‘The Big Lie about Police Numbers’ - Peter Hitchens
Discussion
‘The Big Lie about Police Numbers. Alleged 'manpower shortages' simply don't explain the vanishing of foot patrols.
Whenever I point out that Police have stopped doing the job they were hired for, the various Police and Police trade union Lobbies try to pretend that this failure is caused by a lack of manpower. It is not true. This post from June 2016 explains why -
https://t.co/LD82lSNKw6?amp=1
Whenever I point out that Police have stopped doing the job they were hired for, the various Police and Police trade union Lobbies try to pretend that this failure is caused by a lack of manpower. It is not true. This post from June 2016 explains why -
https://t.co/LD82lSNKw6?amp=1
Since you seem to keep repeating this rubbish, so I'll repeat the reply I wrote a while ago:
1901: Population (England and Wales) 32.5 million; Police strength(England and Wales) 42,484
1981: Pop 49 million; police 118,081
1991: Pop 49.9 million; police 125,294
1995: Population figures not available; police 124,710
1999: Population figures not available; police 123,051
What use is a police officer AFTER a crime has been committed?
First Aid perhaps, that's about it.
An arrest is an admission of failure to be perfectly honest.
It is as simple as I have stated previously. If you wait for crime to occur, then respond to it, a demand is being created which will never be fulfilled.
It is also worth mentioning that officers since the 1960s, are not just much more numerous but have also been relieved of numerous tasks.
- They no longer enforce parking rules.
- They have closed scores of police stations, and have ceased to staff many of the remaining stations outside normal working hours.
- They no longer escort prisoners to and from court.
- They are no longer responsible for checking the security of commercial premises.
- They have handed over their prosecuting role to the Crown Prosecution Service.
- They also have thousands of non-uniformed back office staff.Your username is very apt.
XCP didn't give a start and end date to qualify his statement. If you don't know which period he was talking about, how can you state 'the facts don't support your opinion'? He did talk about when he started policing so you could have drawn a logical and reasonable inference.
Ok, so numbers. Why did you stop at 1999? Did you look at the data after and see that it wasn't favourable for your view?
Let's look at data from the late 1970s to now, as we're essentially post-PACE and in the modern era of policing with modern infrastructure (motorways etc).
Two things.
1) Numbers are about the same now as in 1985.
- Population 1980 56.5 million.
- Population 2019 66.65 million.
2) The arrow shows a sharp reduction from the record high numbers. Often cited when talking about 'reductions' as it was a large loss in a short period of time so had a large impact.
Your understanding of demand is a bit of a joke if you think the things you bullet-pointed have any real relevance on modern policing demand and the changes that mean it's so high now.
There are three fundamental drivers of huge demand increases.
1) Modern technology. Mobile phones mean everyone can call the police. That's one of the reasons going back so far as you did is nonsensical. This resulted in the police having to build modern call-centres to handle the volume of calls.
Technology has resulted in huge volumes of crime. Look at fraud. Fraud on its own dwarfs all other crime (source: CSEW). Most of this fraud is post 2000 and online with the growth of the internet.
2) Non-crime areas of policing. Over 80% of calls to the police are for non-crime matters (source: COP). The role of the police had widened over time to include a lot of mental health work, anti-social behaviour and much more. This has been compounded recently by demand leaking over from the NHS and LAs when they've been too stretched to deal their own demand, such as MH and child risk issues. It doesn't work the other way around i.e. if the police can't attend a domestic incident, the NHS aren't going to go, are they?
3) Investigatory processes.
Investigations are significantly more bureaucratic and “resource intensive”. A large number of investigations now come with technological lines of enquiry e.g. examining mobile phones.
I can't speak from first-hand experience, but I don't think this was an issue in 1901.
Here's what I wrote last time you mentioned Hitchens - though it was that article in the form of a video: La Liga said:
LetsTryAgain said:
XCP said:
Demand has increased and numbers have gone down. It is as simple as that.
Unfortunately for you, the facts don't support your opinion. 1901: Population (England and Wales) 32.5 million; Police strength(England and Wales) 42,484
- cut lots of irrelevant dates*
1981: Pop 49 million; police 118,081
1991: Pop 49.9 million; police 125,294
1995: Population figures not available; police 124,710
1999: Population figures not available; police 123,051
What use is a police officer AFTER a crime has been committed?
