How do the BiBs cope
Discussion
With this sort of mindless bureaucracy.
Just had this from a mailing list reporting local crime to the residents.
PHONING THE POLICE:
This is getting slightly complicated. We had a series of 15 cars damaged in a rampage through XXXXXXX some weeks ago and the police were criticised for not reacting quickly enough. The issue was the way the individual crimes were reported. If you phone through to report a crime it is recorded as an isolated incident and you will be given a crime reference number for that particular crime - but a URN will not be created for a police response. There were 15 individual crimes recorded. As these are put into the computer as 'individual events' no-one spotted there was a bigger picture emerging, as they were all with a couple of hours and within a few streets of each other. The distribution of the PEC's (police enquiry centres) did not help. There are 4 across {this region} and individual reports may have gone to each of them, to different operators - again the pattern slipped the net.
SO, when reporting incidents, the onus is on you to pass over all the relevant information the police might need. IF you believe the event is more than an individual - one off incident, please ask for the control room not the PEC. When you get the option message press one for etc. Think - am I 'reporting An individual crime' or is it part of an 'incident' which requires a police response. If so, you need do not press the report a crime option but wait to be connected to a person and ask for the control room and a URN (a unique reference number). It is complicated but vital that you - yes that's you, as the public, report crime correctly.
Why is it now the public's fault that they report a crime incorrectly, rather than the system's fault for not linking them. I cannot imagine how hard it must be getting for you guys to do your jobs.
Just had this from a mailing list reporting local crime to the residents.
newsletter said:
PHONING THE POLICE:
This is getting slightly complicated. We had a series of 15 cars damaged in a rampage through XXXXXXX some weeks ago and the police were criticised for not reacting quickly enough. The issue was the way the individual crimes were reported. If you phone through to report a crime it is recorded as an isolated incident and you will be given a crime reference number for that particular crime - but a URN will not be created for a police response. There were 15 individual crimes recorded. As these are put into the computer as 'individual events' no-one spotted there was a bigger picture emerging, as they were all with a couple of hours and within a few streets of each other. The distribution of the PEC's (police enquiry centres) did not help. There are 4 across {this region} and individual reports may have gone to each of them, to different operators - again the pattern slipped the net.
SO, when reporting incidents, the onus is on you to pass over all the relevant information the police might need. IF you believe the event is more than an individual - one off incident, please ask for the control room not the PEC. When you get the option message press one for etc. Think - am I 'reporting An individual crime' or is it part of an 'incident' which requires a police response. If so, you need do not press the report a crime option but wait to be connected to a person and ask for the control room and a URN (a unique reference number). It is complicated but vital that you - yes that's you, as the public, report crime correctly.
Why is it now the public's fault that they report a crime incorrectly, rather than the system's fault for not linking them. I cannot imagine how hard it must be getting for you guys to do your jobs.
Its daft. Basically the troops on the street have to be switched on and spot what is going on. In the main this is done because they talk to each other or you get a good shift supervisor who spots it and reacts. The call centers are not liked by the troops on the ground because you phone your local office and end up talking to somebody 30 miles away who has no idea about 'The disused railway line beside Harry Smith's garage across the street from where the clay pipe factory was in 1956.' The local troops however are probably parked up round the corner listening to the radio hoping to jail a bad guy and the delay causes problems. But thats the politians for you. Never worked a day on the beat and tell us how to do our jobs. its getting better with time though but the good old days are gone for good. Funny how the banks have gone away from call centres because nobody liked them!!!!
Just read the rest of the post. Its not up to some clown in an office to decide if you need the police or to put the onus on the victim to decide. If a car is damaged or indeed any crime the police turn out investigate try and get any evidence and jail the baddies as soon as. Thats written in law by the way. Cops what to jail bad guys end of story. Call centers Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
and in addition to Gently Bentley's comments don't forget the first point of contact is probably a civilian call centre operator instead of the old crusty who might have a dodgy back or gamy leg from years out on the streets but still has the nose to cut through all the crap and cut to the chase.
Had this in Ealing recently, cars broken into and stolen. The final straw was seeing a guy break into a Rover outside (despite seeing that I was watching him) and running off with spare change!
I phoned the police, spent 10 minutes trying to tell the person at the end of the line (she couldn't understand my English!) what had just happened, description of the criminal and the direction he went in. The police station was a mere 1/4 mile away and they would have caught the prat had they acted sooner (no unit was sent). Instead, I had to explain to the owner what had happened...
Had I beaten the guy to a pulp for being such a sponger, no doubt I'd have been picked up by police in a second.
I phoned the police, spent 10 minutes trying to tell the person at the end of the line (she couldn't understand my English!) what had just happened, description of the criminal and the direction he went in. The police station was a mere 1/4 mile away and they would have caught the prat had they acted sooner (no unit was sent). Instead, I had to explain to the owner what had happened...
