Chocolate and Hugs

More musings on riot policing.

I just want people to imagine for a second what it would be like to be a public order (riot) officer, using the G20 circumstances.

You know that a number of your colleagues have been injured. The persons responsible have simply melted away back into the crowd. You know that somewhere in the crowd in front of you is a person wishing to seriously injure you, but you have no idea what they look like and you know they will give you no warning when they try to.

Exactly how do you feel? How do you interact with the people coming near you?

I see Mr new Commisioner whatsisname has ordered a review into public order tactics. Well part of me is glad of that. The public order training I've had is heavily geared towards full riots, poll tax style. There doesn't seem to be an inbetween option, so if this review can come up with something then maybe it'll be for the good. I've heard various ideas from the troops as to what the end result might be though. The consensus from the ground is that we should offer hot chocolate and hugs in future disorder situations.

On a more realistic note I reckon it's time to introduce (like everyone else in Europe) water cannon. It's more image friendly- no headline pictures of sticks swinging and blooded people- and appears to be quite effective. I have no idea why we don't have it. I think it's because of top level paranoia that we don't want to appear too militaristic. But to me it seems a lesser use of force- one bowser with a fire hose versus a line of 16 ugly mugs wielding batons.

I wonder what will happen with those two TSG guys. Not that there was ever a place for getting away with anything but in modern times any place in public with near every person with a video recording phone do something out of line, you know it is near inevitable someone will have recorded it, and won't be saying no to a nice sum from a newspaper or two.

I've done a couple of things public ordery since G20 and the level of paranoia from top brass is laughable. Actually, from some. On one of them the briefing was by a Chief Inspector with all the charisma of a flannel, and said all the right buzzwords, and took extra time to remind us about the current political situation.

A second Chief Inspector on another day was clearly less career minded and was more forthright in his instuction. He reminded us that was never a problem in the use of force on two conditions, namely that it was justified and recorded (in some kind of notes). There may have been a colourful adjective or two inserted.....

Random Thought

Tootling home the other day from what felt like an interminable shift in custody and my mind was wandering.

For most uniform sections of the police, arrest figures are king. I was speaking to some traffic colleagues the other day. Their senior management have set them targets of a certain number of tickets and arrests per month. The (to my mind) absolute core function of a traffic officer- don't ask me to call them roads policing officers- surely has to be to reduce the number of serious and fatal car accidents. Job parlance for that is KSI's- Killed or Seriously Injured. Yet a target to reduce KSI's doesn't actually feature in the performance indicators set for traffic officers.

I simply just don't get that at all.

This led me on. Senior management, led by the government and whatever authorities they answer to, by the way they have determined performance figures obviously feel that the more arrests = more productive = more good.

Surely though, would the most effective police force would be the one that doesn't find it necessary to arrest anyone in a month. I admit I'm slightly in the realms of fantasyland here as while there are people in the world, some of them will always be up to no good. But do you see my general point? The most effective police force will prevent crime, not simply turn up afterwards to claim arrest points.

But we are orientated completely and utterly to the latter. Not the former.

Double Standards

Want proof that setting targets is a helpful method of improving performance? Ask the senior NHS man who's just been sent down for a year for trying to make his results meet government targets.

Okay so he falsified some documents to fiddle the figures, but two questions I have:

1) Is that really a million miles different to the crime classification games the police play to make certain crime types appear not as prevalent as they really are? The over emphasis on sanctioned detections, where a 5 pound shoplift carries the same statistical weight as a murder or rape?

2) How come this bloke, on a first conviction, without any personal gain or injury to any other person, gets sent down for a year, whilst violent drunks, car thieves and burglars get (barely) supervised community orders?

All of this, of course, whilst the government themselves are desperately trying to not make themselves accountable, and have all their generous expenses claims kept secret from the people who fund them.

My remit is everything

I've had it up to here with the job at the moment.

You'd think policing is in essence a simple concept but somehow it has become a convoluted twisted political game. Maybe it's especially worse at this time of year (i.e. three weeks before the end of the financial year) but it's just pathetic at the moment.

Couple of things have highlighted this to me. Having spent an entire day doing a pointless paperwork duplication exercise for someone in HR having a strop (It doesn't matter that you've got all this record of supervision in this format, it has to be done on this one) I went out with a bunch of my lot the other day. I even got to drive for a bit before I had to give up to deal with my phone going incessantly about some other pointless political wrangling:

One of your team is driving our squad's car!
Do you need it? You're going off duty now.
You're not on our squad, you can't use our car.
Tough, I've got permission from your governor.

(repeat several times.)

I was saddened to see one of my Pc's, an Irishman the size of a medium oak tree, become near jubilant over finding some cannabis, which meant his sanction detection targets (also now known as "Saccy D's", I found out) were now met for the month.

I wasn't saddened because he met his target (not that I take any notice of the targets anyway, as I am quite aware the capability of a police officer is not measured by a tickbox list) but because we have reached the situation where a reliable, capable PC, damn useful in a pub fight, is reduced to this.

I ought to add the reason for his jubilation was that now, having achieved his target for the month, he was free to dealing with jobs in the most appropriate way, not the way the statisticians want.

