Are the Police Service fit for purpose anymore?
Discussion
John Locke said:
If the police were as effective at preventing crime in 2012, as they were in 1959, there wouldn't have been so many "incidents" to report.
Good one. Except over 80% of those incidents are ‘non-crime’ incidents and that figure was an illustration of the vast scale of policing responsibility these days vs back then, which renders the difference in police per population differences wholly irrelevant.
There are many immediately obvious things that should prevent you writing something like that. Lots of new laws, for example. You can have a go at figuring out some others.
La Liga said:
John Locke said:
If the police were as effective at preventing crime in 2012, as they were in 1959, there wouldn't have been so many "incidents" to report.
Good one. Except over 80% of those incidents are ‘non-crime’ incidents and that figure was an illustration of the vast scale of policing responsibility these days vs back then, which renders the difference in police per population differences wholly irrelevant.
There are many immediately obvious things that should prevent you writing something like that. Lots of new laws, for example. You can have a go at figuring out some others.
Whether the reasons are poorer quality of recruits, poor management, misplaced responsibilties, poor use of resources, a mixture of those and / or other causes, the fact is that the police service is no longer fit for purpose, because its prime purpose is the prevention of crime, and it doesn't.
John Locke said:
La Liga said:
John Locke said:
If the police were as effective at preventing crime in 2012, as they were in 1959, there wouldn't have been so many "incidents" to report.
Good one. Except over 80% of those incidents are ‘non-crime’ incidents and that figure was an illustration of the vast scale of policing responsibility these days vs back then, which renders the difference in police per population differences wholly irrelevant.
There are many immediately obvious things that should prevent you writing something like that. Lots of new laws, for example. You can have a go at figuring out some others.
Whether the reasons are poorer quality of recruits, poor management, misplaced responsibilties, poor use of resources, a mixture of those and / or other causes, the fact is that the police service is no longer fit for purpose, because its prime purpose is the prevention of crime, and it doesn't.
The role has gone from simply preventing, detecting crime and keeping the peace
Mission creep has led to the Police becoming society’s goalkeeper, doing the jobs of other agencies that are failing in the roles
Unfortunately, the Police, unlike other “services” cannot say NO
Hence why a Royal Commission is desperately overdue to redefine the roles and responsibilities and reset for the future a Police service for tomorrow
John Locke said:
In that case, there really is something fundamentally wrong; if 80% of those incidents are non crime, one must question whether they are all proper police responsibilities, and as for lots of new laws; exactly what purpose do these laws serve?
Whether the reasons are poorer quality of recruits, poor management, misplaced responsibilties, poor use of resources, a mixture of those and / or other causes, the fact is that the police service is no longer fit for purpose, because its prime purpose is the prevention of crime, and it doesn't.
The police don't make the laws. The police can't refuse to perform a role that is demanded of them. So why should poor quality recruits be the cause of your assumption that the service isn't fit for service? The educational standard of the police has been increasing steadily, that's both since the 70s and over a shorter recent time. Whether the reasons are poorer quality of recruits, poor management, misplaced responsibilties, poor use of resources, a mixture of those and / or other causes, the fact is that the police service is no longer fit for purpose, because its prime purpose is the prevention of crime, and it doesn't.
Mind you, even here the government has done its best to ensure that the standard will drop. Slashing budgets, effectively stopping recruitment, ensuring all the expertise in training officers, not to mention the infrastructure, and then demanding the instant recruitment of 20,000 officers. Make you wonder if poor quality of recrutis, poor management, misplaced responsibilities, poor use of resources in government makes it unfit for purpose.
You seem to think that the service is no fit for purpose. This is an assumption. You don't bring any logic into it, you don't give your reasons; it's made up. Even a poor quality recruit would know enough to realise that putting fact in front of a wild statement does not make it true. And that's a fact.
Derek Smith said:
John Locke said:
In that case, there really is something fundamentally wrong; if 80% of those incidents are non crime, one must question whether they are all proper police responsibilities, and as for lots of new laws; exactly what purpose do these laws serve?
Whether the reasons are poorer quality of recruits, poor management, misplaced responsibilties, poor use of resources, a mixture of those and / or other causes, the fact is that the police service is no longer fit for purpose, because its prime purpose is the prevention of crime, and it doesn't.
The police don't make the laws. The police can't refuse to perform a role that is demanded of them. So why should poor quality recruits be the cause of your assumption that the service isn't fit for service? The educational standard of the police has been increasing steadily, that's both since the 70s and over a shorter recent time. Whether the reasons are poorer quality of recruits, poor management, misplaced responsibilties, poor use of resources, a mixture of those and / or other causes, the fact is that the police service is no longer fit for purpose, because its prime purpose is the prevention of crime, and it doesn't.
