Swamp - Feet - Wet
April 22, 2008 by inspectorgadget
Ruralshire Constabulary, along with most of the rest of the UK Police, have decided to adopt a new strategy to deal with criminals and crime. It’s based upon the “Let’s ignore it and hope it goes away” principle. This is similar to the “Let’s ignore it and hope nobody notices” principle.
With the exception of what the bureaucrats call “Serious Acquisitive Crime” (stealing expensive things) “Hate Crime” (crimes perceived by someone to be, well, hateful) and “Night-time Economy Violent Crime” (crime which makes the licencing laws look bad) police officers have been instructed to “focus on” incidents which make life annoying for the average citizen.
Please note the introduction of the word “incident”. It doesn’t have to be a “crime” to be an “incident” they cry. This means; we know what has happened does not constitute a criminal offence, but we are Nanny and besides, people can’t solve their own problems any more in case they get kicked to death.
I prefer to call this strategy “Dog Mess and Wing Mirrors”.
An ACC recently told us “this is as much about telling people what we can’t do, as what we can do”.
In line with that advice, here are a few things we can’t do:
1. Charge criminals (the CPS decide).
2. Lock Up criminals (the prisons are full).
3. Chase criminals who drive away in a fast car (Health & Safety decide).
4. Deal properly with more than about 2 incidents at once after 4.00 pm (everyone has gone home).
5. Do anything outside our individual “remit”.
What can we do? well, we can endlessly telephone victims of certain crime types to check and recheck that they have received a good service. We only do this in certain geographical areas. The areas which are due an HMIC inspection.
We can pull yet more officers off the streets to sit behind computers “detecting” petty crimes all day. And we can spend £ thousands publicising Black History Month, apologising for slavery and holding Gypsy Traveller “cultural induction workshops” (true story).
Our Divisional Commander is trying to concentrate on getting police officers back on the streets; but I wonder if most of them have ever been on the streets in the first place!
I read somewhere that local councils are going to save money on maintaining expensive town hall clocks and other city public time pieces by getting more people to ask a policeman the time?
Tongue in cheek…but with this government you never know.
Keep up the good fight IG.
Kingmagic
(ps..first again!)
So depressingly familiar. But the Local Policing teams march on (until 4pm). The latest ‘I’m too busy to attend a real job’ is that they spend an inordinate amount of time sticking posters up around the nick, telling everyone what a superb job they’re doing.
Our ACC once targeted Travellers for a recruitment drive ‘because they are an under-represented’ minority in the Police.’
You couldn’t make it up!
Right on the money, more political interference in day to day policing, the nice idea that the public can set the agenda and dictate operational duties is nonsensical. Do they attend Monday’s meeting?
The only people who turn up to neighbourhood meetings are those living in leafy (Beirut to hear them speak) middle class houses.
Dog poo, speeding and yes, even wing mirrors are THEIR priority.
Meanwhile in kitchen sink Britain, where locals silently scream for help, hard luck we’re addressing Mr and Mrs nice.
I am quite aware that crime does happen in well to do areas, but it pales into insignificance against those happening on a minute by minute basis in all the under the carpet communities, yeah right.
Here’s the startling fact..Grip the crims, who come from these areas, arrest and convict, then they won’t bother Mr and Mrs nice..Apart that is for the dog poo and speeding, but that’s not that important is it?
I have been reading this blogg for a couple of months now - brilliant- I am a member of joe public (actually josafine) but in a previous employment I have had alot to do with various police constabularies not to mention end of second year MA in Criminolgy and Criminal Justice. with out meaning to sound patronising I think you do an amazing job and are often unsung heros. Then why do the govt and top brass like to keep you off balence, off policing and desk bound. Maybe cos you weild the power to sort law and order out and that would just be plain embarrassing
So true Guv.
Sounds like you’ve got a good divisional commander at the moment though, what changed there?
Or is it just lip service he’s paying to get officers out on the streets?