First Aid perhaps, that's about it.
An arrest is an admission of failure to be perfectly honest.
It is as simple as I have stated previously. If you wait for crime to occur, then respond to it, a demand is being created which will never be fulfilled.
It is also worth mentioning that officers since the 1960s, are not just much more numerous but have also been relieved of numerous tasks.
- They no longer enforce parking rules.
- They have closed scores of police stations, and have ceased to staff many of the remaining stations outside normal working hours.
- They no longer escort prisoners to and from court.
- They are no longer responsible for checking the security of commercial premises.
- They have handed over their prosecuting role to the Crown Prosecution Service.
- They also have thousands of non-uniformed back office staff.
XCP didn't give a start and end date to qualify his statement. If you don't know which period he was talking about, how can you state 'the facts don't support your opinion'? He did talk about when he started policing so you could have drawn a logical and reasonable inference.
Ok, so numbers. Why did you stop at 1999? Did you look at the data after and see that it wasn't favourable for your view?
Let's look at data from the late 1970s to now, as we're essentially post-PACE and in the modern era of policing with modern infrastructure (motorways etc).
Two things.
1) Numbers are about the same now as in 1985.
- Population 1980 56.5 million.
- Population 2019 66.65 million.
2) The arrow shows a sharp reduction from the record high numbers. Often cited when talking about 'reductions' as it was a large loss in a short period of time so had a large impact.
Your understanding of demand is a bit of a joke if you think the things you bullet-pointed have any real relevance on modern policing demand and the changes that mean it's so high now.
There are three fundamental drivers of huge demand increases.
1) Modern technology. Mobile phones mean everyone can call the police. That's one of the reasons going back so far as you did is nonsensical. This resulted in the police having to build modern call-centres to handle the volume of calls.
Technology has resulted in huge volumes of crime. Look at fraud. Fraud on its own dwarfs all other crime (source: CSEW). Most of this fraud is post 2000 and online with the growth of the internet.
2) Non-crime areas of policing. Over 80% of calls to the police are for non-crime matters (source: COP). The role of the police had widened over time to include a lot of mental health work, anti-social behaviour and much more. This has been compounded recently by demand leaking over from the NHS and LAs when they've been too stretched to deal their own demand, such as MH and child risk issues. It doesn't work the other way around i.e. if the police can't attend a domestic incident, the NHS aren't going to go, are they?
3) Investigatory processes.
Investigations are significantly more bureaucratic and “resource intensive”. A large number of investigations now come with technological lines of enquiry e.g. examining mobile phones.
I can't speak from first-hand experience, but I don't think this was an issue in 1901.
La Liga said:
LetsTryAgain said:
The sound of a firmly closed mind.
Self satisfied, arrogant, intolerant, completely hostile to *any* kind of outside argument, and contemptuous of it.
It's not an argument. It's him making superficial statements without backing them up. Self satisfied, arrogant, intolerant, completely hostile to *any* kind of outside argument, and contemptuous of it.
"The police used to patrol the streets."
Yep, back when demand and scope was a fraction of what it was today. That model wouldn't work in a modern context.
"They wait for the crimes they haven't prevented."
"You could have a million constables and it still wouldn't do any good."
No, you'd then be able to have idealistic foot patrol then.
LetsTryAgain said:
‘The Big Lie about Police Numbers. Alleged 'manpower shortages' simply don't explain the vanishing of foot patrols.
Whenever I point out that Police have stopped doing the job they were hired for, the various Police and Police trade union Lobbies try to pretend that this failure is caused by a lack of manpower. It is not true. This post from June 2016 explains why -
https://t.co/LD82lSNKw6?amp=1
My team might manage to put out 18/20 Officers per shift.Whenever I point out that Police have stopped doing the job they were hired for, the various Police and Police trade union Lobbies try to pretend that this failure is caused by a lack of manpower. It is not true. This post from June 2016 explains why -
https://t.co/LD82lSNKw6?amp=1
That's for 610k permanent residents.