Mind you, even here the government has done its best to ensure that the standard will drop. Slashing budgets, effectively stopping recruitment, ensuring all the expertise in training officers, not to mention the infrastructure, and then demanding the instant recruitment of 20,000 officers. Make you wonder if poor quality of recrutis, poor management, misplaced responsibilities, poor use of resources in government makes it unfit for purpose.
You seem to think that the service is no fit for purpose. This is an assumption. You don't bring any logic into it, you don't give your reasons; it's made up. Even a poor quality recruit would know enough to realise that putting fact in front of a wild statement does not make it true. And that's a fact.
Any, or all of those may have had an effect.
The prime purpose of the service is to prevent crime; it doesn't, regardless of the cause(s), therefore it is not fit for purpose. The logic is perfect. Don't take it personally; none of what I have written means that the majority of individual cops are not decent dedicated people, but as things stand, they are not very effective.
John Locke said:
The prime purpose of the service is to prevent crime; it doesn't, regardless of the cause(s), therefore it is not fit for purpose. The logic is perfect.. Don't take it personally; none of what I have written means that the majority of individual cops are not decent dedicated people, but as things stand, they are not very effective.
Surely you’re not referring to your own ‘logic’ as perfect. Saying ‘regardless of the causes’ followed by talking about logic. Is that some subtle comedy? If so, bravo! Nearly missed it.
Crime prevention is one purpose. There are others.
What measurements and evidence are you using to draw such conclusions?
I note you didn’t comment on the data I posted.
John Locke said:
Educational qualifications are not a measure of quality.
Any, or all of those may have had an effect.
The prime purpose of the service is to prevent crime; it doesn't, regardless of the cause(s), therefore it is not fit for purpose. The logic is perfect. Don't take it personally; none of what I have written means that the majority of individual cops are not decent dedicated people, but as things stand, they are not very effective.
Where do you keep repeating this nonsense about the prime purpose of police being crime prevention? Did you read it somewhere, or have you been chatting with Kevin in HR again? I think you've been warned about this before. Let's settle the matter here and now. Looking at the Oath of Office might be an idea. There should be some pointers there.Any, or all of those may have had an effect.
The prime purpose of the service is to prevent crime; it doesn't, regardless of the cause(s), therefore it is not fit for purpose. The logic is perfect. Don't take it personally; none of what I have written means that the majority of individual cops are not decent dedicated people, but as things stand, they are not very effective.
The prime function, in the sense that it overrules all the other tasks, is the protection of life and property. Police officers have been criminally prosecuted for failing in their duty to protect life, even when off duty. That can only be considered crime prevention in a sense that is so broad as to be meaningless. Indeed, crime prevention is mentioned, although not even as an individual purpose, but mixed in with detection, so hardly prime. Not only that, there's another purpose slotted in above the prevention and detection of crime, that of the maintenance of order.
So less of the prime for crime prevention. It's not and never has been. It's a function of the police.
Edited to add:
Car crime dropped by 2/3rds from the middle of the 1990s until 2014. This was splashed all over the newspapers and other media to the extent that anyone with any sense would expect. So if you missed this success story, it's understandable. In 2014 (approximate, it was around that time) the way vehicle crime was recorded, including what was included, was changed. This meant that even if crime levels stayed the same, the crime rate would increase. The vehicle crime rate did indeed increase, as expected. You probably didn't miss that as Car Crime Increases by 75% was the headline everywhere.
Edited by Derek Smith on Monday 24th February 11:19
Agammemnon said:
Derek Smith said:
Where do you keep repeating this nonsense about the prime purpose of police being crime prevention? Did you read it somewhere, or have you been chatting with Kevin in HR again?
Peelian principles as mentioned above.La Liga said:
John Locke said:
The prime purpose of the service is to prevent crime; it doesn't, regardless of the cause(s), therefore it is not fit for purpose. The logic is perfect.. Don't take it personally; none of what I have written means that the majority of individual cops are not decent dedicated people, but as things stand, they are not very effective.
Surely you’re not referring to your own ‘logic’ as perfect. Saying ‘regardless of the causes’ followed by talking about logic. Is that some subtle comedy? If so, bravo! Nearly missed it.
Crime prevention is one purpose. There are others.
What measurements and evidence are you using to draw such conclusions?
I note you didn’t comment on the data I posted.
Indeed, but I did not state otherwise.
Which conclusions?
What comment were you hoping for, that it says nothing except that some of it is estimated?
Derek Smith said:
Did you read it somewhere, or have you been chatting with Kevin in HR again? I think you've been warned about this before.
