"What has happened to our police force?"
Discussion
I am no fan of Ann Widdecombe most of the time, but this article is hard to argue with (and bloody depressing).
NB: this is not BiB-bashing. Note the last paragraph. I'm sure many BiB here are indeed deeply frustrated by not being able to use their initiative or apply common sense. Although TBH much of this is irrelevant anyway when "you never see a policeman" in the first place anymore.
NB: this is not BiB-bashing. Note the last paragraph. I'm sure many BiB here are indeed deeply frustrated by not being able to use their initiative or apply common sense. Although TBH much of this is irrelevant anyway when "you never see a policeman" in the first place anymore.
Article said:
How have our police come from being a force that was respected throughout the entire country and against which no politician would have dared breathe a word to being a body of men and women regarded as useless at best and corrupt at worst?
Theresa May listed the major scandals but they have probably done less damage in total than the cumulative disillusionment which has built up over decades and which a succession of Home Secretaries has failed to address. Mrs May should now take a close look at how the average bobby is expected to operate: without any discretion, enslaved to the rulebook, averse to risk and judged by statistics. Afraid for their jobs if they use common sense, they arrest householders instead of vandals, refuse to ride bikes unless they have a certificate of fitness to do so and shy away from a couple of feet of water. When my garden shed was burgled I was offered counselling. Don’t be daft, said I. “We have no choice but to offer it,” responded the officer. He should have had a darn choice.
A single complainant gets all offended by a poster outside a local church proclaiming the existence of hell and the police say they are “obliged” to investigate. Why can’t they just tell him to get a life and go back to tackling thieves and rapists?
A constable once told me that when he began training for promotion it was all about gender equality in the office and that was years ago. The man who joins the police force almost certainly still does so because he wants to fight crime not tick boxes, cope with reams of paperwork and enforce political correct- ness but that laudable ambition is squeezed out of him before he walks his first beat.
That is the fault of chief constables and home secretaries and if Mrs May does not bring about a sea change then the public will continue to be disillusioned despite the bravery and decency of so many policemen who are as frustrated by it all as the rest of us.
Theresa May listed the major scandals but they have probably done less damage in total than the cumulative disillusionment which has built up over decades and which a succession of Home Secretaries has failed to address. Mrs May should now take a close look at how the average bobby is expected to operate: without any discretion, enslaved to the rulebook, averse to risk and judged by statistics. Afraid for their jobs if they use common sense, they arrest householders instead of vandals, refuse to ride bikes unless they have a certificate of fitness to do so and shy away from a couple of feet of water. When my garden shed was burgled I was offered counselling. Don’t be daft, said I. “We have no choice but to offer it,” responded the officer. He should have had a darn choice.
A single complainant gets all offended by a poster outside a local church proclaiming the existence of hell and the police say they are “obliged” to investigate. Why can’t they just tell him to get a life and go back to tackling thieves and rapists?
A constable once told me that when he began training for promotion it was all about gender equality in the office and that was years ago. The man who joins the police force almost certainly still does so because he wants to fight crime not tick boxes, cope with reams of paperwork and enforce political correct- ness but that laudable ambition is squeezed out of him before he walks his first beat.
That is the fault of chief constables and home secretaries and if Mrs May does not bring about a sea change then the public will continue to be disillusioned despite the bravery and decency of so many policemen who are as frustrated by it all as the rest of us.
Cat said:
Am I the only one whose heart sinks when a thread from months/years past suddenly bobs to the top of the forum like a turd that refuses to flush and the realisation dawns that it will now have a link to some slightly unrelated (if you're lucky) news story along with random ramblings?
As thread starter I was rather surprised to see it popping up again. The original story was given a bit of a pasting by most, and on reflection, I think they're probably right and am grateful to them for advancing my knowledge. That's why we're all here, I think (except the statists, who are of course perfect already).Not saying the thread shouldn't have been resurrected though. I think the principle of keeping similar stories together in the same thread over time is not in itself necessarily wrong, so it comes down to how much the two stories have in common. I guess it doesn't especially matter either way.
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