Teen Imperial
October 5, 2007 by inspectorgadget
Late evening in peacefull, sleepy Ruraltown. This is NOT a marginal seat.
A drunken 17 year old Irish traveller, Darren O’Brien, throws a brick through a shop window in the High Street. Darren has numerous previous convictions for similar offences. The whole event is witnessed by several commuters and recorded on the excellent town CCTV system. He then sits down on the pavement outside the shop and waits for the police to come and arrest him.
He won’t run away because he knows nothing is going to come of it in Court.
When a patrol arrives, the first thing he does is admit the whole thing with a grin on his face, saying that he did it because “Kylie works there innit” she being his ‘partner’. He is arrested on suspicion of Criminal Damage, taken to Ruraltown police station, booked in to the custody area and interviewed about the offence the next morning, when sober.
We won’t go into the details of his being sick on the pavement and fighting the police officers and shouting foul abuse at anyone passing during his arrest.
This crime took about the same amount of time to commit as you have just taken to read about it.
A relatively simple job you might think. Oh no. Not in the crazy world of British policing.
Here is a list of the paperwork required from the patrol who were unlucky enough to arrive at the scene and arrest Darren.
A full handwritten Pocket Notebook entry detailing the incident, the grounds for his arrest and anything he said about the incident.
A typed arrest statement with exactly the same information, only in more detail.
A typed form requesting the release of CCTV tapes.
A handwritten custody ’search and booking-in’ form.
A property sheet in custody, listing the contents of his pockets.
A typed Persistent Offender form, containing the same information as the arrest statement, but in a format which prevents ‘cut and paste’.
A typed Young Offender form, containing the same information as above, but in yet another format.
A typed or verbal ‘update’ for the computer log held by the Control Room, containing guess what? the same information as all of the above.
A typed Crime Report, with the same information as in the notebook, arrest statement and young offender form, but with the details in different fields which cannot be cut and pasted.
At least two MG forms for the case file, summarising all of the above.
Witness statements from at least two of the commuters who saw the whole thing.
A witness statement from the shop saying that Darren didn’t have permission to smash their window.
An ‘intelligence report’ saying that Darren has smashed a window in the High Street, with some other details we can’t discuss here.
A typed Domestic Violence form (because Kylie was mentioned by Darren as a reason for the offence) with all of the same information again, and a complete risk assessment for Kylie, even though she wasn’t there at the time.
The paperwork for fingerprinting and DNA will run into at least four pages. The Custody Record will be at least ten pages, though not completed by the patrol.
If the brick and any glass from the window was seized as evidence, there will be the forms and statements for that.
A typed ‘update’ on the ‘Night-time Economy Incident’ diary sheets. “Night-time Economy” is the hideous New Labour, Orwellian term for the chaos caused by the new licensing laws.
A three page Community Impact Assessment briefing form for the Inspector (because Darren is a traveller). I can then fill out a six page, larger version.
A handwritten two page form for the Licensing Officer about where he might have purchased the alcohol, again with all the details of the offence.
You may think that this is insane for such a simple job. You would be correct. This isn’t the Guildford pub bombings. Darren has admitted it already because he doesn’t really care about the consequences because he knows there aren’t any.
This is why the national Neighbourhood Policing model is such a fraud. The two officers who arrested Darren were Neighbourhood policemen. They had only been outside for ten minutes when the call came in, and now they are stuck for the best part of the rest of the shift dealing with a drunk bloke who admits he threw a brick through a window in public view to get back at his girlfriend.
Can you imagine what happens when there are two offenders, or if it’s slightly more complicated than the incident described? If drugs are found in his pockets (which they usually are) Darren gets arrested for that too, and the whole process nearly doubles in size.
Half of the forms are for the CPS and the remainder are ‘data mining’ forms to satisfy various national or local initiatives (Youth Offending, Alcohol Related Violence, Domestic Violence etc etc).
If any of those forms have a single mistake, they will be sent back to the officers themselves to re-do, even if it’s a date or postcode which could be corrected by the admin clerkwho discoverd it.
You couldn’t make it up.
This is the same for US cops… ridiculous. They now have field reporting computers but they’re too complicated for them to use in the vehicles- and twice as long to do in the station than just writing by pencil! Cops have been relegated to records technicians.
