Excellent post Mr Gadget. I worked all of my 30yrs on earlies, lates & nights and can identify with every part of your account - an illumination for the wasters and the public alike. However it’s not as if we have too few officers to address these problems, it’s just that they are in the wrong places and the people who shoulder the real responsibility for that are too far up the food chain to be concerned with the rest of us.
Keep it up!.
It just amazes me how every month there seems to be a new squad or a new a new “such-and-such-officer” craeted. And how all of them work 9-5. Do burglaries not happen on weekends? Well, of course they do, it’s just that burglary squad aren’t around to deal with them. So who gets them? Shift & beats, that’s who.
Of course, on the plus side, there is the fact that it’s quite good fun being the guy who gets to phone up the duty Superintendant at 5am on a Sunday morning and ask him to come into the nick for some suthority that needs signing up…
Brilliant blog. At the ripe age of 45 I joined the dog section and got myself back on the front line having had a few years on various squads. Its the best decision I have ever made. From personal experience there aint many Insp Gadgets left out there and the service will ultimately suffer (as will Joe Public) in years to come. Between the IPCC CENTREX PCSOs and very pretty probationers who dont want to get there hands dirty and too many people sitting around coming up with good ideas for other people to do Policing is going down hill fast! Well done Insp for telling it how it is.
“The new National Policing Standards (yet another unecessary police organisation set up to police the police) lot”
You poor b*stards. If this group is anything like any other National (X) Standards group you are well and truly stuffed. You think your job is pointless and bureaucratic now, wait till you have these drongos chasing you round demanding you fill in pointless forms all day that aren’t even related to your job (it’s related to their job so they can justify their own existence).
“are touting that chief officers will do one day a year ‘on the streets’, whats the bet it will be something like a Wednesday day tour when the demand is at its lowest.”
Any half-decent manager should do this ; or at the very least make an effort to find out what his team are really doing and thinking, or even just being seen to be interested.
Anyone who seriously thinks they can assess any job by doing one day a year is seriously deluded.
“At the risk of being hung out to dry by an avalanche of pissed-off coppers, can I suggest that an organisation as complicated as the police does actually need a few administrators ?”
Of course it does. However, those administrators need to be working for the coppers - not the coppers working for the administrators, and they need to be support staff, not a growing bureaucracy in itself.
What happens is progressive. The front-line Plod see people promoted, well paid, and dossing, and there is always a huge temptation to join the skive crew. This then becomes worse because the remaining front liners, who do the actual “work” are under even more pressure.
“The thing is that some of the shiny-arses might be better at number crunching and policy making than breaking up fights, so you might not actually want them backing you up on a Saturday night.”
No, they aren’t. They get their promotion by brown nosing, bullsh*tting, talking the currently fashionable talk. How many Chief Constables worked their way up from Constables and made progress by being a “damn good copper”, versus those who went on a Sociology Degree ? Can anyone seriously believe Blair and Brunstrom were *ever* competent Police Officers ?
“You (and the public) might benefit though from having them do a good job at what they do (and it probably doesn’t have to be done at the weekend). They don’t of course have an automatic right to slag off what you have been doing when they get back to their desks on Monday morning.”
… they think they do.
Come off it folks - this has to be the longest running and least relevant blog ever. As a Pc, I always KNEW I had the toughest job and no-one understood… as a SGT / INSP it was the same. Seems when I became a Ch Insp, and now Supt, all my previous street work of 17 years was forgotten and now I’m a “waster”…. even though I work nights as firearms commander, still do public order training and get deployed on the football as a ground bronze … and yes, have to go to loads of meetings about important but not very exciting stuff, work on call for PACE and serious crime on my BCU and beyond … and take a mobile phone or pager to my kid’s parties etc…. Yes, sometimes I get a free weekend where I get to be a parent again…. but I don’t get shift patterns with 4 days off, overtime for every 15mins I work on, without on call etc…. I reckon every job is tough in the service and none of us have it easy so why not recognise that and work as a team against the bad guys and crap processes that stop us achieving what we are here for, instead of slagging off each other.
OperationalBoss I have some sympathy with your situation with regards to overtime etc, but I am sure you would agree that you are a little better paid than us PC’s, Sergeant’s and inspectors.
You are certainly the only supt that I know that is working regular shifts and still getting stuck in, so you are truly an endangered species.