Most divisional commanders I have met seem to delight in creating squads rather than getting officers out on patrol.
Don’t worry!
The Government has its priorities right. They just criminalised a man and fined him a few hundred quid for having his wheelie bin 4 inches “too full”.
Obviously the fact that he was just forced onto collections ever other week and his wheelie bin is now too small is no defence for this crime!
The enforcement Officers apparently were wearing body armour! (We’ll get blamed for this).
So lets be clear, this decent member of society, who bins his rubbish, recycles as much as possible just got issued with a on the spot fine of £110 for having his bin 4″ too full when the bins through no fault of his own are too small.
If he had STOLEN £200 worth of goods he would have only got a fine of £80 saving himself £30.
He then goes to court and gets another £115 and criminal record making it £225 in total!
To get that sort of fine he could have STOLEN about £200 worth of gear on two separate occasions making £400 and still not have got a criminal record and still been £65 better off than having a full wheelie bin because the council cant be arsed to collect it!
If he wanted to use up the remaining £65 and was willing to accept a criminal record and thus gain parity with his bin filling crimes then he could probably have assaulted the next person who annoyed him, coughed it, got a caution, then gone out and assaulted someone else and finally got to go to court.
So you can either steel £400 worth of gear and assault two separate people on two separate occasions without legal justification.
Or
You can fill your bin 4″ too high
In the eyes of the law your getting the same porridge!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/7360147.stm
(Thanks for the tip mate)
Just read and listened to the above and almost collapsed when I read about the council ‘cracking down’ on that most heinous of crimes……This country is well and truly fubar.
Through personal experience in the ambulance service and through reading several different Police and Ambulance blogs I’m starting to realise more and more that the goverment and top brass persons in these areas are so far removed from what is actually needed and what actually happens that they appear incapable of understanding why the people working in and receiving these services are so disillusioned.
I’m still young, naive and love my job (which I haven’t been doing long enough to get cynical yet!) and I try not to get involved with politics. But even I can see you guys get a tough ride.
“police officers have been instructed to “focus on” incidents which make life annoying for the average citizen.”
Who actually has given the instruction? In days gone by I was proud of the fact that no-one could make me take action which I, as a Constable, decided was not needed. There was also a case where someone tried to force a Chief Constable to enforce some particular aspect of the law and the High Court came down on the side of the CC, and all other constables, were entitled to exercise their discretion in deciding what offences to report.
I know that bloody minded bosses can make things difficult if you upset them, but when I was one of them I took it as my job to encourage officers to take action against certain types of offence, if we were having a hard time through them. I never issued instructions to do so. I was proud of the fact that my Warrant Card referred to me as a Constable. Perhaps some of your SMTs need to be asked to have a close look at theirs.
Really enjoyed reading this!
So true and to add to the list of what we can’t do, providing a visible reassuring presence seems to be appearing difficult listening to some of the taxpayers I speak to.
The refuse offender was not actually fined £115 at Magistrates Court. The extra £15 was a surcharge for the ‘ Victims Fund’ .
Although an ex constable of the law ( now retired ) last year I was sworn as a JP. When I discovered that as Magistrates we were required to ADD this surcharge to anyone convicted and fined in Magistrates Court I chose to resign.
I stated that I was not prepared to inflict another stealth tax on behalf of a dishonest government. A number of magistrates throughout the country also packed up.
Gadget and his like are all that is left trying to protect society from the dishonesty of a government of ex student radicals intent on social experimentation and the destruction of the real British Way of Life. Keep the faith.
Sigh… during my stint as Chief Assistant to the Assistant Bagman back in far off 1995, the first stirrings of this customer focus malarkey were being heard in our Constabulary. We had to have focus groups and all sorts
I remember sitting down with the old Chief Super, a man with no personal skills and few smooth management touches. “You know Jack” he said putting his feet on his desk and staring wistfully into the mid distance “if we go down this road, in 10 years time, they’ll have us on parking patrol and policing dog crap.” He paused again sipped his coffee and continued “and people will only get disappointed because that’s not what we’re here for and we’re no good at it.”