I’ve been stalking your blog for a while- I really enjoy your writing. Nice to know that things are the same in the UK as they are here in the US…
I think I would have left out the Kylie bit and ducked out of the DV involvement. I don’t think the Licensing Officer would have got a form off me either.
The “internal post” at our nick is shocking - “I definately sent it boss”.
Incidentally - a colleague had a crafty idea for memos from above asking him to amend forms / add the postcode etc on forms he had submitted. He crossed his name off the envelope and sent it to the Chief Superintendent in the furthest division away..on the basis that he worked on the bottom floor - the Chief Supt invariably on the top - this was the furthest distance he could send the memo - only 50% got back to him.
Jesus. We didn’t have to fill in that much paperwork when one of our employees who was operating a crane dropped a concrete block onto one of our other employees on site and killed him. Nowhere near that much paperwork in fact. It’s no bloody wonder police in Manchester are reluctant to come out to stuff, they’ll spend the week filling in forms. Ah for the days from ‘Life on Mars’ when the copper in charge could just give ‘Darren’ a bit of a beating and head back to the station to do some proper policing.
A quick question.
Have you, or anyone you know, ever got anything back from all this data capture that was in any way relevant to operational policing or has made any significant improvement to the community?
Charlie,
Of course the police have got things back from these surveys. Can’t you see how policing has improved over the years? And the community is so much safer, especially since nasty bad guns were made illegal. Thank God. No more shootings.
Hooray for forms.
Sir
I can only take out one piece of unnecessary from your list of ridiculousness. The pocket book entry is not required as statement could be original notes.
PNB’s these days are really only for the times that one’s a**e needs covering!!!!!!!
How about one form, a few tick boxes e.g. Young Offender/Persistent Offender/Race Related etc. then some significant use of a photocopier. Or even an emailed document cc’ed to all the pointless departments. That way there will still be the cushy jobs you can apply for whe you get fed up with the front line, the govt can still say they have dedicated teams etc. etc and you guys can stop filling in forms. Anything else need sorting?!
Oh for common sense and less obstrucitve organisations.
what a more productive life we would all lead.
Well it could be worse. He could deny his obvious involvement then the whole job could be sent off for CPS advice which requires more forms. An arrogent lawer who will not even review the case unntil all witnesses have been statemented, never mind just the key ones. You could then bail him for 4 weeks submit a file to the team who pre screen CPS advice files before the decision. Which will not be back in time for his original bail date, which he will not keep because he knows he is going to be charged or he simply does not care.
More forms to circualte as wanted then, when he finally is arrested the file is missing so he will be bailed again for your attention……….. oh do not forget to ensure the shop is updated as per the victims chater, another quick form to tell the cimu you have done this. CPS advice…. what a joke.
*Mr Mans Wife stares at the screen in disbelief, blinking occasionally. She is speechless*
happypig - absolutely rght, I didn’t feel that I either had the space or that MOP’s would believe me if I wrote that - thanks.
pccommonsense - Ruralshire Constabulary still requires a contemp PNB entry in case the arrest becomes the subject of a complaint. This is true. I know it’s b***ocks, but there it is.
Well I am truly shocked!!!
An officer from a “neighbourhood team” working during night hours? AND dealing with a criminal damage to boot!
The Ruraltown police are truly a beacon to us all.
‘Speechless’.
Logical analysis of the above provides a solution:
Get Vicola’s lad to drop a concrete block on the scrote - less paperwork, and no repetition of the problem…
An adequate supply of concrete blocks might be a problem, but we can work on that bit.
CB
Ummm…..
Ummm…..
So tell me, you obviously don’t do it for the love. No one could love the clients, the forms or the aggro.
The money is shocking.
And you go back to this? Day after day?
I say this with the greates respect and you know I’m one of your stalwart fans. But quite frankly, I think you’re bonkers putting up with this bull***t.
Roses,
we certainly don’t do it for the love of the job anymore, I certainly don’t love the clients I come across and I hate all the from filling in and aggro that goes with it. The reason we still go back day after day is beacause (unlike most MOP realise) police officers still care and there are still decent people out there who can bebefit from our help, even though their numbers are getting less because of all the crap we deal with.
Boss, in relation to this incident you describe can you imagine the extra froms needed if the scroat had made any “ism” or “ist” remarks.