As it is now the end of the financial reporting year, all the various squads are desperately trying (as in even harder than usual) to avoid being given any new jobs that could impact their figures. Whilst I was in custody the other day the domestic violence unit were desperately trying to cling on to the ACPO definition of a domestic incident because the female victim, who lived with her less than charming other half who had given her a thumping, was a few days under the age of 18 (ACPO definition being a domestic incident can only take place between adults over 18, you see). Unfortunately for them, the arresting officer wasn't a PC, slightly more susceptible to being out-talked by squads- but the duty officer for the day.

Half an hour later two grumpy detectives mooch into the custody suite. I did chuckle to myself.

Of course, response teams have the remit of everything. I love the gadget quote- remits are excuses used by lazy officers to avoid doing work. Or to avoid doing unglamorous work.

Another day, a different squad from a neighboring division in the custody suite, as their own custody suite is full. There's four of them dealing with this one prisoner. Force doctor says that the chap needs a constant watch and so they approach the desk with this news, expecting to use one of our PCs. Their faces when my colleague tells them where a chair is so they can do it. With the duty officer behind him, agreeing with it. Sorry chaps, you're already using our facilities, you're not diminishing our team strength with your problem. I did chuckle. Again. I could see their thought process on their faces- "but I'm on a squaaaad!"

I think I'm just especially frustrated with response team work at the moment. We are the easiest to blame for any failure to meet squads targets, we get criticised for failing to reach our corporate team targets, never get any thank you for dealing with crappy jobs well. It is so easily forgotten how I have a quarter of my available response team sat cold, bored and immobile on crime scenes, and much easier to point out how so many percentage of calls weren't answered in the chartered response time.

Response team is the dumping ground for anything that comes into the too difficult box for other departments. I spend at least 2/3 of my time when I'm not in custody doing reams of paperwork relating to an officer that came into the too difficult box for the training unit, and who got farmed off to response team to "develop".

I'm coming increasingly to the conclusion I need a break from response team. It's all I've ever really been interested in the job, but I'm getting to the stage where I've had enough. I'd like to be able to play more than one rugby match in a month without having to take leave to do so. It'd be nice to have a shift pattern that doesn't include night shifts. I'd like to have a team with PC's where I don't have monitor every single thing they do.

I think I need to be on a squad.

....and the winner is

Well, a combination of the previous comments comes in to the right answer.

It is of course, as Pc PurpleHelmet (nice name....) pointed out, the annual drive towards the superintendents bonus... I mean sanctioned detection rates.... I mean 21st century policing.

Every office based unit has got to make efforts to chase up those last niggling possible sanctioned detections and go out knocking on doors. I've already been told I'm in custody that day!

But the part which really made us laugh (us being the 24hr response jockeys) was the part that mentioned even if these arrest enquiries are fruitless or none can be made, then high viz patrol will be undertaken in order to offset the impact the one extra day of unwanted crime a leap year brings!

So this therefore even includes the desk bandits in ivory towers who normally work comfortable office shifts sending out snotty emails and memos about how a certain crime report or case file wasn't quite completed according to requirements. I hope they deal with an abusive violent drunk and get a reality check beyond their warm secure offices and tickbox checklists.

Once I finished chortling at the sense of outrage and desperately grasped excuses of the office brigade I thought there could be a serious lesson here. The Super wants all the extra people out to offset the impact of the leap year's extra day.

So what if it does? All the office dwellers and stat-checkers get their uniform back on and go out on the streets, and crime sharply falls. Do you think anyone will draw the conclusion that it might be a good idea for them to permanently back out on the streets? That all these abstractions from response team to all the various units whose function is to quality control reports, monitor and increase sanction detection rates actually results in an increase in crime?

I can but hope, but somehow I don't think so. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those people would go "sick" with "stress" if they were told they had to do more than a day in uniform interacting with the public every four years.

Flippers

Morning. Or is is afternoon? I hate it when its one of those days when you have to look at your watch to remember a) what day it is and b) what time it is. Night shifts. Love 'em.

Apologies for not that many posts of substance. Seem to spend my life at work at the moment. I've taken my leave this year in two big chunks and it's something I've regretted. I won't have any proper time away from work until Christmas now. Excluding sleeping, I will see the wife for a total of approx 8 hours this whole coming week. Its the football season now so weekends off are something of a rarity. One good thing about television-isation of football is that matches are no longer always on Saturday, or not a kickoff in the middle of the afternoon, so at least I sometimes have a weekend or a bit of one every so often.

And the government still want to reduce our pay. Any pay rise we have is worked out in relation to the average across the private sector, i.e. what people in "normal" jobs get. Government want to bin that, so they can pay us less.

So yeah time I'm off I tend not to spend on here.

Do you know what I'm talking about when I mention that part in Hot Fuzz, where (important, must be said in a West Country Accent) Sergeant Angel has been told so many times that things are done in a certain way round here that he kind of glazes over and mulls along until he has that flash of inspiration?