7.5m yearly visitors
4.5m overnight visitors per year.
35sq miles.
It's not unheard of for a single double crewed car to cover that, because of other policing demands.
One shift during the last year......10 Officers on duty.
Hitchens has no idea what he's talking about, and by extension, nor does the OP since he just parrots out Hitchens's garbage.
The police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
The police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
La Liga said:
Hitchens has no idea what he's talking about, and by extension, nor does the OP since he just parrots out Hitchens's garbage.
The police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
The obvious solution would be to reduce the Police role, in recent years they seem to have taken on a lot of social worker / mental health tasksThe police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
As do Ambulance and A&E staff
Demand is crazy at the moment, and is only going in one way - for all the reasons above (everyone and his dog has a mobile these days, picking up the shortfall in other services etc) but there’s also a huge drive in encouraging the public to report crime (as indeed they should) and a large volume of social media related rubbish - stuff that ends up being recorded as mal comms, but also social media spats that end up becoming public order/assault offences as things spill into the real world.
Couple that with the Covid impact - it sometimes feels like every other call is either a domestic or a suicidal person, as well as attending all the reports of Covid regulation breaches - it all adds up.
To put it in perspective, I work for a small rural force. Five years ago we’d average about 250 jobs a day, perhaps 300 on a Friday/Saturday night. I recall back in 2018/19 being shocked at hitting 500 jobs on a very busy nights (warm summer holiday weekends for example). Now - in very early spring 2021 we’re topping 500 jobs on a chilly Tuesday night, and we topped 700 jobs a few times last summer.
From my perspective at least, demand for frontline response jobs - and the subsequent crime investigation etc - appears to have nearly tripled in the last 6 or 7 years.
And from an anecdotal point of view, I used to be late off shift perhaps once or twice a month. I’m now home on time perhaps once or twice a month, and regularly 3-4 hours late off rather than the odd half an hour or 60 mins here or there.
Couple that with the Covid impact - it sometimes feels like every other call is either a domestic or a suicidal person, as well as attending all the reports of Covid regulation breaches - it all adds up.
To put it in perspective, I work for a small rural force. Five years ago we’d average about 250 jobs a day, perhaps 300 on a Friday/Saturday night. I recall back in 2018/19 being shocked at hitting 500 jobs on a very busy nights (warm summer holiday weekends for example). Now - in very early spring 2021 we’re topping 500 jobs on a chilly Tuesday night, and we topped 700 jobs a few times last summer.
From my perspective at least, demand for frontline response jobs - and the subsequent crime investigation etc - appears to have nearly tripled in the last 6 or 7 years.
And from an anecdotal point of view, I used to be late off shift perhaps once or twice a month. I’m now home on time perhaps once or twice a month, and regularly 3-4 hours late off rather than the odd half an hour or 60 mins here or there.
KTMsm said:
La Liga said:
Hitchens has no idea what he's talking about, and by extension, nor does the OP since he just parrots out Hitchens's garbage.
The police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
The obvious solution would be to reduce the Police role, in recent years they seem to have taken on a lot of social worker / mental health tasksThe police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
As do Ambulance and A&E staff
timbob said:
Demand is crazy at the moment, and is only going in one way - for all the reasons above (everyone and his dog has a mobile these days, picking up the shortfall in other services etc) but there’s also a huge drive in encouraging the public to report crime (as indeed they should) and a large volume of social media related rubbish - stuff that ends up being recorded as mal comms, but also social media spats that end up becoming public order/assault offences as things spill into the real world.
Couple that with the Covid impact - it sometimes feels like every other call is either a domestic or a suicidal person, as well as attending all the reports of Covid regulation breaches - it all adds up.
To put it in perspective, I work for a small rural force. Five years ago we’d average about 250 jobs a day, perhaps 300 on a Friday/Saturday night. I recall back in 2018/19 being shocked at hitting 500 jobs on a very busy nights (warm summer holiday weekends for example). Now - in very early spring 2021 we’re topping 500 jobs on a chilly Tuesday night, and we topped 700 jobs a few times last summer.