Had I beaten the guy to a pulp for being such a sponger, no doubt I'd have been picked up by police in a second.
Flat in Fifth said:
and in addition to Gently Bentley's comments don't forget the first point of contact is probably a civilian call centre operator instead of the old crusty who might have a dodgy back or gamy leg from years out on the streets but still has the nose to cut through all the crap and cut to the chase.
Spot on.
voyds9 said:
What pigs me off is that if it's just one crime the police seem happy to just give you a crime reference number, but will only attend if it's a number of related crimes.
My car getting damaged is just as serious as 15 cars getting damaged
My car getting damaged is just as serious as 15 cars getting damaged
Spot on again. The police are there to serve you not the other way around.
One point though. PC Plod would turn up to jail anybody if he/she is told about it.
The people in cowards castle on the end of the phone don't get it. You are just another call they want to get rid of and out of their screens so that the boss thinks. Wow that person handled x amount of calls they must be good. In the old days as already pointed out the old cop who has seen one too many fish and chips and has a dodgy knee and a bad temper to match is taking your call, has the troops en route while you are talking to him and is thinking "who breaks into cars in that area" and has another unit going to the bad guys haunts or put a couple of plain clothes troops in the area after plod have gone to see what scum turns up. They always come back.
Meanwhile you hang up and lo and behold Plod is behind you and they want to take your report. Meantime a couple of other units are hot on the heels of the bad guy/s
That was the old days though.
I just came back from my holiday, and was Divisional Night Detective cover last week.
My tally for the week? 3 Hostages.*
One for TWOC/UTMV.
One for drunk in charge (although they tried to drive off from me).
One for driving while unfit and failing to stop/report an accident.
So there are some of us still out and about feeling collars. You can obviously take Dibble out of traffic, but you just can't take traffic out of Dibble.
* And as night detective, I also attended a death in a prison, a murder, a number of assaults, a fraud, and anything else that came over the radio that I was near to.
My tally for the week? 3 Hostages.*
One for TWOC/UTMV.
One for drunk in charge (although they tried to drive off from me).
One for driving while unfit and failing to stop/report an accident.
So there are some of us still out and about feeling collars. You can obviously take Dibble out of traffic, but you just can't take traffic out of Dibble.
* And as night detective, I also attended a death in a prison, a murder, a number of assaults, a fraud, and anything else that came over the radio that I was near to.
This has always been a problem as crimes get reported at different times to different people and often the two never get tied up until the investigating officer does a bit of a pattern search and this can get overlooked.
The idea behind Neighbourhood Policing Teams is party to tackle the issue of officers having no ownership of any area, crimes will be allocated out to the small team who cover that ward, the idea being that in the end the officers working that ward have a good ear to the ground about all that happens their - However, NPT's are new and only just getting to their feet and are still understaffed (in Essex) so it will be a little while before they reach that aim.
Also in Essex we are starting a central crime desk so ALL crimes will be recorded by one central department, part of the reason behind that is to identify crime trends as early as possible.
The quicker a pattern is seen, the quicker it can be tasked out to people to stop it and catch the offenders - Officers finding a pattern 2 weeks later was just not giving us a good enough chance to nick people so... finger crossed (if you live in Essex) a small step forward.
The idea behind Neighbourhood Policing Teams is party to tackle the issue of officers having no ownership of any area, crimes will be allocated out to the small team who cover that ward, the idea being that in the end the officers working that ward have a good ear to the ground about all that happens their - However, NPT's are new and only just getting to their feet and are still understaffed (in Essex) so it will be a little while before they reach that aim.
Also in Essex we are starting a central crime desk so ALL crimes will be recorded by one central department, part of the reason behind that is to identify crime trends as early as possible.
The quicker a pattern is seen, the quicker it can be tasked out to people to stop it and catch the offenders - Officers finding a pattern 2 weeks later was just not giving us a good enough chance to nick people so... finger crossed (if you live in Essex) a small step forward.
justin1230smith said:
Also in Essex we are starting a central crime desk so ALL crimes will be recorded by one central department, part of the reason behind that is to identify crime trends as early as possible.
The quicker a pattern is seen, the quicker it can be tasked out to people to stop it and catch the offenders - Officers finding a pattern 2 weeks later was just not giving us a good enough chance to nick people so... finger crossed (if you live in Essex) a small step forward.
Well, yes, but there's patterns and patterns. On a central level, all it'll tell you, I suspect, is that crime is higher in the grotty areas of Essex and at chucking out time.
Pattern recognition is a human skill. Computers are extremely lousy at it.
What they can't do is make the intuitive connections which one would call a "Coppers Nose" thought.
It's why people on the ground do a much better job than callc centres and machines.
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