Its kind of like that with me at the moment. It seems every suggestion I have made to try and improve things on my response team has come back with the reply "we don't do it like that here". When asked why I never seem to have a clear answer, maybe an occasional rumbling containing word snippets like "budget" or "its your officers fault it got like this, therefore its their problem". Thats when I get an answer. The desk drivers at the people responsible for pursuit policy won't even offer an acknowledgement of me trying to get hold of them, as though I am completely unimportant and inconsequential, despite the fact I implement their decisions on a near daily basis with inadequate equipment. I can't be bothered with the flog across the division to Ivory Tower at a time when they're actually in the office and I'm not dealing with a hundred other things. I'd only end up getting angry at them and saying something anyway.

Trying to effect change from the bottom up in the police is like trying to change the direction of an oil tanker from in the water with nowt but a pair of flippers.

This and that

Tying up a couple of loose ends....

Pursuits. Thanks to commenteers as always. As far as I'm concerned this would be a useless blog if people weren't prepared to comment. I do have an opinion on most things but I know that mine isn't necessarily the same as yours and I'm not always necessarily right! (Just ask the wife....)

My own opinion on pursuits? I certainly wish we could have TPAC reintroduced- "nudge features", boxing in etc to attempt to bring a pursuit under our control, and not entirely in the hands of the loon in the bandit car. The reasons why it was withdrawn I'm not sure about but it would have probably had something to do with when it wrong once (i.e. over keen police driver- I'm sad to admit it does happen, look at the video on the sidebar), plus of course the big pound signs- more driver training, damaged police cars, and the fact lawsuits from injured people who were pursued are actually paid out. I don't get that. Their argument is they wouldn't be injured if they weren't being chased. I'm sorry, but as above just who is in control of whether they stop or not?

I'm not saying everyone who gets chased should be TPAC'd. But it should be an option available when the crime is serious enough, and not a blanket ban. I'm trying to find out who writes our pursuit policy so I can discuss this at high level but no-one has replied to my enquiries yet....

I'm aware that police advanced driving is just the foundation for even more advanced stuff- anti-hijack, close protection, use of vehicles as weapons etc but the majority of the techniques on there shouldn't apply to a "regular" pursuit. Indeed, I reckon it'd get you into a pile of smelly stuff if you did, knowing the job. Wouldn't stop me trying to blag a place on one of those courses though!

Secondly, PCSO's. I asked around about their training. Turns out the two in Manchester did exactly what their training (should it be the same as ours) stipulates- they are civilian members of staff, so do not get involved, and call for regular police. If they went in, got into trouble, chances are their union would not cover them for insurance etc because they ignored their training and got into a risky situation. Much as the emotion of the situation says otherwise, I can't blame them for not going in. They did what they were told they had to do, knowing that if they did go in and get into trouble, their own loved ones would suffer as they might not get a life insurance payout. The police officer, being a warranted officer and has a duty to protect the public, is covered should the worst happen.

I found out there are two general types of PCSO's.

1) Very good ones. Keen to get involved, put themselves on the line, including in risky situations, and generally do their best with what they've got.
2) Others who do the bare minimum, and seem to take advantage of the lack of inefficiency procedures, and are happy to walk around not doing a lot.

Very broad generalisations, I know, bear with me. The thing is, the ones in group one very quickly become frustrated with their lack of powers, the lack of any career prospects and scarce opportunity for skills training. So they apply to join the job as soon as their 12 months are up.

Please note I know there are exceptions, that there are very good ones who are happy to remain as PCSO's and are well motivated. But I consistently heard from across the board that the above is the case- that the good ones join the job, and it is a struggle to motivate the others.

Trainers at HQ are quite convinced that the government will continue increasing the powers of PCSOs, and quite soon there will be a two-tier police system in this country.

Thats enough about that for now. Next time, a story from the real world of policing! Unless the Daily Mail comes up with something else that winds me up a treat.

Performance, Stats, Targets etc

Carrying on with this performance v policing debate.

I was talking about our teams performance with another skipper today. The ethos on our team generally amongst the skippers and PCs is that on response teams, response work should take priority. (The governor is trying to get us to push more the other way, towards stats, more on that another day.....)

We had a look at the response times of the top performing team. They are pretty poor. For some reason, response times to calls are not one of the team performance comparisons given any weight.

And herein lies the dichotomy.

The top team have the best or at least high statistics for arrests and stop searches /stop accounts and detections. This is because they are quite happy to arrest people left and right and centre for minor crap. They are in fact encouraged to do so. The usual tales of "its not drunk and disorderly, its section 5" and all that.

So- they can be said to performing well and are providing good value for money for the public. The statistics say so.

And in a certain way, that may be the case. Unless you're one of the unfortunates who's called 999 to find that the top performing team is on duty and they're all already busy dealing with (on the whole) more minor stuff.

Broad generalisations here but the overall picture is accurate. A police team that is performing the best on paper is more likely to be providing a worse service if you're the one actually calling us.

But how do you measure the performance of the police? Its your money being spent on us lot. I wouldn't accept just being told "We're doing a good job, just believe it". But the current system isn't exactly working, nor accurate.

Suggestions welcome.....

Too many targets? Surely not?

Well its a day old news now (sorry, been busy, blah blah) but the prize for the least surprising news article of the year so far goes to the BBC.

Despite the reams of bloggers telling the world for months and even years in some cases that we have too much paperwork, and discretion comes a limping second place to government imposed targets and directives, it is now official. The HMIC say so.

