police told to target REAL criminals

[mark69sheer]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23435410-details/Police%20told%20to%20target%20real%20criminals%20and%20to%20give%20priority%20to%20more%20serious%20crimes/article.do 


Target based policing comes under fire for annoying people like me.

. said:

The Police Federation says pressure to meet the "Offenders Brought to Justice" target has led them to "criminalise Middle England".

Sir Ronnie will say the emphasis on securing any conviction has "produced the unintended effect of officers spending time investigating crimes with a view to obtaining a detection, even when that is clearly not in the public interest".

He said more "proportionate weight" should be given to the different levels of seriousness applied to the different offences.

The Home Office will accept his recommendation and begin to rank crimes according to the harm they cause to the public.

Edited by mark69sheer on Sunday 3rd February 07:58

[Derek Smith]

Derek Smith said:

mark69sheer said:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23435410-details/Police%20told%20to%20target%20real%20criminals%20and%20to%20give%20priority%20to%20more%20serious%20crimes/article.do 


Target based policing comes under fire for annoying people like me.

. said:

The Police Federation says pressure to meet the "Offenders Brought to Justice" target has led them to "criminalise Middle England".

Sir Ronnie will say the emphasis on securing any conviction has "produced the unintended effect of officers spending time investigating crimes with a view to obtaining a detection, even when that is clearly not in the public interest".

He said more "proportionate weight" should be given to the different levels of seriousness applied to the different offences.

The Home Office will accept his recommendation and begin to rank crimes according to the harm they cause to the public.

Edited by mark69sheer on Sunday 3rd February 07:58

Well, there's a surprise. I never realised you were the Police Federation. Or are you Sir Ronnie?

Since the inception of targets, the biggest critics have been the police themselves. I was at a meeting when a 'target' for murders was being discussed (surreal or what? What possible figure apart from 100% could there possibly be?) The DCI walked out of the room much to the promotion inspired superintendent's annoyance.

My departmental super, no big fan of targets, had the phrase, 'They're here, there's nothing we can do about it but service them but we must try a do a good job despite them.'

The only supporters of targets, at least initially, were the broadsheets. However, they 'turned' some time later and used it to criticise the police, a sub heading once reading - Happy hitting their targets - when we patently were not.

Regardless of what the Home Office or the government says, targets will stay. They will be called something else, possible zones, indicators, teddey bears, or something else which does not explain or define them. But they will be there.

[mark69sheer]

As said Derek I wish all the police were like you.
Its nice to know your views an that despite what party line is neccessarily written in the public domain officers are actually happy to have the system reassesed.

No I'm not fed obviously... I'm the middle england bit...

or was till chinese imports decimated manufacturing along with red tape and beurocracy.

[streaky]

Derek Smith said:

My departmental super, no big fan of targets, had the phrase, 'They're here, there's nothing we can do about it but service them but we must try a do a good job despite them.'

He could equally have been talking about criminals or members of the law-abiding public as much as targets - they are arguably interchangeable in that statement, given some senior officers' attitudes - Streaky

[DucatiGary]

sad sad state of affairs, and these guys want a payrise?

looks to me like the government are shafting the BiB royally, welcome to my world.

[Derek Smith]

streaky said:

Derek Smith said:

My departmental super, no big fan of targets, had the phrase, 'They're here, there's nothing we can do about it but service them but we must try a do a good job despite them.'

He could equally have been talking about criminals or members of the law-abiding public as much as targets - they are arguably interchangeable in that statement, given some senior officers' attitudes - Streaky

Give my super his due, he would frequently turn a blind eye to short cuts is they were effective. I had to, in theory, give weekly reports of the work of my identification unit. It meant that we lost time for two parades, a very high percentage given that we ran only 5 scheduled ones a day as the norm.

What I did was to give estimates for three weeks and then calculate accurate figures once every four weeks. This meant that we ran initially one extra parade a week and eventually two. My super did a spot check one week during the estimated period and discovered the cheat. He then gave me pointers to make discovery of the methods I was using more difficult.