What?Edited by Derek Smith on Monday 24th February 11:19
John Locke said:
If something fails to work, it cannot be regarded as a success; what is illogical about that?
How are you defining work / not work? Be more specific than writing “the primary purpose is to prevent crime...” because that doesn’t mean much on its own as a basis to draw conclusions from. John Locke said:
Which conclusions?
See below. What evidence are you using / how are you measuring it?At the moment you’re just repeating the same things without backing them up.
John Locke said:
What comment were you hoping for, that it says nothing except that some of it is estimated?
I was hoping you’d be able to explain why we have a sustained downtrend in-spite if you writing this: John Locke said:
... the fact is that the police service is no longer fit for purpose, because its prime purpose is the prevention of crime, and it doesn't.
If ‘no longer’, when were the police ‘fit for purpose’ and why were they at whichever point in time you believe they were and not now? Derek Smith said:
It is not the prime purpose those, Peel notwithstanding. Principles are not functions and a group of principles/functions cannot all be prime. Prime means first, main, overriding or most important. So out of the functions of the police, as listed above by me, the prime one is . . . .? Go on, take a guess.
The purpose of the police force is to prevent crime and maintain order. Police depend on the approval and trust of the public in order to effectively do their jobs. The ultimate goal of policing is to achieve voluntary compliance with the law in the community.Earthdweller said:
Agammemnon said:
Peelian principles as mentioned above.
Sir Robert Peel ....“The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.”
Earthdweller said:
The purpose of the police force is to prevent crime and maintain order. Police depend on the approval and trust of the public in order to effectively do their jobs. The ultimate goal of policing is to achieve voluntary compliance with the law in the community.
... Which is never going to happen unless you have Precrime Unit a la Minority Report or can control peoples' thoughts and behaviour.I suspect there may be some Human Rights and civil liberties issues which will scupper Peel's vision ...
Peel's dream didn't work in Victorian times either BTW.
Earthdweller said:
Derek Smith said:
It is not the prime purpose those, Peel notwithstanding. Principles are not functions and a group of principles/functions cannot all be prime. Prime means first, main, overriding or most important. So out of the functions of the police, as listed above by me, the prime one is . . . .? Go on, take a guess.
The purpose of the police force is to prevent crime and maintain order. Police depend on the approval and trust of the public in order to effectively do their jobs. The ultimate goal of policing is to achieve voluntary compliance with the law in the community.Of course part of the police's role is to prevent crime.
The argument is that it's not the primary one. It's one of several. Things evolve and change. Policing demand is more non-crime than crime, so clearly that's the case.
The College of Policing has the core principles as:
COP said:
The police have core operational duties which include:
protecting life and property
preserving order
preventing the commission of offences
bringing offenders to justice.
The police have additional duties that are prescribed under legislation and common law.
protecting life and property
preserving order
preventing the commission of offences
bringing offenders to justice.
The police have additional duties that are prescribed under legislation and common law.
John Locke said:
La Liga said:
John Locke said:
The prime purpose of the service is to prevent crime; it doesn't, regardless of the cause(s), therefore it is not fit for purpose. The logic is perfect.. Don't take it personally; none of what I have written means that the majority of individual cops are not decent dedicated people, but as things stand, they are not very effective.
Surely you’re not referring to your own ‘logic’ as perfect. Saying ‘regardless of the causes’ followed by talking about logic. Is that some subtle comedy? If so, bravo! Nearly missed it.
Crime prevention is one purpose. There are others.
What measurements and evidence are you using to draw such conclusions?
I note you didn’t comment on the data I posted.
Indeed, but I did not state otherwise.
Which conclusions?
What comment were you hoping for, that it says nothing except that some of it is estimated?
Derek Smith said:
Did you read it somewhere, or have you been chatting with Kevin in HR again? I think you've been warned about this before.
What?Edited by Derek Smith on Monday 24th February 11:19
Fails to work is not an argument. It is a statement with no support.
With regards to Kevin, my apologies for being too subtle for you. What I mean is that your sources of your information must be pretty poor. Do some proper research.
Do some research; see the level of performance of police over time. In general, it was increasing year on year right up until a home secretary, with contempt for the service, slashed the budgets from central government at the same time as most councils were cutting their police budget.
To decide whether the police service is fit for purpose, you'll have to explain what you mean by fit without falling back on general bland meaningless phrases. Do you think the way that the police in this country deal with spontaneous terrorist incidents is not fit for purpose because there have been failures? If so, boy have I got contrary evidence for you.
Every service provider has a budget, just like businesses. It has to prioritise. The argument that the police has its priorities wrong is arguable, and I'd enjoy a conversation, although preferably without pointless modifiers such as prime, in it.