The Home Secretary comes up with the usual pseudo-enthusiasm about how they will listen to this report and suddenly free up 400,000 of police hours by engaging his recommendations.

Forgive my unabashed criticism but my arse you will. I'll believe it when I see it. The trumpeted reports about how many forms have been discontinued is a sly move as they completely fail to mention that the old forms have in the majority of cases simply been replaced with a newer version that is not necessarily better or quicker.

I can remember the old version of the stop / search forms. The size of half a piece of A5 paper it recorded the essential details- who, where and why (what power) and that was it. However, the new version is half the size of A4, has codes for why someone was stopped and then a different code to enter for what they've been searched for (to help statistical compilation), has a space for you to explain why they weren't given a copy of the form at the scene (the office brigade get very uptight if that isn't completed, and I get sent them back with red pen and highlights). And we have to fill out one of these every time we ask someone what they're doing.

"Excuse me sir, would you mind telling me what you're doing? Its 2am, a residential area and you seem in a bit of a hurry".

"My mate's just dropped me off, and I really need the toilet, and the wife'll kill me because I'm this late".

"Fair enough, on you go..... oh no, hang on wait, I need all of your personal details, date of birth, current address, self-defined ethnicity, clothing description, height, distinctive features, hair style, and offer you a copy of everything that I'm writing including why I felt it necessary to ask you to account for your behaviour."

"Do I have to wait?"

"Er no but......"

"Bye"

"Dammit. I've still got to write this thing out in its entirety and now additionally add why I failed to give him a copy of it. Oh and transfer all the details of it onto a computer database. Best get myself a cup of tea then".

I was about to write this is a fairly extreme example, but it isn't. Seriously, if I or any other officer asks someone to account for their presence in any particular place, we are required to fill out a form detailing just that and why.

The logic behind this is to keep the individuals concerned in being asked to account for their behaviour an opportunity to understand why, and to have a record of it if they are feeling victimised.

Noble ideas. But the end result is we don't ask as many questions of people we think are up to no good as perhaps we should. For if one does complain that he's been victimised, and you haven't filled out your stop form, then you shall face discipline.

Yet from personal experience the only ones who really get targeted are the ones who we know are up to no good, but don't always have the level of proof required for a conviction. Amnesty would therefore say they are innocent and perhaps in some cases they are right.

But not always.

Public Relations

Been sent an email from an officer who states he is in the self proclaimed flagship of British police services, The Metropolitan Police. Paraphrased slightly to ensure names and times remain ambigiuous, and swear words removed.

"I am a level 2, or public order trained officer. Over the bank holiday weekend myself and my serial have been on standby at the Notting Hill Carnival.

We have been kept back, in a hall, awaiting deployment in case of a major incident or fight- large scale public disorder. I was one of several dozen if not 100+ plus officers held back in this hall.

Now there was one point early in the morning when the carnival parties were still in full swing and the booze and cannabis (thats another story) were in plentiful supply. As you might expect, a couple of fights broke out.

One or two of these fights became quite serious. The carnival has dozens of PC's on the ground. Most of them are what we call level 3 public order trained, i.e. have no riot training. One or two of these PCs found themselves in a quite serious fights and unsurprisingly asked for backup.

There were over 100 of us probably nearer 200, ready to go in that hall in full riot kit, ready to deploy as soon as the command was given. No such command was given. We sat in the hall listening as it became more and more urgent on the radio. Urgent assistance was required. Next thing, officers were down.

Still we had no command. We were standing up, adrenalin going full throttle, waiting to be let out to help our colleagues.

No command was ever given.

It turns out Gold (overall command) or whoever was his deputy wasn't prepared to release us. I have no idea how they justified it but it boils down to they were prepared to sacrifice the safety of a PC or two in order to not deploy the riot police with all the negative media that that would undoubtedly follow. At least two PCs were put in hospital just so the management could say it was a quiet successful event"

I have no idea if this is true or not. I was happily nowhere near Notting Hill this bank holiday. But if this is the case- I am hoping that some of the commenters may be able to verify this story- then this is a damning indictement of the modern police service. Safety of individuals play a poor second fiddle to the corporate and media image that senior management wish to portray. I hope the hospitalised PCs make a full recovery and sue the living daylights out of the Met under the Health and Safety at Work act.

National Crime Reporting Standards (ish)

Morning all

A shocker for you all today. Police don't always exactly comply with the ethos of the National Crime Reporting Standards, aka NCRS!!!

NCRS state "All reports of incidents, whether from victims, witnesses or third parties, and whether crime related or not, will result in the registration of an incident report / log by the police".

Then.... "Following initial registration, an incident will be recorded as a crime (notifiable offence) if on the balance of probability
a) The circumstances indicate a crime defined by law and requires recording in accordance with Home Office Counting Rules
b) There is no credible evidence to the contrary

Once recorded, a crime will remain unless evidence becomes available to disprove it has occurred" (click here for original source)

The first part is generally not a problem. Any time you call 999 a computer generated log is started. Its how the 999 call gets routed out to the officers on the street.

Its the second bit where corners are cut.

