Is crime out of control in your area?
Discussion
Some government Psychopath has probably crunched the numbers and decided that everything that happens is economic activity good or bad.
No police but as long as you have insurance things get fixed or replaced.
The horror story would be effective policing and low crime then low economic activity.
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No police but as long as you have insurance things get fixed or replaced.
The horror story would be effective policing and low crime then low economic activity.
.
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A lot of your own commentary (hyperbole) added here. They "refuse" to investigate or they are under resourced and unable to? Crimes are "ignored" or under resourced and unable to investigate? Police priorities aren't set by the front line officers who would otherwise be dealing with these crimes. The front line officers don't decide what to "ignore" or "refuse" to investigate.This exact same story told from a frontline officer's point of view would read very differently. I know who's version I'd give more credence to as well.
I know some serving police officers at PC and Sergeant level. You would not believe the crap they are made to deal with, and those priorities are coming from government, not being set by themselves.
I know this is a motoring forum and all but the comments about the police targeting motorists for minor offences (in particular speeding) and ignoring serious crimes are way off the mark.
The force area where I work switched off all of its fixed speed cameras sometime around 2009, and since then only a handful of new cameras have gone in, specifically at the request (and funded by) the local council. There are fixed speed cameras on smart motorways too but none elsewhere. A handful of civilian operated camera vans is all there is. Dedicated traffic officers are down around 50%. Put in these terms, hardly sounds like they are going after the motorist does it?
I know literally dozens of officers who will tell you they have never issued a speeding ticket in their entire careers, partly because they have never been in a police vehicle equipped with the most suitable equipment (only traffic cars will have Provida kit etc), but partly because, on a response shift, they literally spend their careers going from one job to another as directed by the radio controller with almost no 'free time' to conduct proactive policing. With the way things have gone since 2010, the situation has got worse.
If you think how many times per journey some people speed, and the number of times people break the speed limit, the actual amount of 'enforcement' in percentage terms (times people actually speed, versus the times they get 'done' for it) for speeding is going to be incredibly low.
I work in a large metropolitan area that at any time can have upwards of 300 'live' police incident logs at any one time, all of which need resourcing, and we cover an area with a population of around 300,000. On, say, a Saturday night, we will begin the night shift with between 10 and 14 officers on the response shift. In 2009 the same area was policed by between 30 and 40 response officers.
In the first hour of the shift we will typically have between 30 and 40 'new' incidents coming in, that have to be graded and some kind of resource allocated according to priority. With that few officers and that number of jobs, is it any surprise that the response times for more 'minor' things is not what the public would hope for? It's not that 'officers don't care', its that the resources allocated for the job often do not match the task at hand. At the start of the shift we often lose 2-6 officers immediately to go and guard prisoners who have been taken to hospital for medical treatment (because deaths in custody are a bad thing) or to guard crime scenes. A single serious road traffic collision can wipe out two thirds of your response shift by the time you factor in the necessity for multiple road closures, scene management, accompanying victims to hospital, dealing with any offenders, awaiting vehicle recovery, and visiting/transporting family members of the victims. The resourcing situation is dire at times, the thin blue line is far thinner than most people realise.
I don't think any officer will deny there is waste and muddled priorities at times (led by the people at the top, not the people on the streets who simply go from job to job to job all shift without much by way of a break), but the media portrayal of policing is not always an accurate one and yet most people base their opinions on this without much insight as to what the job is actually like these days.
The force area where I work switched off all of its fixed speed cameras sometime around 2009, and since then only a handful of new cameras have gone in, specifically at the request (and funded by) the local council. There are fixed speed cameras on smart motorways too but none elsewhere. A handful of civilian operated camera vans is all there is. Dedicated traffic officers are down around 50%. Put in these terms, hardly sounds like they are going after the motorist does it?
I know literally dozens of officers who will tell you they have never issued a speeding ticket in their entire careers, partly because they have never been in a police vehicle equipped with the most suitable equipment (only traffic cars will have Provida kit etc), but partly because, on a response shift, they literally spend their careers going from one job to another as directed by the radio controller with almost no 'free time' to conduct proactive policing. With the way things have gone since 2010, the situation has got worse.
If you think how many times per journey some people speed, and the number of times people break the speed limit, the actual amount of 'enforcement' in percentage terms (times people actually speed, versus the times they get 'done' for it) for speeding is going to be incredibly low.
I work in a large metropolitan area that at any time can have upwards of 300 'live' police incident logs at any one time, all of which need resourcing, and we cover an area with a population of around 300,000. On, say, a Saturday night, we will begin the night shift with between 10 and 14 officers on the response shift. In 2009 the same area was policed by between 30 and 40 response officers.
In the first hour of the shift we will typically have between 30 and 40 'new' incidents coming in, that have to be graded and some kind of resource allocated according to priority. With that few officers and that number of jobs, is it any surprise that the response times for more 'minor' things is not what the public would hope for? It's not that 'officers don't care', its that the resources allocated for the job often do not match the task at hand. At the start of the shift we often lose 2-6 officers immediately to go and guard prisoners who have been taken to hospital for medical treatment (because deaths in custody are a bad thing) or to guard crime scenes. A single serious road traffic collision can wipe out two thirds of your response shift by the time you factor in the necessity for multiple road closures, scene management, accompanying victims to hospital, dealing with any offenders, awaiting vehicle recovery, and visiting/transporting family members of the victims. The resourcing situation is dire at times, the thin blue line is far thinner than most people realise.
I don't think any officer will deny there is waste and muddled priorities at times (led by the people at the top, not the people on the streets who simply go from job to job to job all shift without much by way of a break), but the media portrayal of policing is not always an accurate one and yet most people base their opinions on this without much insight as to what the job is actually like these days.
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