That the service needs modification is something I'd agree with. That there are mistakes made is similarly supportable. However, just an overarching 'not fit for purpose' is ridiculously shallow, especially as no one, which the evidence of your posts seems to include you, knows what your mean by the phrase.
You want better policing, then OK. I can see why. But use sensible and restrained language and you might be able to get the sense of your point over. You might even generate a sensible discussion.
Any comment on car crime, and its dramatic reduction?
Earthdweller said:
Sir Robert Peel ....
“The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.”
yeah, having cake and eating it methinks, saves a lot of money though, crime being prevented by the mere idea of “The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.”
police action rather than actual police action, obviously Peel never had a Rangers-Celtic game in mind.
Derek Smith said:
What on earth do you mean by 'fails to work' with regards crime prevention? To suggest that, you'd have to prove that no crime was prevented. If you agree that some crime was prevented, then the next question is what percentage do you think is acceptable. Then there's how you came to that decision, and whether it is reasonable. There is no logic in your conclusion that they are not fit for purpose because on one function, [b]not even the prime one, nor the next one in line,[.b] they do not perform to a level that is satisfactory to you.
Fails to work is not an argument. It is a statement with no support.
With regards to Kevin, my apologies for being too subtle for you. What I mean is that your sources of your information must be pretty poor. Do some proper research.
Do some research; see the level of performance of police over time. In general, it was increasing year on year right up until a home secretary, with contempt for the service, slashed the budgets from central government at the same time as most councils were cutting their police budget.
To decide whether the police service is fit for purpose, you'll have to explain what you mean by fit without falling back on general bland meaningless phrases. Do you think the way that the police in this country deal with spontaneous terrorist incidents is not fit for purpose because there have been failures? If so, boy have I got contrary evidence for you.
Every service provider has a budget, just like businesses. It has to prioritise. The argument that the police has its priorities wrong is arguable, and I'd enjoy a conversation, although preferably without pointless modifiers such as prime, in it.
That the service needs modification is something I'd agree with. That there are mistakes made is similarly supportable. However, just an overarching 'not fit for purpose' is ridiculously shallow, especially as no one, which the evidence of your posts seems to include you, knows what your mean by the phrase.
You want better policing, then OK. I can see why. But use sensible and restrained language and you might be able to get the sense of your point over. You might even generate a sensible discussion.
Any comment on car crime, and its dramatic reduction?
The "What?" was directed at "I think you've been warned about this before.", not "Kevin".Fails to work is not an argument. It is a statement with no support.
With regards to Kevin, my apologies for being too subtle for you. What I mean is that your sources of your information must be pretty poor. Do some proper research.
Do some research; see the level of performance of police over time. In general, it was increasing year on year right up until a home secretary, with contempt for the service, slashed the budgets from central government at the same time as most councils were cutting their police budget.
To decide whether the police service is fit for purpose, you'll have to explain what you mean by fit without falling back on general bland meaningless phrases. Do you think the way that the police in this country deal with spontaneous terrorist incidents is not fit for purpose because there have been failures? If so, boy have I got contrary evidence for you.
Every service provider has a budget, just like businesses. It has to prioritise. The argument that the police has its priorities wrong is arguable, and I'd enjoy a conversation, although preferably without pointless modifiers such as prime, in it.
That the service needs modification is something I'd agree with. That there are mistakes made is similarly supportable. However, just an overarching 'not fit for purpose' is ridiculously shallow, especially as no one, which the evidence of your posts seems to include you, knows what your mean by the phrase.
You want better policing, then OK. I can see why. But use sensible and restrained language and you might be able to get the sense of your point over. You might even generate a sensible discussion.
Any comment on car crime, and its dramatic reduction?
I will try to be brief, and restrained, while covering your points:
A visible and apparently random police presence is a deterrent, particularly for low level and motoring offences, unfortunately that has all but disappeared.
No, I think that the police do a superb job when reacting to terrorism, as they did when a close relative was murdered in her own home, albeit they not always supported by the judicial system.
While the majority of police officers remain well mannered, thus inspiring confidence and cooperation, a minority now have an aggressive and arrogant approach, something which I had not encountered until almost 20 years ago.
I am glad that you agree modification is required; "Are the Police Service fit for purpose anymore?" is the thread title, not my choice of phrase, I would have preferred something along the lines of "Can our police service improve, if so, how?" I have no desire to throw away the baby with the bathwater.
Car crime has certainly reduced in recent years, but vehicle security has improved (bar keyless entry), while the market for "used" sound / infotainment systems and wheels etc has all but dried up; just an opinion; never having been a direct victim of car crime, I have no experience to draw on.
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