Review (whinge!) of the Year

Things I've seen too much of in 2006, would like to see less of in 2007.

Dead people.
Maggots in dead people.
People spread across several square metres of tarmac after road accidents.
Activity Analysis.
Incompetent management who can't see there's a problem until someone points it out, and then get the person who points out the problem to sort it out, and then take all the credit for it.
Computer Screens.
Sensationalist media reporting.
Offices.
Tax.
Paper forms that exactly replicate computer forms, but both have to be completed.
Computer forms that exactly replicate paper forms, but both have to be completed.
Computer forms that contain exactly the same information as other computer forms, but both have to be completed, and you can't cut and paste.
Politicians.
Pens.
Rescuscitating people who are barely hanging on to life after a drugs overdose.
People dead after a drugs overdose.
People jumping from the 5th floor onto concrete in front of me.

Things I would like to see more of in 2007.

Spare police vehicles to replace the broken ones
Broken police vehicles being fixed the first time.
People being talked down from the 5th floor. (This did happen. It couldn't be made official as myself and the fire brigade chap conveniently ignored Health & Safety to climb up the scaffolding to get to him)
Patrol time.
Common sense.
Properly enforced and resourced probation and community service sentences.
Police officers on response team, so we aren't always going from job to job to report to statement to job to report, and can actually go and do some preventative police work

Hum I will come back with some of the good highlights of the year, but in true Sergeant fashion I'm grumpy at the moment, as it's new years eve, I can't go where I was planning as the car broke down this morning, and in any case I'm on early turn tomorow and will need to be out of the house by roughly 5am. Hurrah!

Merry new year.

To say I get angry about this kind of thing is an understatement.

This on christmas day, this three days later.

This latter one nearly made me lose my temper.

Stupid, selfish halfwit. It's one of the few things that sorely tempts me to revert back a few decades in policing style. One of those that if I'm at the custody desk, I have to pause, take a deep breath and tell myself I have to treat him like everybody else.

What a scumbag. Disqualified from driving, sticking two fingers up to both courts and police, couldn't give a toss about anyone but himself, showing off to the girl. Even if she knew there was something not right about this guy and this car there is absolutely no way she deserves this. Nobody does.

Death by dangerous driving is the equivalent of manslaughter, and without checking my law books that's at least 14 years. But I bet he'll get about 3.

The Manchester bloke'll probably get something equally limp, and disqualified from driving for 10 years, which really makes a difference to these kind of people. See the London story for evidence of how much.

Coming Soon

Coming soon: Sergeant Says' Review of the year 2006.

To include: things I saw this year I will quite happily go without ever seeing again;
things I would like to see more of next year;
things I would like to see less of.

I was planning on actually doing this tonight, but I've only just finished prepping stuff for tomorrow, and I wanted to go to bed twenty minutes ago- so it can wait.

Hope all had a good christmas, and better than the poor sod who I came across just before christmas (see future post: things I will quite happily go without ever seeing again).

Hope all have a jolly good new year. With the following small print: this specifically excludes people who drink too much and either a) fight their partners b) fight their friends c) fight the police officers who are called by their partners or friends d) fight random poor sod who happened to be on the wrong crack of the pavement at the time.

Small small print to point D: exception to this is when you do it in front of a vanload of motivated old bill who particularly dislike eejits who like to engage in such things. As what happened christmas eve. "Happy Christmas. You're nicked." I'm trying to think of an adjective that suits such a person, but I'm struggling to think of something that is both contemptous and venomous enough.

And Finally

I know, no updates in a week then 4 in a day. But I'm on late turn tomorrow (lie in......... aaaaah) and the missus isn't feeling too well, and was off to bed very early, so could spend a bit of time both on this and looking around the other job bloggers.

Very sad to say the Blogger's Graveyard is expanding. Sensible Policing has simply just disappeared off the face of the earth (never a good sign) and now even the PCSO blog has joined the ranks of those found out and has deleted every post he's ever written.

Every time I see that happen I ask myself- again- just why am I doing this, when all it will ever bring me is trouble.

Really, really can't make it up.

I know I've nicked Guvnor Gadget's tagline but it is the only way to describe this (also on the official GMP website). You can hear the criminals laughing all the way from Carlisle to Chester.

An extraordinary piece of pink and fluffy optimism policing.

Unless, there is a glimmer of hope here, that the GMP article is so laden with sarcasm and that the officers in the Chadderton nick are the ones laughing. But surely not, not from the official GMP website? Please someone tell me this is a christmas joke........

Winter Warmers

Okay yes I am a bit grumpy at the moment. I cheered up a bit when I saw Inspector Gadget's appeal for witnesses to an apparent abduction by Met Officers: here. I laughed even more when I saw HobbyBobby's retort- here! Who says police can't have a sense of humour?


But the icing on the cake is this. How I laughed when I saw this, especially as it's Met officers hahahahahahahahahahaha (at least, I think it is- that is their logo just peeking out on the right hand side?)