An example. Its a Friday night in urbantown. Someone calls in a fight on the high street. We despatch someone. However, these fights are normally over within 30 seconds, or the sight and sound of approaching blue lights dissuades the combatants to continue. One of two things frequently happens.

1) We never find any of the combatants.
2) We find them, and both parties swear nothing happened or refuse to tell us anything.

When this happens, (note- not including times when someone is actually injured and/or talks to us), particularly in the first case, then nothing more happens. No crime report is generated, even though we have a witness (and more often than not, cctv) of affray at the very least. Technically, that means we should generate a crime number. However, we tend not to, as it is "unnecessary" work. We cannot find a victim, and therefore no crime, right?

Well, not according to NCRS. We have a witness to a crime and on the balance of probabilities it has occurred. Therefore, we should generate a crime report until we can prove it didn't occur.

However, we don't. The balance of probabilities is magically weighted somehow to that it did not occur and so no crime report goes on. Everyone knows we are short enough on a weekend night and invariably have enough work to do with the more substantial fights and where people are injured and booze fuelled domestics to worry about the times when it was handbags.

Chiefs are happy to let this deviation from NCRS go, as it means there is less violent crime shown on the figures and less unsolved crime.

Myself and some of the other relief skippers were discussing this over the weekend. Normally we're happy for these things to go as too right we'd rather have people available for the genuine calls. But we're starting to come to the conclusion that perhaps we can be our own worst enemy. We always complain that we're too stretched, especially at the weekend. Minimum strengths are calculated by some formula I'm not told about but the volume of crime must be a factor in this calculation, especially violent crime.

So we're thinking (we haven't yet decided to properly go with it) maybe its time we really stuck to the rules regarding NCRS. Every time CCTV pick up a scrap, or someone on a passing bus says they've seen a scrap, then recorded as affray it shall be. It won't be investigated as we still don't have a victim, but on the books as violent crime it shall go.

The PC's aren't going to be too happy in the short term as yes, sorry, extra typing on the computers for reports that are going nowhere. But this could cause a stir and you never know, higher echelons of management might get a bit of pressure on, and we might even get some people out of their offices and doing some bleeding work when we're most stretched.

Commendable behaviour

Normally I don't read the Daily Mail, as I tend to find it a somewhat middle-england championing, opinionated and hypocritical newspaper (where else would you find articles condemning size zero culture, but turn pages to find several articles on how to lose weight in femail.....) but there was one lying around on the bus today and I read it on the way home.

Something caught my eye as a tad disturbing. The Met have commissioned a report which has criticised their handling of homophobic attacks. Now don't get me wrong here. I'm all for introspection and improvement and if we, the police as a whole (not just the Met) aren't doing our jobs properly then it should be inspected, highlighted and acted on.

I have great problems with the fact the officers writing the report are to recieve commendations. This is a reflection of the appearance-obssessed priorities upper echelons of the police have. Write a report that criticises the service for not doing a good enough job to a particular section of the public, expect commendations and probably promotion. Whereas I on lowly response team send an officer home after he inhales a lot of smoke pulling someone away from a burning van. The only official feedback I get is a whinge for not doing the injury on duty form correctly.

Perhaps myself and all the other police bloggers should expect commendations for criticising the way the police is run, currently being trumpeted in the papers after being taken up by the federation. But I doubt it. Our team came under pressure recently as our arrest and disposal stats are lagging behind the other teams. I just shrug, point to the other statistic that we consistently turn up to more calls and quicker than the other teams, and wonder if the stat crunchers will ever realise there's an inverse link between the two. Personally, I think thats the way round it should be and thankfully so does the team boss.

Yellow Jackets Are the Solution

Been a mad day. Been flying around like a youth chasing the last hoodie on sale in the world. Frankly, I'm absolutely shattered and I am indeed asking myself the question just why am I on the internet when I should be in bed.
Job is bonkers all round. Our vehicle fleet is at a third strength at the moment, and we are begging other stations to lend us something to fill the gaps. Then I hear someone up in the ivory towers has noticed that crime goes up at weekends and has released a load of cash for officers to "volunteer" to do overtime patrols at the Urbantown booze hole drunken crime hotspots.

An utterly short-term solution. A substantial number of constables (and their grumbling- oh yes we're grumbling- sergeants) in yellow jackets wandering round in a bad mood will probably have an effect on the number of incidents, granted. The reported crime rate will fall and someone will have a big congratulatory slap on the back for coming to the shocking conclusion that more police officers on the streets mean less crime.

But why can't someone look beyond the immediate quick solution of yellow jackets and invest this money- which someone has found from somewhere- in the response teams, in their vehicle fleets and equipment, and even the CID and case handover teams, so they can do their jobs properly with a proper amount of officers with proper equipment. Give it time, and see if the crime will fall. I would argue that it would.

But all that will happen now is that when the crime rate has fallen and the chiefs and money gurus say well done and withdraw funding for the extra patrols, the muppets left to urbantown's drunken halfwits will be the response teams (probably when its our turn for weekend nights again). And so the crime rate will go up because we're understaffed with inadequate vehicles and have to spend most of our time dealing with our own enquiries as the handover teams are completely overwhelmed and can rarely take anything on.

