What’s going on ‘ere then?
It's a copper and it's not straight…
The Indy (other newspapers are available) has a rather depressing exposé on the police farce here. As many heretofore law-abiding citizens have complained, the police seem to be less concerned with catching people who commit crimes and more concerned with turning everyone into a criminal and then just finding what it is they can pin on you. Unfortunately, until this has all been based on anecdotal evidence and hearsay.
However, thanks to the newshounds at the Indy, we now have some incontrovertible facts:
- 30% of ANPR data is wrong, and even if you have your insurance documents with you, if the ANPR says you are at fault, then you will at the very least have your time wasted. 30%!!!
- The soft-crime “initiative” pulled in north of £440 million last year, with the vast majority of this coming (of course!) from the long-suffering motorist, in the form of parking and speeding fines.
And the police loved it:
So fixated had officers become on their pursuit of arrests and ticket quotas that, until recently, the most successful vied for a prize known as the Bang It Out Cup. The officer with fewest results received the booby prize of an Underperforming Pig.
And who wouldn’t love it? You’re tasked with solving as many “crimes” as possible with the barest minimum of effort, and no comebacks if it turned out that the person you were harassing actually was insured.
Meanwhile, actual criminals know that they’re harder to catch, and the police are so wonderfully distracted by a combination of chasing ticks in boxes and filling in forms that the criminals are having a whale of time. Still, at least we’re not paying for all this wasteful, nonsensical, counter-productive stupidity.
Ha! Ha! Fooled you: of course we’re paying for them to do this to us as well!
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1
January 25, 2010 at 10:23 -
For blame, look at 10 Downing Street.
The changes started in 1997. The Police asked for exemption from elf and safety. It was refused.
The simple surveillance of a active known criminal turned into a bureaucratic nightmare and was often simply forgotten.
Diversity was thrust down throats and people hopelessly qualified were promoted well beyond their capabilities simply because of race/sex.In a matter of a few years you had young thrusting uni qualified D.I.s in charge of major robbery squads. They had very little experience of crime arrests, often no Court time and for some strange reason little or no common sense. They jumped the queue over seasoned officers for no sound reason other than ticking a particular box that suited the Government.
The dog handler changed from a officer with years of crime arrest experience to being replaced by a young woman who loved dogs because once again boxes were ticked.
Many corrupt officers are now NOT thrown out of the force because once again they fill the criteria of race/sex.
The CPS was invented purely for the reason to tell officers that each form needed to be done in different colours several times and then the case was dropped.
The criminal justice unit in nicks was changed from a couple of experienced officers near to retirement who very effectively prosecuted most cases to a office crammed with job seekers with no knowledge of the law, no interest in any kind of outcome and costing 40 times as much.
The duties room in most nicks changed from one sgt dealing with everything to a dozen people including head of personnel, deputy head, duties, admin, etc etc. Cost, cost cost.
In the charge rooms a flow chart was introduced direct from Government showing that when little Johnny comes in after stabbing someone in the eye with a screwdriver and he has already been ‘Warned’ and then ‘Further Warned’ and then ‘Cautioned’ he must of course be reviewed and several other authorities must become involved, none of whom would turn up until sometime in the future and then only when the other authority’s have turned up first because they are more important. Then nothing would be done, apart from Johnny being released and being naughty again.
Most officers in this Country’s Police Service have only known NuLabours way of life. The future is not bright.
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2
January 25, 2010 at 10:31 -
3
January 25, 2010 at 11:23 -
Same with the teachers, government brings in a system that doesn’t make sense and isn’t measurable realistically. It’s one thing setting targets, but when the overall service fails or is severely disrupted by the targets then what possible use are they ?
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4
January 25, 2010 at 11:52 -
can I add BT and the ISP companies to this list of bureacratic horror tales. it’s about time BT was broken up, their monopoly of telephone lines taken away and all the nasty little managers hung for not delivering a decent customer service because they are too bloody crap at what they do!
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5
January 25, 2010 at 12:47 -
CPS? Do you mean the Criminals Protection Society?
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6
January 25, 2010 at 14:09 -
Can’t fault Rog’s analysis (10.23). What astounds me is that he is so quietly eloquent in his summary. There are those of us (and there are many!) who will recognise and applaud every word, but with less gentlemanly epithets. Its time that more is made of it, and the pendulum starts to swing back towards common-sense and taking personal responsibility.
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7
January 25, 2010 at 14:11 -
Great post from Rob.
As a member of the public you know it is bad when you begin to take information from the top of the service with the same credence you would any other part of government. It is like they have given up even bothering to pretend to be straight with the public. It really reflects the deeper problems.
A lot of nonsense gets talked about De Menezes, for me he was simply a unfortunate and delayed victim of the 2005 bombers and the policemen that shot him were incredibly brave. The worst aspect for me was the immediate spinning. What sort of an organisation to we have that starts a victim smearing campaign in order to avoid bad publicity? -
8
January 25, 2010 at 14:48 -
To paraphrase Oscar: to shoot a person once may be considered unfortunate – to shoot him eight times looks like carelessness. Personally, I would regard the execution of an innocent person as being considerably worse than any spinning, but I’m old-fashioned that way.
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9
January 25, 2010 at 16:36 -
Rog is right on the money. I would add only
1. The tendency of senior officers to chase promotion by attending barmy seminars on hate crime and diversity;
2.The now official policy of the CPS to turn down any prosecution request not considered high-profile enough to warrant the £10,000 cost;
3. The general view in the Force that they are social workers rather than police officers; and
4. The reality (recorded in eleven separate occasions by both the Guardian and Telegraph) of bending statistics inorder to appear to be on top of things.
After my last attempt to get the bobbies to prosecute a violent fraudster obviously guilty of gbh, I’ve given up on the police. They are,on the whole, crooked, cynical and bone idle. And the obvious consequences of this do not bear thinking about. Criminals do, after all, read the papers as well.
xx
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