From my perspective at least, demand for frontline response jobs - and the subsequent crime investigation etc - appears to have nearly tripled in the last 6 or 7 years.
And from an anecdotal point of view, I used to be late off shift perhaps once or twice a month. I’m now home on time perhaps once or twice a month, and regularly 3-4 hours late off rather than the odd half an hour or 60 mins here or there.
Do you have to stay back on your own time, or are you paid overtime for it?Couple that with the Covid impact - it sometimes feels like every other call is either a domestic or a suicidal person, as well as attending all the reports of Covid regulation breaches - it all adds up.
To put it in perspective, I work for a small rural force. Five years ago we’d average about 250 jobs a day, perhaps 300 on a Friday/Saturday night. I recall back in 2018/19 being shocked at hitting 500 jobs on a very busy nights (warm summer holiday weekends for example). Now - in very early spring 2021 we’re topping 500 jobs on a chilly Tuesday night, and we topped 700 jobs a few times last summer.
From my perspective at least, demand for frontline response jobs - and the subsequent crime investigation etc - appears to have nearly tripled in the last 6 or 7 years.
And from an anecdotal point of view, I used to be late off shift perhaps once or twice a month. I’m now home on time perhaps once or twice a month, and regularly 3-4 hours late off rather than the odd half an hour or 60 mins here or there.
If they pay you they are wasting money.
Surely it would be cheaper to employ another copper if it's so regular?
Peter Hitchens speaks utter twaddle, he has no idea what he is talking about. He writes articles that are designed to be lapped up by the readers of the anti police daily mail.
I agree with the points made above. There are absolutely enough police officers to police the streets.
There’s absolutely not enough police officers to police the streets and deal with other agencies work which makes up 60-80% of a response cops workload now.
Chief con stables need to have a united front and simply tell the other agencies - No, sort your own work out.
I agree with the points made above. There are absolutely enough police officers to police the streets.
There’s absolutely not enough police officers to police the streets and deal with other agencies work which makes up 60-80% of a response cops workload now.
Chief con stables need to have a united front and simply tell the other agencies - No, sort your own work out.
mickyh7 said:
timbob said:
Demand is crazy at the moment, and is only going in one way - for all the reasons above (everyone and his dog has a mobile these days, picking up the shortfall in other services etc) but there’s also a huge drive in encouraging the public to report crime (as indeed they should) and a large volume of social media related rubbish - stuff that ends up being recorded as mal comms, but also social media spats that end up becoming public order/assault offences as things spill into the real world.
Couple that with the Covid impact - it sometimes feels like every other call is either a domestic or a suicidal person, as well as attending all the reports of Covid regulation breaches - it all adds up.
To put it in perspective, I work for a small rural force. Five years ago we’d average about 250 jobs a day, perhaps 300 on a Friday/Saturday night. I recall back in 2018/19 being shocked at hitting 500 jobs on a very busy nights (warm summer holiday weekends for example). Now - in very early spring 2021 we’re topping 500 jobs on a chilly Tuesday night, and we topped 700 jobs a few times last summer.
From my perspective at least, demand for frontline response jobs - and the subsequent crime investigation etc - appears to have nearly tripled in the last 6 or 7 years.
And from an anecdotal point of view, I used to be late off shift perhaps once or twice a month. I’m now home on time perhaps once or twice a month, and regularly 3-4 hours late off rather than the odd half an hour or 60 mins here or there.
Do you have to stay back on your own time, or are you paid overtime for it?Couple that with the Covid impact - it sometimes feels like every other call is either a domestic or a suicidal person, as well as attending all the reports of Covid regulation breaches - it all adds up.
To put it in perspective, I work for a small rural force. Five years ago we’d average about 250 jobs a day, perhaps 300 on a Friday/Saturday night. I recall back in 2018/19 being shocked at hitting 500 jobs on a very busy nights (warm summer holiday weekends for example). Now - in very early spring 2021 we’re topping 500 jobs on a chilly Tuesday night, and we topped 700 jobs a few times last summer.
From my perspective at least, demand for frontline response jobs - and the subsequent crime investigation etc - appears to have nearly tripled in the last 6 or 7 years.
