Heard of Anti Social Behaviour? or ASB as we call it at the moment?
An ASB Hot Spot is NOT a place where there is a lot of ASB.
It is a place where loads of people phone the police and SAY there is a lot of ASB, or ONE person phones the police loads of times and says there is.
You see, the analysts who inform the police Management Team in Ruralshire get their information from looking at the number of calls the police receive, split into call type, not by result.
Peaceful Ruralshire. Don’t be fooled – there is a riot taking place in this field. The Crime Analyst says so.
Hence, if you call a dozen times claiming that something is happening, then it is. Even if it isn’t.
A patrol can be sent, check it out and then provide an update to the control room saying “we went and there was nothing happening”.
This is what we call in the Police a “complete LOB”.
Once a Hot Spot is designated, we have to spend all of our default time there.
This is why if there really is something happening in your area, the police will not attend. We are too busy attending the places where nothing is happening.
I just wanted to clear that up for you.
That cleared it up nicely, like the field above in fact. I see that another report has been released where some forces are better counting ASB behaviour than others, and one was poor – as if thats an important thing to measure. Who cares whether we are any good at counting it, but it would be better if we were out dealing with it and got measured on the succes of that instead.
Ha ha, as I suspected, bean counters are controlling the universe.
Is that what motivates them to get out of bed in a morning? Something must, although I have never understood what it might be; now I know, its the power and influence.
My account used to love working out how many loo rolls my business bought each year.
It didn’t seem the most important aspect of the end of year accounts; but it made his eyes sparkle
Classic!
Maybe there’ll come a time someone can drop a note in a suggestion box without fear of recrimination. So to speak.
It has to be based on the opening code of the incident, instead of the closing code. We couldn’t trust the closing text/code which those naughty police officers endorse, cos they’re probaly just trying to ‘cuff’ another job!
You are doing an awful lot of this stuff just latlely , fileds and sheep n’stuff, I like it
I thought that PCSO’s were supposed to deal with ASB? So how come they seem to refuse to speak to groups of youths, when they’re usually double crewed (more often triple crewed)?
I then turn up on my todd and manage to talk to 20 youths on my own, the job takes 5 minutes and i get 20 names to put on an ‘encounter’ form. This in turn keeps the bean counters happy as it looks like i’m busy.
On the same note, this ASB that we keep hearing about used to be called growing up, otherwise known as ‘the good old days’ to the rest of us. The kids these days can’t sit in the park as people moan, can’t play in the street as people moan. Some of my best memories involve the park, girls and cider.
To those who go on about the fear of crime…. get a grip. What did you do at 15yrs of age?
I forgot to mention… one of our hotspots is a playground. It has a big sign saying under 14’s only.
We have officially been told that if they’re over 14 we are to take them back to their parents. I have asked which bit of law allows me to do this if they refuse. I have had no answer.
Bag of BOB.
Pardon me – you couldn’t make it up.
Lincs now have scarecrow Cops attached to lamp posts to deter speeding motorists. Perhaps we should also use this innovative idea and place them in ASB area’s as well. Come to think of it we are a bit short staffed this weekend (as usual) and I have just had an idea how to double crew every car.
At 53.9N we have warm spots. Some times they are lukewarm or even tepid. The NIM tasks squads of PCSOs to patrol these areas and they report back that there are in fact kids there. Shocking! Kids in playgrounds and public open spaces.
Just a thought on the 2 PCSOs who are 16 – which appropriate adult countersigns their statements or do they have to ABEG everything?
Ummm….how come the person that repeatedly calls doesn’t get done for wasting police time?
Oh. Oh yeah. I remember.
I’m sorry, I’ll keep quiet now.
Thats why its always important to get your closing codes right. “Roger control, there was NO assault here, just a verbal altercation in the street between 2 friends. NFPA”
Alternatively when you do identify a hotspot and try and talk to the local Sergeant about it (as in to confirm its existence in reality) he/she can’t be bothered with niff-naff and trivia – and then wonders why the extra resources go to the area where the sergeant is prepared to lower him/herself to speak to the analysts. Works both ways
1926
when are WE going to stand up!
& be counted
we’ve had lots of Sgt’s but as they all last a maximum of 12 months on patrol before joining the “not in my remit” teams.