Will you have to mark this as alcohol related and for the attention of the licencing officer as well ? Good job he isn’t needing language line or whatever it has evolved into. I feel certain there MUST be some form of Diversity issue in here as well somewhere.
We’d love to be able to correct spelling errors or typos but we’re not allowed. It’s your statement which has to be accurate and if we correct it we’re changing your statement. It’s madness really but I think it’s trying to close up loopholes that people use to try to get away with it.
It’s really not needed because they’re going to get away with it anyway.
I agree with dropping concrete blocks on them, it would also help lower the unemployment rate because we’d have to employee people to clean it all up.
And if only the thick overpaid gobshites in Westminster had to complete the same amount of paperwork every time they got off their arses and spouted off…you could start with an effluent encounter sheet, move on to a political correctness statement, then maybe an abuse of privilege disclaimer…then..well you get the idea…
Bet then we’d get a lot less waffle and blather…
(Election, Election? who gives a sh*t…their all arseholes anyway)
No ‘injured on duty’ forms, or ‘use of force’ forms? With the approriate crime reports submitted, of course.
Ye gods, it sounds like you need computers. If I hear my users telling me they are filling in the same information in umpteen places, I start coding to stop that madness right away. Too bad there will never be any improvements to IT in institutions like the police force as the usual suspects get the contracts and produce unsuitable solutions.
Yeah - but computers are a nightmare when the gui is labyrinthine (ie in almost every case where it’s software that’s designed for a single customer), and it gets worse and worse because they then say “oh, you have a laptop - in that case you don’t need to come in, you can file it all on the road, and you can run THIS form-input software too, and you can fill in these seven other data-entry items and….”
Far as I can see, there is only one reasonable response: arrest the lot of them for wasting police time.
Nowadays I’m only in it for the pension
Enduring themes …the paperwork issue is the direct result of Policing by committee , someone ,who has long since moved on or cared ,home office, pressure group etc, once suggested all this leaving the workers with the resultant mess, it is yet another example of rudderless management/administration more is always better. National policing standards..Five year plan more like Stalin would be proud.
Could’ve been worse, he could’ve said there was a racial motive for the crime…
Sad thing is many people will read that and think you’re exaggerating. These same people might bemoan how long it takes police to arrive when they call.
You should have included how long it takes waiting in custody as the sgt painstakingly fils in the computerised custody record which used to be pre-filled in by hand before the officer arrived in the old days but now can’t be started till they arrive…
[...] Teen Imperial Late evening in peacefull, sleepy Ruraltown. This is NOT a marginal seat. A drunken 17 year old Irish traveller, […] [...]
I think the Members of the Public (MOPS) and even other Police Staff who are not sworn and only deal with a very limited fraction of the totally of the real working lives of Fully Sworn Police Officers need to appreciate that Insp Gadgett is not using dramatic license to make his point.
In fact what he describes above is the daily bread and butter of modern Policing and if anything he understates the situation, presumably to make it more believable. Others have mentioned CPS and i can tell any MOP whose interested that the above work done is only the beginning and to see it through to the point of charge will require at least a month, a stupendous amount of tax payers money, a doubling or more likely tripling of the above paperwork and ultimately less Officers keeping your street safe. The majority of this work will be spent satisfying some statistical madness that will not benefit you.
Now imagine the above situation multiplied by 30 which is the average workload of bobbies where i am and imagine whilst attending to these 30 , 1 month long (minimum) investigations the same Bobbies are also trying to answer t he 999 calls that come in as well as the routine calls all the time picking up new jobs to add to their workloads.
The wheel looks very wobbly indeed by now but then you get a job which is more complicated than Inspector Gadget’s example which is likely as its only an illustration of minor daily occurrence. The wheel is permanently about to come off!
Simply put MOPS get less Policing than they deserve due purely to Bureaucracy which when combined with a target culture, soft detections, NCRS etc means that the tail is well and truly wagging the dog.
The solution is to either massively reduce the bureaucracy nationwide (which wont happen) or to increase t he number of Police Officers (front-line) by 100% which in real terms given the number of little units and such would probably mean you would have to recruit another 100,000 Police nationwide which would nearly double the amount of Police in general (about 70% again i think).