Maybe when you attend important meetings you could try to change some of the ridiculous burocratic hoops that we have to jump through to justify everything we do or don’t do. One question I feel compelled to ask is, did you take promotion for financial reasons and did you enjoy being a PC, sgt and insp. And yes we all want to see the same people behind bars and we are ultimately on the same side.
Well said PC Southwest, however as senior officers they should be standing up against those outside the service that think they know better. Seventeen years experience is good and should not be wasted, but when you cross the divide from police to politics its no good sat in your office just taking on the whims of government. Politicians (non police ones) come up with the most crap ideas designed to make our life more difficult, aka ’stop’ forms - for goodness sake !
Standing up and protesting however is bad for career prosepects. All the majority of senior officers want to do is take a nice salary, look good in the papers, pretend everything is great and look for the next rung in promotion ladder. They really don’t care about much else. My pencil has more service than some of our senior officers - too young, no real experience such as yours, yet they are the thinkers of tomorrow. I am worried !!
Team work, yes agree wholeheartedly, but some people ought to realise what team they are on, that would be a good start.
Surrey Police have informed their staff of a website designed to help cut the flow of fertisliser. This was followed by a number of missives from Headquarters and various Senior Management Teams - the lying bastards!
Pc SouthWest - thanks for your support - I did enjoy being a PC/Sgt/Insp, in fact the best job I’ve had was as a response Inspector on shifts. I have gone down the promotion route for 2 reasons, 1 - I want to be in a position where I can challenge things that don’t work and make a difference and 2 — There’s a jolly good pension at 30yrs! I’m honest enough to admit that money is a factor. I don’t agree that the majority of senior officers are self serving and uncaring, but I remember feeling the same way on the frontline (my original point). The way I try and bridge that gap is by being “out there” in the dark regularly - doing PSU etc - but I do have a job to do battling the latest NCPE dictat, HO policy, Govt “good idea” on all our behalfs. It is hard to stand up against the tide but gone are the days (at least in my force) where challenging the ACPO team over something meant career suicide. I agree that some senor officers have limited service - I try to help them out rather than shoot them down. All I ask in closing is that you agree that amongst all those folks of CI and above that some write off as “wasters” there are commited cops who enjoy the job and just do a different part of it. Stay safe.
Well OpBoss it is a shame that more of you guys don’t come out and show your face. It would certainly do us plods some good. Bit of support from up above nevr goes amiss you know.
Then again who gets left to pick up the crap a boss leaves when he is out and about?
I appreciate your position and do not envy it at all. Hwereas we can spray a scrote I doubt you are allowed to do the same to ACPO!
Well i was discussed 3 times at compstat about why i did not arrest for a tresspass. I was critisised dispite the fact i had no S24 reason to arrest. I was told we had a positive arrest policy. MY Sgt and Insp kept harrassing me about this case as the powers that be kept citing it at Compstat. It was only when i sent out e-mails stating that i will arrest in future if i have a written e-mail stating that they expect me to arrest for all cases of tresspass. I did not get a reply and it was not mentioned again. But the next week it was another thing and next week it will be another.
I am among only about 3-5 proactive PC’s at my station and one of only two who will go out alone by day. I love the job and want to do good but i’m losing that edge because the more proactive i am the more i’m critizised. I have been able to defend all my actions and have never had a complaint against me found justified. But why am i spending my days justifying all my actions. I need people at my back defending me so i can be out doing what i can for the people of this country.
I cannot see myself doing this job in 10 years at this rate. I am a dam good copper and do not want to go up the ranks as i joined to be a PC. If i do leave i know it will not be my loss as i have a qualification to fall back on which will give me a far bigger wage.
Perhaps i should sit on my arse like most of my colleagues and drink tea in canteens, out of sight. And then go out once a week and give a criminal record to a 12 year old who has no train ticket coz it’s an easy figure. Then watch as he joins the underclass because he cant get a job because of something he did when he was 12.
PS—-I’m not having a shot at those who drink tea as they have all told me that if they go out and police they will only get involved in a messy situation and the job will hang them out as they have with some of them already.
Yesterday my barber asked me what those community support officers do. Was it true, he asked, that they all go home at 10pm, even on a friday and saturday?
I know the answer to the second question. Can anyone help with the first one?