Needless to say we are back in the game as far as cooking the books is concerned. From what I hear it’s more like roasting the books in a fan assisted oven and then serving them up with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
F Division ran ‘Operation Hopeless’ at the weekend; a centrally funded, county wide ‘initiative’ to tackle alcohol related Anti Social Behaviour in the town centre.
You know, the stuff which is not apparently happening since the new licensing legislation.
Op Hopeless consists of PC’s wandering about in yellow coats, being abused by drunken fools who think they are funny, and hoping to God that they don’t have to arrest anyone and spend the next three hours in a queue for the Custody Suite, only then to issue a ticket to someone who doesn’t care because they will never pay.
Chief Inspector at the briefing:
“I don’t want any further arrests for Section 5 of the Public Order Act in this town. This offence gets counted as a violent crime, and we are over our targets for violent crime. Just get in between them and push them apart if they start fighting.”
Patrol Sergeant
“But Sir, the Superintendent told us specifically to arrest any person fighting or being violent in the town because he promised a zero tolerance approach in The Echo”
Chief Inspector
“That’s not very helpful Sergeant, I will see you after this briefing”.
Clearly, Section Five is soooo last summer.
And there we have it Ladies and Gentlemen. Practical policing v Command Teams. They should leave the Policing to us, and continue to do their day shifts, hide when a decision needs to be made, and let the Sergeants get on with running the show – effectively like they’ve always done.
C’mon Sergeants of Great Britain. You need to Manage upwards as well.
Guardian headline – Police Inspector can’t even spell Tolerance.
Sun Headline
Bullyboy Police – Push fighters about but don’t arrest
hehehe
Gadget Headline
Police Inspector can’t spell tolerance because he’s never used it!
Wasn’t it the Guardian that went to press having spelt it’s own name something like Grauniad?
That would be pot calling kettle err… Chrome (phew! complaint averted)
You’ll be telling us you discriminate against the lawless and in favour of the law abiding next.
This sort of thing leaves me speechless. What happened to arresting people for whatever it is they happen to be doing that’s arrestable, and not blaming the police for what the public choose to do?
You don’t reduce your violent crime figures by not arresting people for violent crime, you reduce your violent crime figures by burning down all the pubs.
If Section 5 is so last year, the basic bread and butter of policing, process, has taken a back seat since the start of the 21st century. There are no Home Office targets for process so no one above Inspector is bothered with them and now its filtered down to the troops. A man with no driving licence steals a car and crashes it into a dry-stone wall. There is £3,500 of damage to the car and over £1,000 damage to the wall. The man is arrested and questioned (about the aggravated vehicle taking only) and receives a caution. As he has received a caution for the major offence, he can’t be prosecuted for the two minor offences. The reasoning behind this course of action is that “there are no figures” in driving without a licence or insurance. This action will continue until it’s the wall of a Cabinet Minister, the CM’s spouse, child or lover! On the good side, another detection was added to the list!
Sir, this is the story of my life, every weekend around here. I have been saying for ages that doing loads of section 5’s when in fact a D & D would probably fit is artificially inflating some of the violence figures. Why ?, one is recordable, i.e. the S5, the other is not.
Oh, and LMAO at your retort to pedant.
We had the same directive a while ago. Soon the wheel will turn full circle and D&D will be out again.
Let’s not forget that attempt burglary gets crimed as criminal damage to keep the burglary figures down as well!
Bloody hell, so that’s how they manage to claim that the crime figures are going down depite the fact that mine and my friends cars/houses/garages are getting broken into with increasing regularity and I now know 5 people who’ve taken a beating from muppets in the middle of town for no discernable reason? What on earth is the point of government targets when all they achieve is world championship figure fiddling by those in charge? Bloody shambles. I don’t know how your average policeman copes.