Obviously reducing bureaucracy would be the clever solution but efforts for the last 10 years to reduce bureaucracy have come to nothing mainly because such projects have been run by bureaucrats and in some cases such projects actually led to more paperwork. Bureaucrats trying to reduce bureaucracy is as stupid as f***ing to try and regain your virginity!
Are you still surprised it took 3 days to answer your 999 call for assistance?
Don’t forget a report to social services if these pair have spawned anything.
Then if Dwayne can’t give a bail address he’ll be remanded to court, that’s another three files to produce. 1 - Charging File, 1 - Prosecutors file & 1 for court/defence.
I nicked two people the other day for a domestic related affray. Fairly straight forward, no solicitors involved. So just interviews and CPS direct. They were nicked at 1945hrs. Guess what time I got home & guess the result.
Oh for goodness sake. My fellow trees and I are getting right properly pissed off with our lives being wasted by this constant form filling. I just may fall on a Government Minister to vent my spleen. (if i had one).
I won’t go in to any detail but some ‘agencies’ we work alongside have the technical back up we so painfully lack. This exampe for instance:
HGV overturns on major route causing damage and diversions. Driver interviewed on MG15 contemporaneous notes, taking some 45-60 minutes and reported etc.
VOSA attend and inspect the vehicle which has several defects. The VOSA chap has a laptop and printer with him; checks the company details instantly from their database and can prohibit the vehicle and/or trailer there and then; the forms are printed and handed to the driver.
On the other hand we have to then produce a Court file and raise the summons at a later date and the CPS will insist on loads of other necessary information before going to trial.
There has to be a better way of working smarter. It’s just embarrassing sometimes.
In despatch we dread it when an urgent job like this comes in which is known to be a sure thing lock up, the only officer that was saved from pro-active/taskit/handovers or baby sitting space rangers in cells have now been lost and we are left stacking like planes. Anyone who didn’t believe Pc Copperfield on the tv last week when he said he was sometimes the only pc reporting for duty, believe us is true. Never mind the spin doctoring of his constabulary requesting dates we all in the job laughed out loud.
When the arrest happens we know we can kiss goodbye to any work done as they are now not eating doughnuts in the cells but drowning in paperwork. Someone needs to get a grip and stop messing around fiddling crime figures and get people back out there.
On a lighter note, Good Old Debbie, smell a cake a mile off.
On a political note:
Any non police of voting age who still have visions of a capable criminal justice system should at least think twice before voting for the fellow who as a chancellor refused to build a single prison cell. This was because the Tory ethos of `lock em up` worked so we must do something else.
I work in Northern Ireland and can`t comprehend how these guys are in power (over you and I). We have some amazing politicians over here that in the USA would be in a holiday camp in cuba. Sadly they are not .
Welcome to the criminal justice system.
Half of these forms are meant to help the other myriad specialist units be more efficient and quicker at their jobs, whatever they may be. No thought to how efficient the actual policeman who arrested him or her may be. Once again, uniform response policing is a poor second to everyone else in the job.
The other half the forms are usually used to allow a different unit to collate and monitor statistics.
I propose Gadget starts his own political party. Any seconders?
About 10 years ago a double page spread in the Daily Mail showed all the forms and booklets to be filled out after an arrest. Something will be done said the powers that be, yep, sure will, more forms
Vote Gadget.
Party colours, blue and hi-vis yellow, party logo an iconic doughnut; yes I can see it now.
Vote Gadget,
Voting papers will be available in triplicate, with a cut and paste option and the pencil will be cuffed to the polling booth.
Gadget for PM, vote Gadget you know it makes sense.
Gov, you’ve only mentioned the paperwork relating to court files, intelligence and community safety. What about the mass required for the bean counters to make sure the detection is counted? Of course, technically they won’t be “forms”, as I think most forces count crime on computer now.
But you’re looking at a few emails, phone-calls and electronic data entries by the PC in charge, their sergeant, their inspector, a scrutineer, an investigation manager, an auditor and possibly a barman (for after it’s all over), just to generate the correct amount of detection for the incident.
And don’t forget the notes made in the SMT meeting the next day tas the bosses are updated with the news that police officers arrest bad people sometimes.
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have literally been 5 mins on the street, bring a ‘body’ in, then spend the rest of the shift dealing with just that prisoner and his/her crime that day.
