Police:Under Pressure
Discussion
Yep- it really is that bad sadly.
Rather than plans to increase officer numbers I’d be confident to say that the vast majority of the 43 forces are cutting numbers further over the next few years.
Budgets aren’t increasing and are decreasing in real terms year on year.
Lots of hard choices and simply not enough to go around to maintain what we have today, never mind a few years ago.
Multiply less money x less staff x increasing crime x by picking up the pieces for other services (I.e police are available 24/7- others aren’t ) and it’s going to get far worse, not better.
Rather than plans to increase officer numbers I’d be confident to say that the vast majority of the 43 forces are cutting numbers further over the next few years.
Budgets aren’t increasing and are decreasing in real terms year on year.
Lots of hard choices and simply not enough to go around to maintain what we have today, never mind a few years ago.
Multiply less money x less staff x increasing crime x by picking up the pieces for other services (I.e police are available 24/7- others aren’t ) and it’s going to get far worse, not better.
For me the Police is like the NHS. I'm sure they could do with more money but it would never be enough to keep everyone happy. 3 cases on today's show
1) An 18 year old girl in Bradford who lost her purse and believes it may have been stolen in Waterstones. There is no CCTV there so the Police are unable to investigate. The girl is now disenchanted with the Police.
2) An older man who was car jacked at gun point prompting a major police response. The car was found due to a tracker but no evidence so police unable to investigate and the bloke now doesn't feel safe, pays good money to the police but has lost faith etc
3) A man stabbed by feral youths whilst defending his pregnant wife, no evidence other than a mobile phone video in which the agressors are all wearing hats, hoods, balaclavas. Lucklily he lived
What do people actually expect the Police to do in these cases? Interview everyone in the area? Search every home looking for forensic evidence?
I'm not saying they have the resource they need but unlimited resources might not solve any of these crimes
Surely crap societal values and crap people in society are to blame for rising crime
1) An 18 year old girl in Bradford who lost her purse and believes it may have been stolen in Waterstones. There is no CCTV there so the Police are unable to investigate. The girl is now disenchanted with the Police.
2) An older man who was car jacked at gun point prompting a major police response. The car was found due to a tracker but no evidence so police unable to investigate and the bloke now doesn't feel safe, pays good money to the police but has lost faith etc
3) A man stabbed by feral youths whilst defending his pregnant wife, no evidence other than a mobile phone video in which the agressors are all wearing hats, hoods, balaclavas. Lucklily he lived
What do people actually expect the Police to do in these cases? Interview everyone in the area? Search every home looking for forensic evidence?
I'm not saying they have the resource they need but unlimited resources might not solve any of these crimes
Surely crap societal values and crap people in society are to blame for rising crime
I’m watching this and they’re not touching the surface from my point of view. Our force has started to recruit but in constraints of the lack of budget.
It’s a regular thing to be the only officer single crewed for several hours on nights in a large area. Whatever you think of police, try going to a disturbance or violent mental health incident on your own with a stick and some spray at 3am with backup 20 minutes away.
The way crimes are recorded has changed so it will seem like there is more crime. Example would be approx 3 or 4 years ago if you attended a fight between two drunk males, one has made off and you’re left with the ‘victim’ who says he’s not arsed about what’s gone on and doesn’t want to tell you anything then that job would be closed end of. However, In the same scenario now a crime would be submitted regardless of what the victim asks for. That takes an officer 30 mins at least depending on I.T. And a crime recorded that the victim did not want recording.
Officers are unable to get leave when they want it, even when attempting to book 10 months in advance in some instances. This destroys an officers family life and adds to the stress of the job.
When you get politicians spouting off about how they’ve had extra officers put on the streets, they ain’t. What they’ve had done is cancelled all the rest days of the officers and made them come to work.
Officers can go from being assaulted, attending a sudden death, an arrest and to a burglary in the same shift. They have no support due to shortages, they are unable to get leave and are bashed when senior management get things wrong because people just see police.
High risk missing people and suicidal people are a priority. Police are dealing with a massive mental health problem that is brought on by genuine mental health conditions or abuse of drink and drugs. All of these jobs now come before your burglary, assaults, robberies and theft which is what the majority of public are concerned about. (Unless the incident is ongoing)
5 years ago we have a regular 8 officers and 1 Sgt for a shift. Now we have 2 officers and a Sgt for the same work with officers coming on duty and having 60 outstanding incidents to deal with and one or both of them being taken away for an arrest or interviewing or to go to hospital to sit with a mental health patient who is out of control. That’s not forgetting more jobs coming in along with the emergency 999 calls.
Police get it wrong and seems like more often than not lately but every officer I know works hard, turns up to work to help people and can be counted on regardless of the situation. They do this without regular breaks if any most of the time.
