The Police need their hands untied..

[Derek Smith]

Goaty Bill 2 said:

I recall (correct me if I am mistaken), that elsewhere you stated that you would prefer to be arrested in Britain than anywhere else in the world. (nothing we should know about is there? )
But in seriousness, I would suggest that is probably quite a reasonable position these days.

Thanks for taking the time to write those comments.

I meant to say that if I was arrested for something I hadn't done, I would prefer to be arrested by police in England/Wales (sorry about the rest of the UK, but you are slightly different) than anywhere else where I have some knowledge of the policing methods.

A chap I used to work with - we tried to organise a set-up to take to Australia for printing, but the unions refused to accept the process, monotype - went to Oz and did quite well. He was nicked twice; once when he told a bloke with a T-shirt reading: Keep Australia Clean, Kill a Pom to take a pop at him if he thought he was good enough. The kid ran away and told the police he'd threatened him. He was taken to a police station and later taken to hospital for injuries received. Another time he was attacked by three blokes as he came out of a pub, presumably for his wallet as he'd just got paid. My friend was a big bloke, was ex-army and knew how to handle himself. He wasn't drunk. He fought off the three and the police arrived. He just stood there, hands behind his back. The following morning at court he couldn't stand or see out of one eye. He was deported with his family.

Oddly enough, he'd decided to return because one of his kids had a genetic illness and his insurance didn't cover all the treatment required after the first year. By being deported, he got some of his family's fares paid.

He said that when he told his new Australian friends about the first beating, they sort of accepted it as the norm and told him that because he was a Pom, the police wouldn't believe him. It didn't do to cross the police or be a Pom it seemed. In the 70s a number of serving officers went out to Australia to join their police. Some returned after a few years as they didn't like the way they had to treat the public or the way the public treated them.

[SkrrSkrr]

https://www.facebook.com/danieltb1/videos/10154886...

Looks like it's becoming a trend

[Rovinghawk]

Derek Smith said:

I was a supporter of the idea of PCSOs. However, it was badly planned and due to government intervention has become something of a waste. The money could be put to much better use, such as having PCSOs.

???????????????????

[SkrrSkrr]

Seems like the police are too busy touching up school kids and tasering innocent people to catch criminals....

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPigbo6jhoD/?taken-by=...


https://www.instagram.com/p/BPiIrvPAQfI/?taken-by=...

[wc98]

Rovinghawk said:

Derek Smith said:

I was a supporter of the idea of PCSOs. However, it was badly planned and due to government intervention has become something of a waste. The money could be put to much better use, such as having PCSOs.

???????????????????

i took that to mean that the money meant for hiring and facilitating pcso's was not spent on its primary purpose. i may be wrong.

[Derek Smith]

wc98 said:

Derek Smith said:

I was a supporter of the idea of PCSOs. However, it was badly planned and due to government intervention has become something of a waste. The money could be put to much better use, such as having PCSOs.

i took that to mean that the money meant for hiring and facilitating pcso's was not spent on its primary purpose. i may be wrong.

The implementation of PCSOs was inefficient, ineffective and lacked conviction. They are a cheaper form of patrolling as they do not need the investment that a police officer does. Given the lack of funding (I think it a retrograde step, but given the swingeing cuts, something's got to give) there was no chance of PCSOs being successful.

The same goes for patrolling motorways and NSL dual carriageways.

If the funding of the police is not to increase in real terms - until such times as the lack of an effective reserve becomes a national scandal - or, as is happening, funding is being reduced still further (despite the government saying the cuts would stop) then costs have to be reduced. If it doesn't need a warrant card, then someone else can do it cheaper.

It is just a shame that the government policy is for police officers to perform functions that used to be done by cheaper civilians.

Compared to France, Germany and many other EU countries, the British police forces had lower funding before the massive cuts.