Incredible - I cannot see MOPs believing us about the paperwork. Any normal person would find it all too hard to believe, so sad its true.
Sounds like the film ‘Brazil’ - a satire on government targets, surveillance and stifling beaurocracy. In one scene, the woman whose husband has just been arrested is given a receipt for her husband, signed in triplicate. The official says; ‘This is the receipt for your husband, and this is my receipt for your receipt’.
Satire in 1985, unfortunately indistinguishable from the truth in 2007.
Sadly its all true the whole force knows what’s wrong with the system except the idiots at the top.
Plus only those people that believe in the bureaucracy get promoted. People with new ideas or anything that differs from the SMT line are quickly marginalised.
In a different place and time it could be described as brain washing or even a delusional illness.
A colleague recently issued a FPN (£80) for Theft from Shops. The person accepted the FPN and paid the money immediately. The person had no precons and the shop manager was happy. End of job so you would think.
No,no the bean counters at the fairy factory got hold of the FPN and have now sent my colleague and in depth report as to why THEY (None police officers) believe that the situation was not dealt with in the correct way.
My colleague now has to submit a report to the bean counters justifying his actions. At no time has situation been looked at by a serving senior police officer for their opinion.
[...] inspectorgadget wrote a fantastic post today on “Teen Imperial”Here’s ONLY a quick extractIf any of those forms have a single mistake, they will be sent back to the officers themselves to re-do, even if it’sa date or postcode which could be corrected by the admin clerk who discoverd it. You couldn’t make it up. [...]
I totally agree with my pal Gadget -as a rural Insp with only a couple of cops often to parade the fantastic centralised custody suite 15 miles away takes them away for hours on end-only last week a simple shoplifter ended up taking an officer off the street for 7hrs. Its a complete joke. Funnily enough they have to keep going to the custody suite for bailees, CPS appointments , property. The public dont get a cop when they need one. But as long as the meanigless tasking returns are completed then all is rosey in the garden. The government are spinning Neighbourhood Policing being locally based its far from that everything has gone away from local policing to centralised everything run by peole who havent got a clue
Happy days!!!
Bob,
re the bean counters and that FPN,
has the officer sent back an email to the effect,
Dear Shiny ar*es in the Ivory tower
GET F****D.
I’d love to see the paperwork that that email would generate…
Support staff - aren’t we supporting them nowadays, i.e the tail is wagging the dog ?
As a matter of course, I have started to ignore those type of emails. Eventually they get bored of it and give up.
Just read the post again, and again I have the urge to go and hit my head against a brick wall, as I feel I would be more productive
At the end of the day there’s a decision to be made - you can have your police force effective OR fully accountable for every action. You can’t have both.
I’m a civil servant (not Home Office or CPS I hasten to add) and don’t mind a good form (as long as its correctly and fully filled in of course) but this beggars belief. 90% of the information on those forms must be the same (names, adresses, DOB, times, dates, locations etc) why not just have one form with check boxes for “night time economy” domestic, witnesses etc etc. Seems to me that initiatives are the problem, as with every initiative there is a new form ?
This is a problem in government generally, we now spend far more time recording and monitoring what we have done and planning what we are going to do than we do actually doing it. This is an extreme “coal face” example of it.
What’s gonna happend when you guys get cameras on your helmets ?
Bobby, Your dead right with your comment but, as you know it is a bigger offence to upset the sensitive souls in the fairy factory than to upset someone out on the streets.
In my force, sorry, service the fairy factory brigade are taking out more officers’ than complaints coming in from the public.
All of that and then when it comes to court, the magistrates will do their triumvirate thing, and because of sentencing guidelines, will likely just agree that “Time served” whilst in our custody prior to bail, and if the agrieved is lucky, compensation paid at £1 a week from benefit money or whatever other dubious income the offender has, being the most appropriate option available to them.
I read recently the cost of putting someone before the court for a public order offence or simple crim dam is about £2k if you factor in the cost /time of all those involved with the process. Then to see some scroat with 100+ convictions get £40 and time served as a punishment is disgracefull.
We just have to keep doing our jobs and nicking them and hope the public eventually wisen up and vote someone in that would be willing to have a proper review of sentencing options and actually have minimum tariffs that are proportional to the cost and annoyance caused.