I know it's a silly photo from a photoshop bodge. But those pink leggings crack me up.

bah humbug

Good one. I'm shattered.
You know those medieval torture methods where you had a horse attached to each limb who each try and pull you in different directions? Thats a bit how I feel at the moment. Inspectors from every which department (licencing, tasking, Intelligence, Motor Vehicle Crime, Robbery and the rest blah blah blah) all wanting my unit to help with their problems in the run up to christmas. Plus some problems with some of my Pc's in the unit, problems which have to be dealt with like now and not left till after christmas. Sooooooo I'm full of the joys at the moment!

There's something about this job which makes people think that a number of officers in yellow jackets will solve any problem you care to mention, whereas the only problem it really solves is that they can now finally tell senior management that some resources are being targeted to combat their particular problem.

When I finally get some days off (not for a while yet!) my phone will be turned off throughout christmas (the couple of days that I have for it, anyway.....)

A bit more

I think I'll leave my media whinges alone for the time being. Instead, just hope and pray that Suffolk police get their man (we all assume it is a man, but I think it is a fair assumption) quick.

My thoughts are with the families of the murdered girls, and the officers working on the case who I know will be slogging their guts out following useless lead after useless lead, always hoping the next one will be the one. The BBC have published a useful article on how it is calls from the public that are really what are crucial. TV shows would have you believe forensic science can solve everything. It has a role but it isn't enough. A simple "I was here, at this time, and I saw this" will be all the jumpstart this case needs.

Link to Suffolk Police website here.

Norfolk reporting

I don't wish to make comment at all about the things happening in Ipswich, save that I hope to God that Suffolk police catch whoever is responsible pretty damn quick.

For those who may know me I am quite interested in media issues, in particular the way they present stories, the accuracy of any facts that are claimed, and even when and how stories are chosen in the first place.

Found myself agreeing with this article from the Guardian. In a nutshell, its how the media seem to treat prostitute crime as unnewsworthy, and the only reason the Ipswich events are in the news at all is because suddenly there's a "serial killer" or a new "ripper" attacking prostitutes, who are now "vice girls".

The police are familiar with being labelled (justifiably, let me make clear) of having certain ways and attitudes "institutionalised" in their working practices. But I think the media (certain sections in particular) have a case to answer too, for having equally deeply entrenched attitudes that perhaps aren't as fair and appropriate as they'd like to make out.

Eyebrow Raising

Speaking to an analyst friend of mine. They reckon that a recent (nearly 25%) drop in particular type of theft related crime in Nutville is down to the arrest of one individual, and thus now he is off the streets there has been a corresponding dramatic fall in crime.

Needless to say, this individual is hopelessly addicted to class A drugs.

Even more quickly

For those who think we blog without the threat of being called in to the SMT's office: a new link has been added to the blogger's graveyard. So long, Semper Fi.

Said with an air of resigned sadness. It'll be me one day.

just quickly

Apologies to non-police blog authors, as this is aimed fairly squarely at blog authors.

About a month ago, I got an email from a certain police magazine asking me to phone their london office. Am I alone in this? I emailed a reply to them (mostly stating I wasn't prepared to ring them, but was happy to answer any and all questions on email) but I have never recieved any kind of reply in return.

This has merely fuelled my suspicions about the nature of the request in the first place, which specifically requested don't post about this. But as I say it's been long enough with no reply so I can post about it.

Anyway. Anyone else get this? Am I being over paranoid.....

PCSO's- should they be more distinct from police?

PCSO's are in the news for all the wrong reasons.

As per the link below, getting stabbed in the neck and now this, (courtesy PCSO blog for alerting me)

And then I go back and look again at those two Devon & Cornwall police articles in the previous post.

They take away 150 officers from the street. To meet government targets. As in they're going to go and stick them behind desks to massage statistics.

What the ?!@!#! I know I say don't believe the media but unfortunately I do believe that.

And they are to be replaced with 458 PCSO's.

Don't get me wrong on this. I have nothing against PCSO's. I just find the current situation ludicrous and frustrating. Home office demands have created a climate where PC's need to be taken off the streets in order to improve the force's detection rates, or whatever statistical measure that currently has priority attention.

This in the meantime creates a void on the streets, in which to fill, the government spends vast fortunes on PCSO's. PCSO's are designed to look like police in order to fill this "policing gap". But they don't get any of the training, equipment, or backup.

And so PCSO's, devoid of training, equipment, and most crucially of all, experience (even the longest serving PCSO can only have been on the street maybe 4 years now?) are sent out onto the street designed to fill the gap between police and public.

Which in my opinion shouldn't be there in the first place. Spend the money currently spent on PCSO's to recruit and train them as PC's, and they can do exactly the same important job but with better training, better resources, and better backup.

In the meantime, as the above is never going to happen, I reckon an effort should be made to change PCSO uniform to make it pretty clear they are not police. I don't think it's coincidence that the chap stabbed in the neck was the PCSO rather than the eviction officers. Make their uniform distinct- red or something. Not the psuedo-police it currently is. The media don't help in blurring the lines between police officers and community support officers. Check out the headline from Metro.co.uk.