Despite the fact that he was at risk he was happy that we ran more parades.

The danger with targets is that those who are clever at manipulating figures are the ones who get promotion. Knolwedge of police work is of no value. Just as well that most supers have absolutely no influence on anything but morale.

[FishFace]

mark69sheer said:

As said Derek I wish all the police were like you.
Its nice to know your views an that despite what party line is neccessarily written in the public domain officers are actually happy to have the system reassesed.

No I'm not fed obviously... I'm the middle england bit...

or was till chinese imports decimated manufacturing along with red tape and beurocracy.

You'd do well to find a Police officer who actually likes targets! They are a prime example of this Government being far too overbearing.

The National Crime Recording Standards need binning, too.

[moparmick]

Wouldn't targets work better with some sort of points system depending on the severity of the crime and the points tallied up at the end of the year differenciated by number, for instance minor missdemeanour 1 point, murder 20 points.
The general public could give some input, rather than just cps and home office.
Mick

[xxplod]

I'm fortunate in that my current area of work is relatively free from targets. I have fallen out with colleagues in the past as a custody Sgt for refusing to charge people or indeed accept them in to custody as I felt the public interest was being abused. Usually led to a panic on the part of the duty Insp.

Indeed as a duty Insp I once reviewed a prisoner (juvenile - petty boys stuff assault which parents should have sorted out) and released him NFA. I was asked to justify my decision by the C/I but to be fair I didn't get an argument. (Damn!)

[vonhosen]

moparmick said:

Wouldn't targets work better with some sort of points system depending on the severity of the crime and the points tallied up at the end of the year differenciated by number, for instance minor missdemeanour 1 point, murder 20 points.
The general public could give some input, rather than just cps and home office.
Mick

Not many murder arrests/charges available, so officers will be hammering the 1 pointers to keep numbers up. That'll mean more of traffic process not less.

xxplod said:

I'm fortunate in that my current area of work is relatively free from targets.

Me too.
But I can honestly say that I've never been aware of targets imposed on me whatever role I've been in.

Edited by vonhosen on Sunday 3rd February 20:12

[splitter / judas]

FishFace said:

mark69sheer said:

As said Derek I wish all the police were like you.
Its nice to know your views an that despite what party line is neccessarily written in the public domain officers are actually happy to have the system reassesed.

No I'm not fed obviously... I'm the middle england bit...

or was till chinese imports decimated manufacturing along with red tape and beurocracy.

You'd do well to find a Police officer who actually likes targets! They are a prime example of this Government being far too overbearing.

The National Crime Recording Standards need binning, too.

That's a big

[moparmick]

Von
What if the figures were broken down into categories, so's the public can see who is targeting what.
Mick

[moparmick]

Von
What if the figures were broken down into categories, so's the public can see who is targeting what.
Mick

[vonhosen]

moparmick said:

Von
What if the figures were broken down into categories, so's the public can see who is targeting what.
Mick

Would it matter ?
You tell them how many points they've got to get & they'll go get them.
The only way you encourage them to ignore certain things, are by offering no points for them. Even then if they are so inclined they'll still do them in spare time.

[flemke]

vonhosen said:

Me too.
But I can honestly say that I've never been aware of targets imposed on me whatever role I've been in.

Perhaps you make so many detections that you're always well above the target that they have set for you?

A couple of years ago, there was a story on BBC news of a boy who had raised money for a charity, but then kept the money for himself. IIRC, the police then undertook individual interviews of the >100 (?) persons who had unwittingly made donations, of no more than a few pounds each. It seemed that the explanation for the constabulary's crime-fighting zeal was that each interview counted as a separate crime "detection" for target-beating purposes.
You would not have been the interviewing officer, would you, von?