The NHS and emergency services should be run as to what they require, not run as a business. My old man used to say the government know the cost of everything and the value of nothing and this is the case with the current government.
Edit to clear up the regular outstanding jobs....if domestic violence wasn’t so prevalent at least 50% of those incidents wouldn’t exist. The work that goes on after even the most minor of domestic incidents means that an officer would be at scene for 45 minutes and then at least a further 45 minutes with admin afterwards. In my mind DV should be treated as seriously as it is and there has to be a wholesale change in attitudes for this to decrease.
It’s a regular thing to be the only officer single crewed for several hours on nights in a large area. Whatever you think of police, try going to a disturbance or violent mental health incident on your own with a stick and some spray at 3am with backup 20 minutes away.
The way crimes are recorded has changed so it will seem like there is more crime. Example would be approx 3 or 4 years ago if you attended a fight between two drunk males, one has made off and you’re left with the ‘victim’ who says he’s not arsed about what’s gone on and doesn’t want to tell you anything then that job would be closed end of. However, In the same scenario now a crime would be submitted regardless of what the victim asks for. That takes an officer 30 mins at least depending on I.T. And a crime recorded that the victim did not want recording.
Officers are unable to get leave when they want it, even when attempting to book 10 months in advance in some instances. This destroys an officers family life and adds to the stress of the job.
When you get politicians spouting off about how they’ve had extra officers put on the streets, they ain’t. What they’ve had done is cancelled all the rest days of the officers and made them come to work.
Officers can go from being assaulted, attending a sudden death, an arrest and to a burglary in the same shift. They have no support due to shortages, they are unable to get leave and are bashed when senior management get things wrong because people just see police.
High risk missing people and suicidal people are a priority. Police are dealing with a massive mental health problem that is brought on by genuine mental health conditions or abuse of drink and drugs. All of these jobs now come before your burglary, assaults, robberies and theft which is what the majority of public are concerned about. (Unless the incident is ongoing)
5 years ago we have a regular 8 officers and 1 Sgt for a shift. Now we have 2 officers and a Sgt for the same work with officers coming on duty and having 60 outstanding incidents to deal with and one or both of them being taken away for an arrest or interviewing or to go to hospital to sit with a mental health patient who is out of control. That’s not forgetting more jobs coming in along with the emergency 999 calls.
Police get it wrong and seems like more often than not lately but every officer I know works hard, turns up to work to help people and can be counted on regardless of the situation. They do this without regular breaks if any most of the time.
The NHS and emergency services should be run as to what they require, not run as a business. My old man used to say the government know the cost of everything and the value of nothing and this is the case with the current government.
Edit to clear up the regular outstanding jobs....if domestic violence wasn’t so prevalent at least 50% of those incidents wouldn’t exist. The work that goes on after even the most minor of domestic incidents means that an officer would be at scene for 45 minutes and then at least a further 45 minutes with admin afterwards. In my mind DV should be treated as seriously as it is and there has to be a wholesale change in attitudes for this to decrease.
Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 17th May 08:42
wjwren said:
On BBC now - any officers on here, is the force really that stretchedand if so what plans are in place to increase the amount of officers?
West Yorks, needing 240 detectives to fulfil their obligation and having 110; all the senior officers said pretty much the same thing, the cuts have badly impacted their capability. The government spokeswoman's casual dismissal of the facts and shifted the blame infuriated me.
Edited by 4x4Tyke on Thursday 17th May 01:02
4x4Tyke said:
The way government spokeswoman casual dismissal the facts and shifted the blame infuriated me.
... A Home Office spokeswoman said;"Er ... crime. It's the criminals' fault. Yup, that's it. Nothing to do with us. It's business as usual in my comfy office in my ivory tower."
There does not seem a lack of resource in some areas. How many hours of effort went in to this case?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west...
The Dangerous Elk said:
That article was from 2015? And even back then states there had been improvements in the way items were purchased at the end of the article. Although I’ve not seen up to date figures. There is the argument for a national police force I guess. Would save a lot of money but whatever was saved the government would cut next time around.
4x4Tyke said:
West Yorks, needing 240 detectives to fulfil their obligation and having 110; all the senior officers said pretty much the same thing, they cuts have badly impacted their capability.
The way government spokeswoman casual dismissal the facts and shifted the blame infuriated me.
The casual dismissal is about par the course.The way government spokeswoman casual dismissal the facts and shifted the blame infuriated me.
They will always trot out “police budgets have been protected since 2015 blah blah”; techinically true.
What they don’t explain are 2 key facts.
1) the fact that the budget was protected is a direct consequence of the bataclan terrorist incident in Paris. It happened the same week the police budgets were due to be slashed further. May surprised the life out of everyone in the police by ring fencing them.