And from an anecdotal point of view, I used to be late off shift perhaps once or twice a month. I’m now home on time perhaps once or twice a month, and regularly 3-4 hours late off rather than the odd half an hour or 60 mins here or there.
If they pay you they are wasting money.
Surely it would be cheaper to employ another copper if it's so regular?
Sorry (not sorry) to play the ball not the man and I see from above that I'm not even the first to do so, but Peter Hitchens has a long track record of denying reality. I'm not talking about his right wingness, rather his scepticism of things such as evolution, climate change and MMR. He's one of those idiots who manage to convince people they're clever by virtue of having a posh accent.
I freely admit to not reading the linked post because I don't want to give myself eye cancer or shift the decimal place in my IQ one space to the left by reading what he has to say about anything more important than what colour crayon he uses to scrawl his "thoughts".
I freely admit to not reading the linked post because I don't want to give myself eye cancer or shift the decimal place in my IQ one space to the left by reading what he has to say about anything more important than what colour crayon he uses to scrawl his "thoughts".
The police are too often seen as the catch-all fall back when situations that should be dealt with by other agencies are not being covered. There is a duty of care aspect that seems to be exploited by some agencies. At one point we had joint training with Ambulance to use police vehicles for taking some injured people to A&E with an injury severity and urgency grading system introduced. Why? Not enough ambulances available to attend more minor injury situations. They had to prioritise.
When in our ops room taking 999/101 calls it was irritating when calls came in for, say a welfare check on a person known to care type agencies. Often on a Friday afternoon when their staff would be finishing work. The attitude seemed to be send the police as our budget won’t allow overtime or it was simply buck passing. There might well be out of hours staff they could use but police was easier. The outcome could vary. The vulnerable person might be deemed at risk ( how can an officer be properly trained to assess?) options are leave them and face recriminations if it went pear shaped, request out of hours agency attend ( how long to wait there?) or take into protective custody ( not the best as cells are basically the only option. This all ties up officer time instead of better funding agencies to deal properly with incidents. Also get the agencies to take the responsibility not pass it on. Yes, assistance to attend can be needed in some circumstances such as breaking into premises or a risk to the agency staff. No problem there.
A second aspect is the increased complexities of some crimes ( fraud and tech based) plus case prep for CPS to make decisions on prosecution etc. Forensic requirements have got more complex as science has progressed.
Getting time off can be hard too.
When my daughter was getting married I requested 2 days clear time off months in advance as my work rota had me working on those days. Response was “OK, we’ll get back to you”. My reply was “ no, just letting you know with months to spare that I won’t be in.” We were never at agreed staff numbers and always asking for swops with colleagues for time off especially on weekends.
I was a civilian not an officer so a bit easier.
When in our ops room taking 999/101 calls it was irritating when calls came in for, say a welfare check on a person known to care type agencies. Often on a Friday afternoon when their staff would be finishing work. The attitude seemed to be send the police as our budget won’t allow overtime or it was simply buck passing. There might well be out of hours staff they could use but police was easier. The outcome could vary. The vulnerable person might be deemed at risk ( how can an officer be properly trained to assess?) options are leave them and face recriminations if it went pear shaped, request out of hours agency attend ( how long to wait there?) or take into protective custody ( not the best as cells are basically the only option. This all ties up officer time instead of better funding agencies to deal properly with incidents. Also get the agencies to take the responsibility not pass it on. Yes, assistance to attend can be needed in some circumstances such as breaking into premises or a risk to the agency staff. No problem there.
A second aspect is the increased complexities of some crimes ( fraud and tech based) plus case prep for CPS to make decisions on prosecution etc. Forensic requirements have got more complex as science has progressed.
Getting time off can be hard too.
When my daughter was getting married I requested 2 days clear time off months in advance as my work rota had me working on those days. Response was “OK, we’ll get back to you”. My reply was “ no, just letting you know with months to spare that I won’t be in.” We were never at agreed staff numbers and always asking for swops with colleagues for time off especially on weekends.
I was a civilian not an officer so a bit easier.
Bigends said:
If the overtime worked was unforeseen - then the first half hour only is unpaid. If the overtime worked was planned then its all paid (Unless the regs have changed)
Looks to me that you work lots of half hours for free!Reading your earlier post 25 shifts plus I would guess.