And so the chiefs go back to the money gurus and plead for money to combat this "new" crime pattern blah blah etc etc and so ad infinitum.

I think I'm even too tired to be exasparated. I'm just like- whatEVER. I'm off to bed.

Policy Review? Hurrah!

Reading through Constabulary Magazine the other day, one of the eponymous job publications that somehow turn up every so often in the nick.
Their headline news is the upcoming new strategy and review for the police announced by the government.
The federation are bit annoyed about not being told about this. Enter Jan Berry, chair of the Police Federation:

"If the aim of this review is to work with the Police Service to develop a shared vision, it doesn’t bode well that as the organisation representing 140,000 police officers throughout England and Wales that we heard about it through the media this morning.
We have been calling for an independent review of policing for the last seven years and noone has been listening. We’ve had five years of piecemeal reform of different parts of policing – none of which have brought any clarity. To announce yet another review will just add to the confusion that already exists"

I liked this bit, still Jan Berry.

"Broken promises to reduce bureaucracy, indecent focus on the quantity of detections rather than the quality of service, poor IT structures and the loss of officers’ discretion to act independently, have fundamentally damaged the trust between the public and the police and the police and the Government."

Compare this with the optimistic title of the governmnents review: "Building on Progress: Security, Crime and Justice"........

As I read on, I find myself reading Ken Jones, who for those who might like to know is President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (banner headline on website: THE VOICE OF THE SERVICE). You'd have thought that he might've taken a similar line to the Police Federation: who do after all represent most of us old bill in the country. But what's this?

"We welcome this policing review to which we have submitted ideas and highlighted challenges. Whilst we wait to see the detail, we are determined to continue to do all we can to reduce bureaucracy, build on neighbourhood policing and make the best use of our resources"

There's a bit of buttering up of the government now, in almost laughable senior police management-pep-speech:

"Neighbourhood policing has made massive progress inembedding local teams in communities. We have seen public confidence levels in policing rise, and we want to improve our partnership working to ensure that we have the support and commitment of all agencies"

Ah here's why the big fat compliment to the Government Neighbourhood Policing initiative! There's a tiny tiny hint of dissent against the goverment, but only a smidgen:

"We can do even more if there was less bureaucracy and fewer targets. If the review is able to ease these pressures ‘space’ will be made for us to customise what we deliver according to what people need in their neighbourhoods"

But to round off, a couple of sentences again in suitably appropriate upper-management police speak:

"We police with the consent of the people. We are always looking for ways to be more accessible and accountable but we need to make sure that the chain of accountability from street-level policing through to police chiefs, and authorities, is not broken"

Flippin eck.

Police federation (and most police bloggers say):- Government: You're crap, and have made our life more difficult, and we feel the public are more frustrated and less trusting of us than ever before. The 95% of us not on The Latest Greatest Thing (i.e. PCSOs or safer neighbourhoods) and have to deal with the dross, dirt and despair that goes on outside the community panel meetings and reassuarance patrols- like kids in police protection, domestics, mental health problems in the community, suicides, sudden deaths, missing persons, people hit by trains (check this link- how terrible is her story??? Come on, humanity!), boozed fuelled violence, rape, messy RTA's (shall I go on?)-are fed up, under resourced and demoralised.

ACPO President says: Neighbourhood policing is great, well done Government, brilliant idea. Review? Brilliant. You can tell us again that Neighbourhood policing is great. (Tiny voice:) a little less obsession with target culture for the 95% of officers not on neighbourhood teams would be nice too. PS did I say Neighbourhood policing was brilliant?

Read Ken Jones's response in full, you decide if I've quoted him fairly or not.
Read the "Building on Progress" review, if you can be bothered with its 104 pages. I read the first paragraph by some politician called Tony which said "We have been tough on crime and the causes of crime", at which point I gave it up as a useless exercise remembering this article by a certain Inspector.

I don't know why, but I'm looking forward to the comments on this one.

Customers

Was banging on about PDR's in a post the other day. A question I meant to ask is thus:

A competency within the Integrated Competency Framework is "Community and Customer Focus". There are a number of behaviours associated with this, which is summarised as I need to "provide a high level of service to customers. Maintain contact with customers, works out what they need and responds to them"

On response team, who or what exactly is my customer? Is it the person who has called 999? Is it a victim? Is it anyone who pays taxes? Is it everyone? Is a suspect a customer? A burglar? A rapist?

If someone can actually explain this to me in a way that doesn't want to make me sledgehammer my own head, I'd be grateful. Or is it just stating the bleeding obvious? Does this blog contribute to myself maintaining contact with customers and trying to work out what they need? Ha ha I'll mention this if I ever get busted for doing this blog.....

"Sergeant, your blog has portrayed the police in a negative light, and is highly unprofessional. Give me your stripes".
"But guv, I feel it demonstrates how I focus on the needs and feelings of our customers and citizens, and provides an avenue of contact which may not be otherwise available, which is what the Home Office says is mighty fine evidence of how to be a good police officer."
"Damn it. Have some pips instead."