And this is an example of why innocent people from all communites are rlentlessly preyed upon in certain areas of all our major cities, and have been from the 1970’s to today, why we have pointless deaths caused by feral out of control black youths, whose actions, and innate failure to behave as civilized human beings are justified, even today, by a huge army of criminologists, social workers, youth workers, race equlity groups, politicians and senior police officers. They are countlessly given excuses for their behaviour, yesterday’s media being a fantastic example, but are never called to account by the criminal justice system – especially the lower courts, although they are under enormous pressure not to imprison for the simple reason there aren’t enough secure units and prisons for these scum. I hear the same excuses made as thirty years ago, although as social conditions have improved, and the ’support networks’ increased, they no longer riot every summer. get the politics, targets and social engineering out of policing.
Again, it just goes to prove that figures are king in the police service.
One community policing sergeant recently all but chased our support group van off his town one night as he claimed we make too many sect 5 & 4 arrests and it looks bad on his figures, though we could fill our boots with D&D.
And the crime recording standard is a joke. I once had an argument with the member of support staff from our phone it in crime recording bureau. A car had been stolen and burnt out. According to my 15 weeks at training school thats arson. Not according to the crime recording standards, it is in fact TADA (or TWOC), despite my remonstrating that the owner had been permenantly deprived of his vehicle and there was clearly no intention for the vehicle to be returned or abandoned.
As usual the “support staff” member won. Cold comfort for the victim.
Ha! Bleeding sergeants sticking their oar in when it’s clearly not needed. Demote that man!
Sorry, been off the front line for too long, been to too many meetings and not have had enough time out of the office.
After reconsideration:
Ha! Bleeding sergeants sticking their oar in when it’s clearly needed. Promote that man!
Seagull, Insp. Gadget, I think Seagull is right. I thought the rules say we should record the most serious crime in an incident. Ok the car has been taken, but since it has been burnt out there is no intent to just leave it. The intent is to permanently deprive the owner of it and it has been damaged by fire. That is criminal damage and if damage has a longer sentence than that is what is recorded. If the car was to explode in a residential area then that is endangering life. (Sorry another Sergeant sticking their ore in.)
Do you have the same Chief Inspector as me?
Sir, I have to ask, about as far as I am aware, it is not just Black youths that are preying on victims of crime. There may be a pattern that emerges in particular areas, and we deal with that pattern of crime, but to say what Ranter has said, I am afraid is without reason.
Ranter does not realise that Black people were treated badly in the 1970’s, 1980’s, and perhaps if Ranter were to open his eyes he would see that hate crime, murder, still exists.
I think as a service thanks to good operational officers we are holding our heads above water. Ranter has one point, about the development of a false industry, which I agree with, but it is those in power that are maintaining that false industry, not the PC, or Sergeant who is no t looking for promotion.
I have to say Ranter’s position is, who knows, “unwittingly” racist. My son doesn’t prey on innocent people, he doesn’t prey on anyone.
The point I am trying to make Twining is that there is an acknowledgement of the wrongs of the past, but in my 30 years, nothing has changed, and in the main I believe the blame to lie with the ‘race’ ndustry, which you have acknowledged is false. (I am not a stupid person and am aware that immigrant groups were treated badly when they first came here in the 1940’s and 50’s).
An example of that is your freely labelling me as racist – unwitting or not. That’s why there is a stifled debate, there is a fear of being labelled – proper discussion cannot take place while all around nod sagely when people in ‘power’ talk nonsense, especially to defend their postions of power and influence.
The ‘emperors new clothes’ again.
I did not say all black youths prey on people. I did say that those who are robbers prey on ‘all’ communitites, quite often their own, that is why there is perhaps a ‘white flight’ from the inner cities – a phenomenon long acknowledged from social observation and criminolgy in the USA from the 1960’s onwards.
A little less sensitivity, and a little more realism in the Trevor Phillips style may one day allow a more integrated society to prevail, but as I’ve said before some people are going to lose their ‘power’ and they don’t want that.
Ranter, I encourage the debate, but what you say is, “We have pointless deaths caused by feral out of control black youths, whose actions, and innate failure to behave as civilised human beings are justified.” And ” they no longer riot every summer.” We have riots most weekends and it’s not just Black youths, it’s drunken youths.
So Black youths are not civilised? How? Deaths are just caused by Black youths? How? Black youths are not marginalised in any way I guess. New communities are not coming in and suffering hatred are they?