He might usefully have added curfewing all teenagers after 8pm but he had the right idea.
He was not a man much given to public displays of angst and he retired largely unmissed and unlamented but he got that one dead right
During the war, the worst guards at the concentration camps were the Jewish trustees, far more cruel than their SS guards.
Is this what is happening to us, who are examining our bins, when they should be picking up litter and mending broken paving slabs, no wonder our rates are sky high.
*sigh* S’ok Guv.
While Nanny barks uselessly at the window, guarding the Fort while the rest of us Lost Boys fly to deal with Hook, we’ll put the bedroom behind us and remember that sod what Mummy and Daddy want, it’s the little adventures on the outside that count.
While we still can.
Yom Kipper, I belong to a Community Watch residents’ association in a leafy suburb. All we ever campaign against is dog poo, inconsiderate parking and late-night student noise. This is because our houses are expensively protected like the Bank Of England with an array of lights, alarms and locks that might give the impression we have priceless works of art hanging on our sitting room walls. Our cars are all off the street. Our kids are ferried hither and yon so we always spot a strange yoof or occupied banger and either congregate outside to make it look as if we’re onto him, or call “our” PCSO if he’s ever dared to venture here on more than one occasion.
This is nothing to do with perceived danger and everything to do with righteous indignation that anyone might possibly get away with nicking or breaking stuff we had to work to buy; and getting away with it is what overwhelmingly seems to happen.
One of the key words you use Boss is HMIC, they are not far away at the moment, and panic rules the air!
Public priorities,
speeding, (one person - repeat caller),
parking, (should be council)
criminal damage, (one out of three, not bad)
Oh happy day!!
Notellin-
perhaps should have applied in this case.
I would hope that there is a lot more to this story than has been published.
De Minimis, (often shortened to ‘de min’
The full expression is de minimis non curat lex. A Latin phrase which means “the law does not care about very small matters”. …
can the last person out of this disaster zone please turn out the lights!
“Copperfield, Giz a job!!!!”
I sometimes wonder just how many cops are employed in offices (desk jockies) to check and re check everything I put onto the computers.
Do they know how irritating it is to be told off for not putting in things such as the victims correct ethnicity or what colour of hair they have etc…
Do they enjoy their job ? Personally, I would hate it. I love getting out and about and having to return to the office to do paperwork just doesn’t seem right.
These same cops also seem to cook the books with crimes. If it is a priority crime that is detected, that’s fine. If there is no chance of that particular crime ever being detected, they will change that same crime to become a different type of crime so that it will not be recorded as an undetected priority crime.
Again, these same cops will also want to make sure we investigate all the petty petty weary stuff that even Joe public doesn’t care about.
Now, us poor response cops in my farce are being sent to Council meetings to have the wrath of councillors unleased upon us. The bosses should go, but they don’t.
The only way I find I can avoid all the nonsense, is to go out of the office staright away and catch someone at it. Management can’t argue with that. I get to enjoy my job that way and body swerve all the silliness.