That's a lot of free work your doing.
Which is a lot of money they are saving.
Late FIL was a copper for many years, so I'm on your side.
It really stinks. I dont know how you put up with it.
There's an additional factor that is often ignored. Hitchens, I am certain, knows this but chooses to ignore it.
The swingeing cuts were to police funding. In order to feed the politically dishonest, the home officer minister – forget her name now – required police to dump civvy staff first. What this meant was that although there was a significant drop in warranted officers, there was an even bigger one in civilian staff.
The work these civilians did didn’t conveniently disappear as well, and their functions had to be assumed by police officers. That took officers off patrol, and off immediate response as they were doing those jobs that civilian staff did quicker and better. I mean, they were trained for it.
So as not to upset the general public, and to give ammunition to the political rabble-rousers such as, well you know, all officers off the street and working in offices were to be described as operational. The same home sec demanded this, although the wording was more circumspect.
Also, and also not reported, there were further cuts to police funding over and above that imposed by Cameron and May. With the cuts to local authorities, they cut police funding. When some dishonest PM got up and told everyone that the cuts to police funding were over, my old force had two years of reductions, the first being of over £1m. I have no idea of the second.
To those who repeat the drivel spouted by the likes of Hitchens, the reason serving officers reject his lies – there’s an irony in the title Hitchens chooses, the big lie about police numbers is because they know what they are talking about. The OP really needs to think again, or at least take on board the info from those who know.
Hitchens has never got over how famous, liked and loved his much more famous brother was. He tries to be the antithesis of everything he stood for – he’s a committed catholic, right wing, and of closed mind, not something anyone criticised his nicer brother of.
And the is no police union. That ended in 1918. Please keep up at the back.
The swingeing cuts were to police funding. In order to feed the politically dishonest, the home officer minister – forget her name now – required police to dump civvy staff first. What this meant was that although there was a significant drop in warranted officers, there was an even bigger one in civilian staff.
The work these civilians did didn’t conveniently disappear as well, and their functions had to be assumed by police officers. That took officers off patrol, and off immediate response as they were doing those jobs that civilian staff did quicker and better. I mean, they were trained for it.
So as not to upset the general public, and to give ammunition to the political rabble-rousers such as, well you know, all officers off the street and working in offices were to be described as operational. The same home sec demanded this, although the wording was more circumspect.
Also, and also not reported, there were further cuts to police funding over and above that imposed by Cameron and May. With the cuts to local authorities, they cut police funding. When some dishonest PM got up and told everyone that the cuts to police funding were over, my old force had two years of reductions, the first being of over £1m. I have no idea of the second.
To those who repeat the drivel spouted by the likes of Hitchens, the reason serving officers reject his lies – there’s an irony in the title Hitchens chooses, the big lie about police numbers is because they know what they are talking about. The OP really needs to think again, or at least take on board the info from those who know.
Hitchens has never got over how famous, liked and loved his much more famous brother was. He tries to be the antithesis of everything he stood for – he’s a committed catholic, right wing, and of closed mind, not something anyone criticised his nicer brother of.
And the is no police union. That ended in 1918. Please keep up at the back.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
La Liga said:
Hitchens has no idea what he's talking about
Peter Hitchens is a f
king moron, and always has been. The entire allocation of his family intelligence went to his late brother Christopher.kevinon said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
La Liga said:
Hitchens has no idea what he's talking about
Peter Hitchens is a fking moron, and always has been. The entire allocation of his family intelligence went to his late brother Christopher.mickyh7 said:
Bigends said:
If the overtime worked was unforeseen - then the first half hour only is unpaid. If the overtime worked was planned then its all paid (Unless the regs have changed)
Looks to me that you work lots of half hours for free!Reading your earlier post 25 shifts plus I would guess.
That's a lot of free work your doing.
Which is a lot of money they are saving.
Late FIL was a copper for many years, so I'm on your side.
It really stinks. I dont know how you put up with it.