We have to police this, and most times without help. No other Social agency want’s to get it’s hands dirty, and neither do some Senior managers, but to suggest, as you do, that, racism is an experience of the past, is not in my experience, a true picture. Sensitive maybe, incorrect, I don’t think so.
How on earth did this bloke get to be chief inspector? Really? What a crackpot solution!
Anyhow, does your force not let you just give out a PND for S5 or D&D? (bearing in mind that they can recieve the ticket if they understand what its about – if they are clearly unconcious on the floor then you cant stick a ticket in their pocket!)
Fair enough they probably wont pay it but at least you woudnt have been in custody for hours (and D&D requires no crime)
Oh dear, im cooking the books too now
See the letters page in today’s Telegraph.
I know a few bobbies whose detection figures would fall to nothing if you took away Section 5’s…………………..
I am grateful for all these comments from the front line, which reinforce my strong suspicion that there are no meaningful crime statistics available anywhere, since the very way in which targets are set for police guarantees that the figures will be skewed.
This is absolutely dangerous, the crime figures are low, detection’s are low, so today we’ll arrest or issues section 5 PND’s. But in a month, oops they are a bit too high, the neighbouring Area is doing better, we won’t be issuing FPN’s. Is this truly possible that we skew a proportion of Crime that does not come through CAD in this way? The Chief Inspector should be promoted for “skewing” the statistics in this way. Lies, lies and lies. This is not what policing is about, is it?
Surely though, we at the coal face just do whatever is needed at the time and let the bean counters get on with it? Most of the time they can only whisper these orders as they are not kosher and they would get in the shit if found out, so I generally nod in the briefings and then get on with what I need to do in Town that night to stop the idiots from knocking each other out.
On a similar and interesting note, I got an email recently explaining that a burglary where the victim was assaulted, section 47, should be crimed as the assault as that was the more serious offence. I couldn’t believe the neck of it. Anyone here not prefer to get a punch rather than a customer rifling through your drawers?
Figure-skating, you can’t beat it.
Life is so simple up here north of the border. Fights/disturbances are a breach of the peace unless someone makes a complaint about an assault. Steal a car and set it alight – that’s a common law theft, no argument. The reasoning is simple. Setting it on fire was probably an attempt to cover up any evidence of the crime i.e. it is part of the MO of the theft. So up here we don’t make two crimes out of one by adding malicious fireraising (arson) to taking and driving away. Having said that I attended a housebreaking (burglary) the other week and the prime reason for the crime was to trash the occupant’s house ‘cos they didn’t like him and then they nicked a few minor items as an afterthought. So I filed it as a Theft by Housebreaking and a Vandalism (2 crimes) as the law (that legal stuff) would require me to. Both are PRIORITY crimes and as such the file was rigorously inspected for tick box compliance etc. Inevitably I missed a couple of obvious things. 1. An eleven year old witness’s ethnicity had been omitted by the service centre (not me). If we don’t tick a box can it be assumed she was EC1? Would she know what ethnicity is? 2. The Vandalism charge was deleted. Puzzled? I was, so I asked why. Part of the answer made good sense and might explain a little of what’s been discussed above and be of interest to the non polis readers. The reasoning goes like this, if you are the victim it is just one incident of nastiness to them and in other words they do not need to worry about which crime(s) have been committed. Thus just pick the most appropriate one and ditch the others, but remember to detail all the matters in your modus operandi box thingy on the file. This makes sense statistically as it is just one ‘Criminal event’ to the victim. However, should you clear the crime(s) and report it/them you should reinsert the deleted crime(s) in order to report the crime(s) in a legal manner. I had a little thought then, a flash went off etc etc. Clever that, once cleared we can then have multiple clearances and detected crimes(s). I’m not suggesting we are cooking the books, but is this a consistent approach? Your call.
Oh I meant to say – the Housebreaking/Vandalism (delete as appropriate) – was cleared. I am thus officially a Priority crime hound!
I’ve been asked for three detections a month which works out as one per set of shifts.