Bob,
I don’t normally swear on any posts I put on. But that one about the FPN didn’t half annoy me !
That cop could spend his time out and about and catching the scrotes at it, but no, the nuggets that hide away behind computers in some air conditioned office do their utmost to keep him indoors.
No wonder Joe public is fed up.
Recently, my division has had great big plasma type screens put up in all the stations for cops to receive daily briefings on - only there can be as few as two cops on. So one briefs the other !
A none cop has also decreed at one office that no cop can keep his ‘refreshments’ in a fridge for more than one day…. Not that we get much time to eat them nowadays.
No refreshments in the fridge for more than one day?
Who’s going to police that then?
Well i suppose you could have sent 2 PCSO’s oh hang on they would have only called for someone who could actually deal with it and doubled the waste of time. Now say after me T J F!!!!!!
There may be a way around the cut and paste issue. If you email me I will try to explain it to you or send you my phone number so you can call me and you can try it on your own machine as I describe it.
I realise that the Police are not permitted to go on strike but…
Is there not some latitude for industrial action that would triple efficiency?
A work to court rules whereby anything surplus to judicial requirements is dropped.
Anything that would simultaniously wind up the government, lawyers, criminals and ACPO has got to be worth a look.
A policeman was criticised yesterday after he ordered an eight-year-old boy to smash up his toy gun – because it was an “imitation firearm”.
The officer confronted S… E…., of Pinehurst, Swindon, Wilts, as he played with the black and orange plastic toy outside his home. He told the boy to destroy the “weapon” or he would be arrested.
The officer only left when Mr Standen had snapped the toy in half – leaving Samuel in tears. But he returned five minutes later to warn his stepsister Sophie, six, about riding her battery-powered Barbie car on the pavement.
What sort of paper work trail did this generate then? Is there a commendation in it?
It seems to me that SOME officers are much more suited to shuffling paper than being let loose on the streets.
Ex-Pat Alfie
how exactly is he going to arrest an 8 year old when the age of criminal responsibility and therefore the age when someone can be arrested is 10 years old? where did you read this story Alfie? I would have thought that someone who read this and other Police blogs would think twice before outwardly believing something you read in the media.
All too true Guv, we’re being turned into another department of the civil service, where more forms are created by the Fast Trackers so they can tick the box and move on, avoiding accountability along the way.
The process down in England and Wales seems much more complicated than it does up in Scotland, or Strathclyde anyway. For that incident, we could be perhaps 20 minutes at the scene, then straight back to the office, book him in and launch sraight into the paperwork. Wouldn’t take any longer than a couple of hours if he was being held custody for court, and much less if he was being released for report.
The duplication of forms down south is frightening.
Uphilldowndale,
honest, that is not bulls** about the refreshments in the fridge ! The head honcho civvy decreed it one day. Being a day ’shirker’, I can guarantee that she does check the fridge daily. She comes out with crap like that, but when we needed new kit to ‘open’ doors we got told no.
That is what we have to put up with. Catching scrotes is easy, dealing with the numpties back at the nick is the real hard work !
Bobby,
Deep sigh; its enough to make you weep
I am surprised such a ’school mistress’ attitude doesn’t bring out the ‘naughty boys’ in the nick; I have an image of a ‘take a way foil tray’ its lid slightly askew, a big fat rats tail draped over the rim, curling neatly round on to the shelf below, just skimming the tub of low fat cottage cheese.
I can fix you up with the rat if you like?
Uphilldowndale,
you have a wicked sense of humour mate ! Hahaha, would love to see that look on her face as she opened the fridge.
Shame you don’t work at that nick, I do think that all the cops there have just had enough and just go along with it now, the ’schoolboy’ naughtiness has vanished of late.
Perhaps I should kickstart it to get it going, once that happens - watch out civvy numpty.
If I can get a rat, make it a big fat scrotey smelly one !
[...] officers will now have to be able to present an abbreviated case file to prosecutors within seven days of a [...]
Just out of interest, had you have responded to this call in your car with sirens blazing, lost control and inadvertantly squashed Darren against a wall killing him instantly, would there be any less forms to fill out?
Just curious lol !
I am not a person who would make a difference by saying anything about this, but instead of being simply speechless (which in fact I am), the policing process should be simplified or improved. Isn’t there any new technologies coming around can be used to ease up the whole process?