2) As ever, the devil was in the detail. Yes the budget was protected, but a condition of doing so was a mandated uplift in the number of firearms, cyber crime, and anti terrorist capability (and these are expensive.) There was no “extra” funding for the uplift so other things actually had to be cut to free up the cash.
I used this in many a meeting to try and put it into context.
Imagine your household budget is 100 per week and you are just about holding your head above water.
You’ve already cut out all your luxuries (in policing terms, honestly in times of more money every force if they were truthful wasted money and did need to be leaner, so numerous cuts were made- quite rightly so)
Then your gas, electric, and water bill go up by 10 each per week (firearms, cyber, counter terrorism) yet your household budget stays at 100 per week.
Your only choice is to cut slightly less essential household bills, but without getting rid of them entirely (so you could equate having less detectives to cutting your food shop by 30 a week to 20 a week; you can’t go without eating but you could eat less.)
You will soon get to the point we’re you a) desperately need a cash injection or b) you cut out completely what were considered essentials as short time ago.
That’s pretty much police budgeting in a paragraph!
Gmlgml said:
2) As ever, the devil was in the detail. Yes the budget was protected, but a condition of doing so was a mandated uplift in the number of firearms, cyber crime, and anti terrorist capability (and these are expensive.) There was no “extra” funding for the uplift so other things actually had to be cut to free up the cash.
I used this in many a meeting to try and put it into context.
Imagine your household budget is 100 per week and you are just about holding your head above water.
You’ve already cut out all your luxuries (in policing terms, honestly in times of more money every force if they were truthful wasted money and did need to be leaner, so numerous cuts were made- quite rightly so)
Then your gas, electric, and water bill go up by 10 each per week (firearms, cyber, counter terrorism) yet your household budget stays at 100 per week.
Your only choice is to cut slightly less essential household bills, but without getting rid of them entirely (so you could equate having less detectives to cutting your food shop by 30 a week to 20 a week; you can’t go without eating but you could eat less.)
You will soon get to the point we’re you a) desperately need a cash injection or b) you cut out completely what were considered essentials as short time ago.
Clearly there have been no cutbacks in the condescension quota. I used this in many a meeting to try and put it into context.
Imagine your household budget is 100 per week and you are just about holding your head above water.
You’ve already cut out all your luxuries (in policing terms, honestly in times of more money every force if they were truthful wasted money and did need to be leaner, so numerous cuts were made- quite rightly so)
Then your gas, electric, and water bill go up by 10 each per week (firearms, cyber, counter terrorism) yet your household budget stays at 100 per week.
Your only choice is to cut slightly less essential household bills, but without getting rid of them entirely (so you could equate having less detectives to cutting your food shop by 30 a week to 20 a week; you can’t go without eating but you could eat less.)
You will soon get to the point we’re you a) desperately need a cash injection or b) you cut out completely what were considered essentials as short time ago.
Rovinghawk said:
Yeah I was thinking about that. Seems ridiculous given the policy of finalising crimes with little/ no prospect of solving and the funding cuts mentioned aboveSheepshanks said:
Clearly there have been no cutbacks in the condescension quota.
Not intended to be condescending.I’ve simply been quite amazed over the years about how many people (some inside policing, lots out- including people who should know better, MP’s, councillors, business leaders etc) who believe budgets and difficult financial decisions do not apply to policing in any shape or form.
Run out of money- ask for more, you’ll get it surely.
Run out of police officers- open a new box of them.
Get asked to do things that are the responsibility of others- just tell them you are not doing it.
A basic comparison with something most people are familiar with helps put it into context IMO.
I haven't seen the panorama episode, It will just infuriate me,
I can confirm however that policing is broken. My response team has half as many cops as it did 7-8 years ago dealing with more demand than 7-8 years ago. Cops are all run ragged, stressed to bits and some of my team really are close to breaking point. I always try my best to protect them but its hard when I am also at breaking point myself.
Really good cops are being broken on a regular basis by the pressures placed upon them, when they are broken they are off sick putting more demand on the colleagues who are at work leading to them becoming closer to breaking point. Its a massive vicious circle and I fear the perfect storm is coming.
I am not talking about shirkers either, i am talking about motivated, skilled and experienced officers.
I can confirm however that policing is broken. My response team has half as many cops as it did 7-8 years ago dealing with more demand than 7-8 years ago. Cops are all run ragged, stressed to bits and some of my team really are close to breaking point. I always try my best to protect them but its hard when I am also at breaking point myself.
Really good cops are being broken on a regular basis by the pressures placed upon them, when they are broken they are off sick putting more demand on the colleagues who are at work leading to them becoming closer to breaking point. Its a massive vicious circle and I fear the perfect storm is coming.
I am not talking about shirkers either, i am talking about motivated, skilled and experienced officers.