One “acting” in particular was fantastic, she’d look at the hotspots and say well that’s bollocks, ignore that crap and go here here and here instead. She was right so often we thought she had special powers or something. Could be the fact she had been a street bobby in that area for 10 years though.
For one brief moment the tail ceased to wag the dog and crime fell, probably why they didn’t actually promote her, too effective you see, a casualty of the Hot Fuzz syndrome.
(HOT FUZZ SYNDROME – When an Officer is too effective to promote as they make everyone of higher ranks look rubbish or their loss would impact figures too much)
as opposed to:
(THE PETER PRINCIPLE – A person is always finally promoted one level past their ability)
“Default time” Luxury.
We have one particular ‘ethnic’ area which is used as a crack haven in the early hours and we take great pleasure in ‘flying the flag’ whenever we can to watch the crackheads starburst like rats on the underground. This knowledge is nothing new and the fact that the area is populated by crack zombies from 3-5 has always afforded a good source of spinnable subjects to get some good possession with intent arrests.
And then come the calls around 0500 from a couple of people new to the area (every morning) pointing out that people might be dealing in drugs near their house. Because of the increase in calls the SMT have been required to stamp out (or displace it to another area by one admission) and when we have more than 4 people on a night duty we have to give up one or two patrols around the key times – such as club kicking out times – in order to walk around the area and question people who might be there only to use drugs.
People really do think that we don’t know where the problem areas our on our patch don’t they!!!
also Guv, why did you change the sentence from ‘This is what we call in the Police a complete LOB’?? I thought you were right the first time
I may a cynic but, I have a theory regarding this weeks news.
Wednesday 19th September Julie Spence C.C for Cambridgeshire releases to the press her views on policing Cambridgeshire and the implications. She touched on an area that if we as mere mortals had discussed would have almost certainly resulted in Reg 9s being issued.
Friday 21st September HM Coroner for Manchester. An inquest has serious implication for the Government. PSCOs should not be in the firing line as a part of the police family. It is the Home Office and ACPO who should be under the spotlight.
My theory is that Julie Spence’s comments were endorsed and approved by the Home Office in advance of her going to the press. The reason being that they anticipated that her comments would create a s***storm of protest. Which they haven’t and at the same time the s***storm would keep the HM Coroners inquest off the front page.
As we know this Government likes to BURY bad news.They have attempted to do that previously 9/11.
Bob – it’s also possible that the Fed were responsible for the PCSO’s didn’t save a drowning boy story. Things can get very dirty when the stakes are as high as they are with Law and Order. We must hld fast and stick to what is right.
IG, If things are getting that dirty then the wheels has come off, not that I discount your comment. It is very disturbing. Are we approaching, as they say in USA, the end game, or is the situation so bad that we are descending into some really dirty fighting.
“Hold fast and stick to what is right.” Its true.
I am of the simple school that when the pain gets bad enough you do something about it and that’s what happened with CC Spence. I cannot imagine how desperate she must have been to go public in the sure and certain knowledge that she was doing her legs.
As for the PCSO’s failing in doing human duty and fishing the poor lad out of the water because they lacked training to do water rescue, I despair. In a better, truer, more honest age they would have been returning to the office to pick up matched P45’s and their names would only ever be spoken of in hushed tones and with shame. It is a shocking dereliction of duty. They have let us all down and they are no part of my Police Family.
I’m glad that I am not the only one who thought that there was something smelly about this week’s news management.
I certainly thought that there was the hand of government behind the Cambridgeshire announcement. Just as there was behind the judge who wanted every resident and visitor to the UK on the DNA database.
Why isn’t being a politician an arrestable offence?
Our bean counters have decreed that EVERY ‘nuisance youths’ job MUST be a ‘prompt’ response. Thus we have the bizarre situation that our call handlers take a report of kids playing football in the street – put on a job and switch it to radio operators as requiring a ‘prompt’ response.
The call handlers know it’s not, as do the radio operators, the officers on the street, their supervisors and everyone up to ACPO level.
Yet the bean counters – controlled by the Home Office – seem to carry more authority than the officers whose actions they are counting.
If everyone and his wife recognise that common sense has got up and left, why do we continue to play these games?
Fred- the prisons are overcrowded now. The system could not take 600+more.
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