People steal and kill and cheat because a) they feel they can get away with it and b) they feel no responsibility for their actions or others. Politicians, and through them, senior officials subject to them, want power and acclaim. In the case of Police it’s promotion, recognition and the QPM. They want to be recognised if their policies succeed but they will not stand up and accept responsibility for failure. It will always be the fault of someone else down the chain of command (responsibility for failure is like water - it always seeks the lowest possible level before coming to rest). The world is full of people who want to tell you how to live your lives, what rules you must obey and how to achieve (their perception of) heaven on earth. But when their ideas turn out half-baked such as in Copeland Council with the rubbish bins or tragic such as Livingstone’s Gulag of Londonistan, those in power will turn their heads away, avert their eyes and claim that they had no responsibility for the results. The Government bully HMIC into demanding politically correct statistics, otherwise they won’t be allowed into the House of Lords; HMIC put pressure on Chief Constables who risk their knighthoods; Divisional Commanders may lose their bonuses if they don’t comply with the latest initiative from HQ; those Police officers further down the chain won’t be promoted if they don’t follow the SMT line and the Head of Crime Figures Manipulation Unit may be sidetracked to the Department for One Legged Traveliing Turkish Lesbian Hangliders if not enough members of the public say what brilliant service they’re receiving. All of this falls onto the street officers to make these initiatives succeed by, as it is well known, filling out the forms so that all mentioned above happens. What’s the answer? Perhaps there is someone out there who knows. Reading these blogs I am so thankful that I am no longer involved, though I do feel for my son and nephew who are both within their first 3 years in the Job. Whether they stick it, I don’t know, but they are both pretty disillusioned.
Got a girl at my nick. Fourteen years service and since the end of her probation, she’s only spent 3 months on a response shift when she engineered her promotion to Sgt. Following conformation she spent 10 years as a ‘Divisional Training Officer ‘, often ‘working from home’. Acted as the Div Commanders boot licker and despite having absolutely no front line experience, came top of the Sgts promotion boards.
She made a complete hash of the three months as a shift Sgt, spending most of the time shifting the blame for her cock ups onto other people.
Rapidly moved away from real work to become a ‘file quality manager’. She now works what hours she likes, has passed her Inspectors and is earmarked for an acting role soon.
It makes me shudder. This useless waste of space will now be leeching off experienced Sgts and no doubt telling everyone what a fine job she’s doing.
Seems to me, if you want to get on, don’t bother being good at your job.
(And I’ve got no personal axe to grind. I’m content to have been frontline for all my years of service. And I have no desire to progress further than my current Sgt rank)
“… What’s the answer? Perhaps there is someone out there who knows.” Well, I’m not sure I have a foolproof answer, Plodnomore, but if it’s a choice between doing my job (office-based, casework management with about 30 staff under me) satisfactorily, or chasing my tail to meet some arbitrary target, I’m afraid my inclination is just to lie in the stats.
The chances of it ever being rumbled are negligible; if it is ever discovered it will be long after it was relevant and the audit-trail can be fudged; and if I am ever “brought to book” I can put my hands up and apologise for lax statistical management or an error of judgement. It wouldn’t be a hanging offence.
Mind you, I’ve gone as far as I’m going to in my profession and have no further interest in promotion. It’s different if you are longingly staring upwards at the backside of the man/woman/gender-unassigned person above you.
Everyone wants freedom, they also they want dominion.
Until democracy comes into the house , mite rules.
Is it just me or are we getting worse?? I swear the optimism I enjoyed as a PC has well and truly gone.
Enjoyed entry number 21….I have just this afternoon learnt of a desk jockey Sgt awaiting to take part 2 of the Insp’s process and has actually written the advert and role requirement for their own f’ing job!! It’s apparently ideal for an Acting Insp, even I can predict what’s coming next!!
I give up
Ec-Copper @ 9. In order for the SMT to look at their warrant card they would have to remove their heads from their ars** and that is never going to happen.
@21 Notaspecialist.
I also liked this one as I am sick to the back teeth of seeing people (of either gender) rising through the ranks without actually doing anything. I have heard of endless examples of more than one person claiming the same ‘evidence’ for their promotion application. Nobody challenges it and people get positions that they are 1. not experienced for and 2. they have lied to get to. This continues throughout their career.
Usually these people can be seen in the following departments;
Training, Community safety, crime reduction, planning, projects.
They move and and later surface in the following departments;
Training, Inspection units, performance and planning units, community safety and projects
Extremely frustrating.
Any officer who wears uniform, but wears shoes instead of boots and doesn’t wear a kit belt is no longer a real cop.
3.yomkipper - you seem to be making some kind of sense - I will keep reading….