Edited by flemke on Sunday 3rd February 22:25

[vonhosen]

flemke said:

vonhosen said:

Me too.
But I can honestly say that I've never been aware of targets imposed on me whatever role I've been in.

Perhaps you make so many detections that you're always well above the target that they have set for you?

A couple of years ago, there was a story on BBC news of a boy who had raised money for a charity, but then kept the money for itself. IIRC, the police then undertook individual interviews of the >100 (?) persons who had unwittingly made donations, of no more than a few pounds each. It seemed that the explanation for the constabulary's crime-fighting zeal was that each interview counted as a separate crime "detection" for target-beating purposes.
You would not have been the interviewing officer, would you, von?

Nope.

[flemke]

vonhosen said:

flemke said:

vonhosen said:

Me too.
But I can honestly say that I've never been aware of targets imposed on me whatever role I've been in.

Perhaps you make so many detections that you're always well above the target that they have set for you?

A couple of years ago, there was a story on BBC news of a boy who had raised money for a charity, but then kept the money for itself. IIRC, the police then undertook individual interviews of the >100 (?) persons who had unwittingly made donations, of no more than a few pounds each. It seemed that the explanation for the constabulary's crime-fighting zeal was that each interview counted as a separate crime "detection" for target-beating purposes.
You would not have been the interviewing officer, would you, von?

Nope.

One knew that you had too much class for that.

[time2react]

Targets are only there to make the goverment of the time look good.
When they are not met. All the goverment do is cover up the old targets, move the targets to something else until eventually a target is met. Then they have a big song and dance over what a great goverment they are.
A complete bunch of f*ckwits.
The day an officer can stop worrying about targets, is the day he might be able to his job.

[Derek Smith]

vonhosen said:

But I can honestly say that I've never been aware of targets imposed on me whatever role I've been in.

I ran a number of departments where targets were an obstruction to efficiency. I was in the force control room (dealing with 999 calls and major incidents in the initial stages), an area control room (running local incidents), a process unit and, finally my force's identification unit where targets were at their most ridiculous.

In the end I saw my job as limiting the effect targets had on the efficiency of my department. Not that easy but well worthwhile.

It started with computers. I was acting inspector in the early 80s and my super's secretary collated stats from each shift as to the number of arrests and process submitted. My shift came well out in front for arrests - they would nick anything - but weren't that keen on reporting someone for minor traffic offences if they had stopped them for crime and taken up their time. A senior PC came up with the idea of a 'process day' where all the PCs would go out onto the street and report for any process they could find. They were then clear for the rest of the month to do useful work.

The odd thing is that, despite the fact that it was taking the mickey, my super was over the moon. The arrests dropped slightly, our process figures were up there with the rest of the shifts, so everything was perfect.

Statistics are a great indicator but at one time in Brighton there were three major enquiries, two murders and a very nasty rape (and there's no nice ones of course). All three resulted in convictions, in the case of the rape largely due to how brave the victim was. Yet the stats that month, and quarter, were dreadful, mainly, probably only, because PCs were taken from the streets for enquiries and there was no CID officer available. Officers, and civvy staff, worked all hours despite the lack of overtime funding and it was good to be part of it. Yet, of course, according to the quarterly targets, we had our thumbs up our respectives bums. And, of course, we'd drawn officers in from other divisions so their figures were down as well. These crimes affected every aspect of performance figures. Due to lack of response staff, we didn't hit our bogey time of 20 mins for grade 2s. Warrents remained in the file for longer than the targets stipulated. Yet we took a nasty bit of work off the streets so that he couldn't rape again, at least for 3 1/2 years (I hope he became a victim of rape in the nick), and two murderers got life (about 12 years each).

If you have never felt the pressure of targets, Von, then that's probably a tribute to your supervisors. Probably the ones with grey hair.

Stats yes. Targets no.

[Spokey]

mark69sheer said:

. said:

The Home Office will accept his recommendation and begin to rank crimes according to the harm they cause to the public.

... in the opinion of the Home Office, of course!