I tell you what. I have spent quite a while going through google trying to find a link to anything that explains just exactly what the "integrated competency framework" and its list of competencies is, and who actually wrote and designed it. (The best link I can find is here, and it doesn't really go into any depth whatsoever) I'd have thought the home office would want everyone to know what behaviours, responsibilities and competencies it thinks a good response team police officer needs. Or a firearms officer. Or a schools officer. I can only find links to every force under the sun saying "we have adopted the ICF and expect you to evidence the following if you want to work here / already work here / have accidentally driven through here" etc etc.

But it would seem the only way you can find out what they are is to subscribe to the Skills For Justice website, which apparently is designed only for police users.......... hmmmmmmmmmm

Time flies

Time flies. Apologies to all, haven't really had much chance to update on here. Also not a great deal to talk about, offices are a tad boring. Still, apparently on Monday I'll be back on response team, but I know the Training & Development unit boss (i.e. the overall boss of the Probationer Development bit I'm currently in) is arguing I should be staying where I am, as apparently I know what I'm doing, they still need someone to do the role I was doing, they still haven't got anyone to fill the position on a full time basis, and most unfortunately they now have my name. My team governor is being equally as adamant I was only ever let go on a temporary basis, they've already had one extension to the date I was initially given to return, and frankly they should sort themselves out and get something organised.

I will not be amused if I'm back for all of two weeks before big chiefs get involved and side with the TDU, as it'll take me roughly so long to catch up with "my" constables on team and get PDR's sorted out (see previous post), so meaning I'll just about be ready to go and get stuck in with things and I'll be off again.

Speaking to ex-and-soon-to-be-contemporary colleagues the vehicle situation is still diabolical. I heard that one Pc on the day a car returned had it for about 4 hours before kerbing it. Muppet.

The current policy of begging us to use the cheapest fuel available would now appear to be up the spout. I never took any notice of that anyway. Occasionally I am known when I'm really hacked off at penny pinching and lack of resources to go and find the most damned expensive ultimate / optimax fuel and fill it to the limit. Aren't I a petulant schoolboy!!!

Although there could be an interesting study there.... if the manafacturers claims are to be believed then using good quality fuel actually means more efficient engines, i.e. less pollution and less breakdown, and so may well be moreenvironmentally and economically efficient in the long term.... thats the argument I'll use anway!

Normal Service

Shall hopefully soon be resumed. Went back to my old parade site the other day and saw the vehicle fleet has been more than halved: an accident, a mechanical failure, a cockup by the workshop (petrol? diesel? uurrrrr). I couldn't be bothered reading what was wrong with the rest of them.

Everything has changed on my old team. Apparently my governor has got himself into hot water with senior management (I like to think he told them how it was) and is looking for an escape route out of team. I'll miss him. He was a Gadget-esque governor, and policed more by common sense rather than unflexible rigid adherence to SOP's.

I was away for a fortnight or so and came back to just short of 140 emails, of which I managed to delete roughly 125 without taking any further action whatsoever. I hate emails. They're a cheap way of telling everybody what the latest standard operating procedure (SOP) for reporting stolen toothbrushes is, or Suburbiatown Police Department is trialling a new pet come to notice reporting scheme which everyone must adhere to. Everyone can very quickly be told about the latest change in legislation or practice or procedure, and for when you forget about the latest hot sliced bread idea because of email tracking you can't get away with claiming you weren't told about it.

Problem is, when you have 140 emails after 2 weeks off you glaze over by roughly email number 9 and a very rough email triage system develops:
- delete immediately and forget;
- think that this ought to be kept / actioned, and then delete later having done nothing
- actually file it or action it.

The only good thing is that most people who aren't office based and use computers as assistants rather than the-universe-revolves-around-me work essentials, make sure they actually tell you stuff. (and then send an email!)

Changing subject: apparently, and I have it from powers higher than I, I shall be returning to response team imminently. Hum. Deja Vu. I think I might have said that somewhere before. Still waiting. I suppose with the vehicle situation as it is at the moment I won't have a car available anyway. But it's coming up to PDR (performance development review) time! Aagh. For the uninitiated, this is a great paperwork exercise that sounds fantastic on paper but in reality takes forever to do, uses a great deal of artistic licence in evidencing Integrated Competency Framework "behaviours" (as determined by a committee of policy makers who have probably never seen the inside of a police car yet decide precisely what a patrol constable must do in order to demonstrate competence in his job). PDR's would be great if I had a third the number of constables to report on, a third less commitments (you know, the little things that can happen on a 999 response team) and three times the hours in the day.

Maybe I could cope with another month on the Probationer Development wing after all.






Actually, no I couldn't.

Car vs Foot

This is probably one of the aspects of policing that everyone will have an opinion on, yet I am surprised to look around the blog list to the left (which is ever increasing!) to see no other posts on it.
It is the simple issue of whether it is better for police to be out on foot or in cars.

From a response point of view, having officers in cars is much more advantageous. There is the simple fact you can between two points a lot quicker. We are an emergency service, and if a 999 call goes out in a village 4 miles away from local urban centre, the pair on foot patrol in said urban centre are going to be completely useless. Often, (but not always, and thats a different story) there is a need for the blue lights and sirens. Was monitoring the radio last few days and heard one of the calls that always gets adrenaline through the roof- "Callers ex is outside the location making threats- caller states male attacking door, can police come quickly- caller states male is inside location- line has gone dead". For that reason, we always have to have cars to get places quickly. The issue of policing driving is quite different, something I feel quite strongly about, more on that another time.