It’s interesting talking to some of the civvy staff who did their 30 years, retired and carried on in staff roles - in property, driver or classroom training etc. All anecdotal evidence of course, but “back in the day” (1990s - so not that long ago), the general course of a shift would be to parade on, wash the car, get breakfast, go out on patrol, stop and talk to people, spot someone dodgy and turn them over (generally patrol and be proactive) and perhaps at some point in their shift they’d be called on the radio to answer a 999 call. Some shifts they’d answer no calls. Sometimes they’d arrest someone, bring back to custody, prepare and interview, charge and bail all within a few hours, then carry on patrolling.
These days we parade on, often with some (or many) jobs outstanding on the box. Usually they can wait 20 mins for our briefing, but anything immediate results in officers being turned out. Occasionally two or three crews are turfed out of briefing leaving only a handful of us left. The cars are rarely washed and at least half the time you’ve been allocated your first job over the radio before walking out the briefing room. Our usual shift is going from that first job to another to another - trying to fit the paperwork required in between, and often giving up it and turning out to the next immediate job. If you’re unlucky you’ll arrive back at the station already after you were supposed to have gone home and with 2 or 3 crime reports still to write. Other times if you’re fortunate and/or clever with your time management, you’ll be off there or thereabouts on time.
Going well for the OP. Wonder if this will be the final time he'll care to mention this. Or perhaps he's trolling at this point.
As do Ambulance and A&E staffScope has widened dramatically, which is one aspect. MH is an area where demand outweighs supply when it comes to responses, beds, treatment.
The state has to provide some response though one of its 'arms'. The police are basically the only ones who can't say 'no'. It doesn't work the other way around. If there's a crime in progress that can't be resourced, the police can't ask the NHS, fire or social services to go.
It's one way traffic in terms of who can offloads their demand to who.
Technology has played a massive role in increasing demand. Fraud now dwarfs every other crime combined together. I wonder how foot patrol would stop that.
Mobile phones were a huge change making the police available to nearly everyone, instantly. No having to go to a phone box or using a landline.
So many factors that make it invalid merely to compare numbers.
king moron, and always has been. The entire allocation of his family intelligence went to his late brother Christopher.If this article is anything to go by I must agree.
KTMsm said:
La Liga said:
Hitchens has no idea what he's talking about, and by extension, nor does the OP since he just parrots out Hitchens's garbage.
The police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
The obvious solution would be to reduce the Police role, in recent years they seem to have taken on a lot of social worker / mental health tasksThe police aren't saying there aren't comparable police per population ratios in the past, they are saying demand per police officer is unprecedented.
If you have the same number of people spread across five times as much demand, then that changes things dramatically.
As do Ambulance and A&E staff
The state has to provide some response though one of its 'arms'. The police are basically the only ones who can't say 'no'. It doesn't work the other way around. If there's a crime in progress that can't be resourced, the police can't ask the NHS, fire or social services to go.
It's one way traffic in terms of who can offloads their demand to who.
Technology has played a massive role in increasing demand. Fraud now dwarfs every other crime combined together. I wonder how foot patrol would stop that.
Mobile phones were a huge change making the police available to nearly everyone, instantly. No having to go to a phone box or using a landline.
So many factors that make it invalid merely to compare numbers.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
La Liga said:
Hitchens has no idea what he's talking about
Peter Hitchens is a fking moron, and always has been. The entire allocation of his family intelligence went to his late brother Christopher.I reckon calling Hitchens a moron or stupid is letting him off too lightly.
He may not be as bright as his brother but he must be intelligent enough to know that he is making stuff up to deceive his audience- he is bad, not foolish.
And the same goes for his editors and management. They knowingly support the publishing of lies under the guise of 'Opinion Pieces'. This undermines the whole point of traditional press, with its alleged checks and balances, versus news by Facebook/Twitter/pick your own echo chamber- which you expect to be invented.
He may not be as bright as his brother but he must be intelligent enough to know that he is making stuff up to deceive his audience- he is bad, not foolish.
And the same goes for his editors and management. They knowingly support the publishing of lies under the guise of 'Opinion Pieces'. This undermines the whole point of traditional press, with its alleged checks and balances, versus news by Facebook/Twitter/pick your own echo chamber- which you expect to be invented.
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