ED209 said:
I haven't seen the panorama episode, It will just infuriate me,
I can confirm however that policing is broken. My response team has half as many cops as it did 7-8 years ago dealing with more demand than 7-8 years ago. Cops are all run ragged, stressed to bits and some of my team really are close to breaking point. I always try my best to protect them but its hard when I am also at breaking point myself.
Really good cops are being broken on a regular basis by the pressures placed upon them, when they are broken they are off sick putting more demand on the colleagues who are at work leading to them becoming closer to breaking point. Its a massive vicious circle and I fear the perfect storm is coming.
I am not talking about shirkers either, i am talking about motivated, skilled and experienced officers.
This post really brings it home, very saddening.I can confirm however that policing is broken. My response team has half as many cops as it did 7-8 years ago dealing with more demand than 7-8 years ago. Cops are all run ragged, stressed to bits and some of my team really are close to breaking point. I always try my best to protect them but its hard when I am also at breaking point myself.
Really good cops are being broken on a regular basis by the pressures placed upon them, when they are broken they are off sick putting more demand on the colleagues who are at work leading to them becoming closer to breaking point. Its a massive vicious circle and I fear the perfect storm is coming.
I am not talking about shirkers either, i am talking about motivated, skilled and experienced officers.
Perhaps if the courts were a bit more punishing many criminals wouldn't chose a life of crime.
ED209 said:
I haven't seen the panorama episode, It will just infuriate me,
I can confirm however that policing is broken. My response team has half as many cops as it did 7-8 years ago dealing with more demand than 7-8 years ago. Cops are all run ragged, stressed to bits and some of my team really are close to breaking point. I always try my best to protect them but its hard when I am also at breaking point myself.
Really good cops are being broken on a regular basis by the pressures placed upon them, when they are broken they are off sick putting more demand on the colleagues who are at work leading to them becoming closer to breaking point. Its a massive vicious circle and I fear the perfect storm is coming.
I am not talking about shirkers either, i am talking about motivated, skilled and experienced officers.
Same here, sadly.I can confirm however that policing is broken. My response team has half as many cops as it did 7-8 years ago dealing with more demand than 7-8 years ago. Cops are all run ragged, stressed to bits and some of my team really are close to breaking point. I always try my best to protect them but its hard when I am also at breaking point myself.
Really good cops are being broken on a regular basis by the pressures placed upon them, when they are broken they are off sick putting more demand on the colleagues who are at work leading to them becoming closer to breaking point. Its a massive vicious circle and I fear the perfect storm is coming.
I am not talking about shirkers either, i am talking about motivated, skilled and experienced officers.
Ex police staff here (crime scene examiner). Haven’t watched the programme but can confirm policing not in the best state. No one can deny most forces were seriously overfunded for a time so budget cuts were inevitable and further savings could be made with more proper national frameworks, however as already stated, it never quite works out that way.
I worked in the most populated part of our country, somewhere that by comparison to small county forces received decent funding.
All that appeared to happen was a constant turnover of experienced officers for new officers. This is the way to keep costs down, people and pensions are expensive. The downside is you have very few people who actually know what they’re doing, subsequently reacting badly, if not just downright dangerously to situations.
There were plenty of times I had to defuse a situation where an officer with under a couple of years service had reacted so aggressively upon arrival at an incident (sometimes I’d be there first, another consequence of low staffing levels) that they’d put us both in more danger than if they’d not turned up at all.
In another situation I’ve had to explain that those things hitting our vehicles were bullets and take over radio communications as they were shouting into an empty, spare radio airwave channel! I could list too many similar examples.
Not every officer that has been in years is perfect but experience goes a long way. I had ten years when voluntary redundancy was offered, jumped at the chance and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.
What everyone should be really worried about is the lack of funding for the ambulance, believe me, often on a week night, for a decent chunk of the shift they had to limit responses to life and death calls only. Broken leg? Get yourself there....
I worked in the most populated part of our country, somewhere that by comparison to small county forces received decent funding.
All that appeared to happen was a constant turnover of experienced officers for new officers. This is the way to keep costs down, people and pensions are expensive. The downside is you have very few people who actually know what they’re doing, subsequently reacting badly, if not just downright dangerously to situations.
There were plenty of times I had to defuse a situation where an officer with under a couple of years service had reacted so aggressively upon arrival at an incident (sometimes I’d be there first, another consequence of low staffing levels) that they’d put us both in more danger than if they’d not turned up at all.
In another situation I’ve had to explain that those things hitting our vehicles were bullets and take over radio communications as they were shouting into an empty, spare radio airwave channel! I could list too many similar examples.
Not every officer that has been in years is perfect but experience goes a long way. I had ten years when voluntary redundancy was offered, jumped at the chance and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.
What everyone should be really worried about is the lack of funding for the ambulance, believe me, often on a week night, for a decent chunk of the shift they had to limit responses to life and death calls only. Broken leg? Get yourself there....
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