But I am aware, as I am as guilty as anyone, that once inside your nice little metal box you are insulated from the rest of the world and you don't get out and talk to people, and people find it harder to approach you. An example from two of my folks who were out in a touristy part of town the other day- at one point, they actually had a queue of people who wanted to speak to them. Wouldn't get that in a car.

But to peruse the media, the clamour is for officers walking the beat. From my point of view as a response team supervisor (or at least, when I was), my priority will be to crew the cars first, as that is what provides a better emergency service. If I have sufficient officers, then I will post people walking. However, as we are so short of numbers, I can't actually recall a time when I had sufficient numbers to fill all the cars (and we only have 7 for our area, and at least one is invariably broken).

It is because of this that the government introduced firstly PCSO's and then neighbourhood policing teams. PCSO's are always out walking (unless the Health & Safety merchants get you) and are supposed to be out and about meeting people, building relationships etc. The principle behind this I am fully behind. However, it should be a police officers job. The government in its wisdom created a situation where response teams are thin on the ground and constantly dealing with things that take hours to deal with, so any time they are out and about they are going to jobs or enquiries relating to other jobs, and not "free" time to build relationships with the locals. Instead of tackling this situation, the government introduces PCSO's, who can't report or investigate crime. However, realising that the public aren't quite fooled by this the government introduces NPT's (aka SNT's, Safer Neighbourhood Teams) where police officers (taken from response team) are ordered that they too are now not to investigate or report crime so they can spend time out and about meeting people.

Meanwhile, response teams have had bugger all investment and a third of the team has been abstracted to populate NPT's.

It is my belief that the police are primarily an emergency service, but the government in its drive for vote winning initiatives have sacrificed this. If all the investment that has gone into PCSO's and NPT's went into response team, the vast increase in numbers and resources would mean 1) I'd have enough people to be able post walkers out and about and 2) the workload can be shared out meaning the officers have more "free" time to get out and meet people, to build back the relationships.

So the original question: car vs foot. The answer is both. I dream of a time when I have enough officers to post them in a car for a month, and then on foot for a month. The "emergency" side of policing should not be incompatible with the "community" side.

But at the moment, we have the situation where a division between the two is actively encouraged. And the blame for that lies squarely with the House of Commons.

What is a community

This is a bit of a philosophical post this, bear with me.

I get a bit frustrated every time I hear a politician or SMT blather on about "we will work in partnership/consultation/togetherness/ with local community groups". Its all the rage with Safer Neighbourhood Teams. To quote right from the Met's website: "Safer Neighbourhoods teams are dedicated to your community and are additional to other policing teams and units in London." Greater Manchester Police are at it too: "Neighbourhood policing pilot schemes in the Hall'i'th'Wood and Oldhams Estates have started to successfully engage these communities in the setting of local policing priorities and support in their fulfilment"

Well what the heck is a community?

Apparently, according to the Wiktionary (who makes these names up?)
1) a group of people sharing a common understanding who reveal themselves by using the same language, manners, tradition and law
2) acommune or residential/religious collective
3) the condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common

Who decides what community are to be listened to. Shall we go to Bradford? Where locally elected councillors are members of the BNP? The local community there (or at least, the ones who voted) have displayed what they think. Should the local police therefore pander to the whims of the BNP?
Funnily enough, despite West Yorkshire police having "Community policing for the 21st century" there's no mention of the BNP that I can find on their web page!

So what the hell is my point in all this. Don't think for a minute I'm suggesting West Yorkshire should pander to the BNP.

I think its just that I'm fed up of being treated like an idiot by Senior Management who seem to think that they have to say "community partnership" in every press briefing, assuming that therefore everyone listening will have a percieved sense of ownership of "their" police. Where I live, in a different area from where I work, I'm a member of a community. I'm a member of several. My immediate geographical community, I'm a member of the car driving community, bike riding community, public transport using community, rugby club community. Just within my fairly staid home life, the different community groups I am in have differing and not necessarily compatible priorities. So when SMT talk about setting policing objectives in consultation with local communities, which ones do they mean. They can't mean all of them. The local right wing group aren't going to have much in common with the local Jewish residents.

I think they just mean politically acceptable communities. But who decides this? When I hear SMT say "we want to hear the local communities views" I want to say back "no you don't!" They only want to hear the ones that agree with their idea of who should be in their local community.

No real point to this post, I think. I guess I just object to being pigeonholed as a member of a community to which I don't feel I really am a member of. Where I live and work I hear SMT (and local politicians) talk about how they've consulted with local communities to come up with the latest plan. And I think (for where I live) "Well I haven't been consulted". No, they've consulted some association or other where I wouldn't go if you paid me, as everybody is twice my age and they talk mostly about allotments.

So, lets put this out to debate. Do you think "community" is an overused word that doesn't have any real meaning? Or does it work for you where you are. Tell me, I actually am interested in listening to the police blogging community!!!!!!!!!!!!!