I go and get creative with Section 5.
Your ‘Operation Hopeless’ sounds all too like our ‘Operation Pointless’ boss!
The SMT had their ass in their hand about how violent crime had dropped in the Town, thus causing a drop in the usual detections.
Are you sure we don’t Police the same Town?
These are Robert Peels principles
Can anyone see anything in common with the job they do, I can’t.
Thanks to DC for pointing these out to me…
The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.
Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of *the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
I’m the public and most of the time I haven’t a clue that this sort of crap is going on. If I hadn’t read this blog (which I only did because Frank Chalk’s blog had a link to it) I wouldn’t know. I would wonder why the Police weren’t doing xyz and why they sometinmes appear so gutless (sorry).
I can IMAGINE that this kind of manipulation, distortion, perversion goes on because it does in education too, and in the same jargon, but all we seem to do is preach to the converted. Coppers come on here and wring their hands, teachers go on TES and Frank chalk and complain to each other about stuff they all already are aware of, while the general public never finds out.
I don’t know what the answer is except maybe a televised blog in the middle of Flog It or This Morning.
A televised blog… I like it.
Therin lies the rub. (what exactly does that mean?) We need to get the message across to the public but how? Short of a fathers 4 justice style campaign I’m afraid the politicians may always have the final say.
That which lives by the spreadsheet, dies by the spreadsheet. Crime ‘figures’ in themselves are meaningless. It should be the lack of crime that is the measuring stick.
Regards
Bill
I’ve long since taken no notice of the bean counters. If someone needs nicking for being a drunken tw*t, then thats what I’ll do. My bosses, seem to like it the other way round. They don’t want arrests for D&D, because there’s no crime figure. They want them for Sec 5. Funnily enough, I can’t remember the last Sec 5 arrest I had!
I have always found it strange that the divisional target reads something like, “Reduce Burglaries by 25%, reduce violent crime by 30% a month/year etc..etc… Surely we should be aiming to reduce Burglaries/Violent Crime/Thefts etc..etc.. by 100%?????? and anything less is not acceptable
Lily, you surely can’t say that this is, “manipulation, distortion, perversion. ” No, no, you cannot say that. You cannot be serious. Sometimes there is collusion also; not criminal collusion, but moral collusion. But I can’t say that. I never said there was collusion did I?
That Chief Inspector is a total pumper.
My wife couldn’t believe that comment of his.
Bosses – stay in your office, do the accounting, make up meaningless pointless time consuming policies and let the real cops do the real policing.
If this carries on, I may have to go be a copper in Australia or some other country. The UK has lost the plot.
Twining, now I understand why you don’t understand what I’m saying – and I don’t understand what you’re saying! I’ll never attempt to challenge you again, because it just won’t work.
“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
These PNDs – Penalty Notice for Disorder tickets were supposed to help us speed up dealing with drunken idiots there and then with offences. However, now we have been told not to use s5POA for public urination as a police officer cannot be the person likely to be offended (eh? isn’t there case law to support the fact that we CAN???), not to use any of the drunkenness tickets in the street as we have to arrest them if they’re drunk as we have a duty of care towards the drunk and because they can’t understand them. We can’t use them if they’ve too much (ie ANY) previous for similar, so that’s most shop-lifters and criminal damagers excluded as well. And now the Home Office are apparently complaining and threatening my force with fines as a result, that we’re not doing enough PNDs.
People talk a lot about joined up thinking. I’d settle for ANY thining, joined-up or otherwise!
PC Bitseach (GOSH I am grumpy today!)
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[...] Five is the new ‘black’ Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote about Section 5 of the Public Order Act (popularly known as Threatening [...]
[...] can exclusively reveal that “Section Five Is So Last Summer” was looked at by Staff Officers working on Flanagan’s team, after they contacted me [...]
I’ve found very quickly that if you just do what PACE/STATUTE says they can moan at you for it but they can’t make you pregnant.
Section 5 is a Section 5. Lock up for it and then make the system work against you to get it down graded/NFA’d.
Money still goes into my account at the end of every month so it can’t be that wrong.
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