But make no mistake, I wish these two well. Unlike what I wish for for their attackers.

What do people think about their uniform? Should it be clearer they are not police officers? Or is the close association with police a good thing? Views from all sides of the fence please :-)

Slightly miffed.

What the hell? One.

What the hell? Two. Linked to one.

Makes me want to cry.


And in the meantime: what the hell was he doing there in the first place? Should not have been there! Non-confrontational?????

More car v foot

Apologies, my research isn't quite as thorough as I thought. Pc Bloggs over at Blandmore posted on this issue a while ago (Blogger posting isn't let me put hyperlinks in at the moment for some reason- click on Bloggs's link to the right and its the "Celebrations Are In Order" post in the November archive) and there has been quite a response.

Bloggs I think people weren't too happy with yours because you fairly comprehensively dismiss the calls for Pc's on the beat! Correct me if I'm wrong, heh thats another advantage of blogging, you can tell a skipper he's talking crap without fear of red pen in pocketbooks.

Anyway. My point was that from a response point of view Pc's on foot are next to useless. However, from a preventative point of view in a very small geographical area, they are considerably more effective than a car. I've seen it myself. Scroties see a marked car coming and dive out of the way, and hide behind walls etc until job car has trundled past. They are quite happy that the chances of job car returning there are slim- that street has been patrolled now and they won't be back for a while- so they carry on with their crafty joints and cans of spray paint.

However, stick someone out on foot and makes a heck of a difference. They know that PC Shankpony isn't going to blat off to somewhere else, and that they can't make a deal of noise as Constable Shankpony isn't insulated by steel and glass, and will hear their shouting and their moped revving (Oh how I hate mopeds. Even in Nicetown where I reside I find myself glaring hatefully at a moped driven by anything with a hoodie.)

My biggest whinge is that because response teams are response teams, I have to put people in the cars first, and to be honest I usually expect them to stay in the cars. I barely have enough officers to crew the cars, so any benefit of foot patrol is, for my part of Suburbia, just theory.

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.

Paperwork, paperwork

Nothing too much to write about last few days, apart from the odd duty officer panicking as he heard a rumour that two secondary schools wanted a fight, and visions of 1300 teenagers fighting materialised into about 30 milling around a shopping centre with as many officers watching.

Catching up on paperwork supervision. Took me the entire shift, save 40 minutes. I keep reminding them that they won't get this level of support when they go on response team, as their skippers have more officers to keep an eye on and less time to look at their reports, as two thirds the time they're in custody anyway, and there is rarely a quiet time in custody........ so if they get something wrong out on team, they're by themselves. And we're starting the perennial pain that is the Home Office activity analysis by January (nearly there already, where did the year go?) Which will be even more forms to look at. Funnily enough, on these activity analysis forms, where the entire shift is broken down into 15 minute segments, and you have to state what you are doing on each of those segments- e.g. patrol (yeah right), crime reports, custody procedure etc etc- there isn't a section which states "Filling out annual pain in the butt Home Office stats exercise".

Joys.

Police review response

To jump on a bandwagon. Most of you who look at this look at other job blogs so you are probably aware of the article run in Police Review by a serving inspector. I've got hold of a copy, but for those of you who don't have it YorNicked has copied the article on his site.

As far as I can tell, the main point he makes that a important role of the police is to reduce the fear of crime. Police blogs, by presenting the reality of police work, and in particular highlighting the lack of response team officers, can reduce the effectiveness of this goal.

Yes, I can see his point.

But I disagree with his argument. He quotes a blog (anyone got any idea who?) which states there are only 3 officers to cover a borough of a 100,000 residents. Apparently, this is not helpful.

I would completely disagree! Ask Mr anti-social blogger man, who is incredibly frustrated with his local police, North Yorkshire. Do you think he believe the media releases from his force that things are improving? E.g. the following quote, direct from the North Yorkshire Police Home Page "....how we will be building on our considerable success to date...."
However, if he is aware that there are only a few officers covering hundreds of miles, whilst it might not make his situation any better, it might help ease his frustration, and more importantly he will know that the bedraggled officers who do turn up share his frustration. (Or at least, I hope they do)

(Note- any reference to Anti-Social blogger man should read anti-social blogger woman! Apologies!)

Police officers have found that their complaints about "inefficiency, shortage of resources or poor management" (to quote Mr Police Review's belief of the source of police blogger motivation) have fallen on deaf ears when done through official channels. I think the last aspect explains all- the fact that the management is poor and does not deal with our frustrations, but continues to present a rosy picture to the media, is the very reason we are forced to publish online.

I would argue that the public, who are our "customers" (to coin a favourite SMT phrase), our paymasters, and to whom we should be accountable to, have the right to know what isn't right with their police forces. But us blogging officers know they are not told that.

Yes, we are forced to be anonymous. And with that, there is no guarantee of credibility with any police blogger. How do you know I'm a police sergeant? Is another police blog actually written by the husband or wife of an officer? You, the reader, can never know for sure.

The purposes of these blogs, as far as I am concerned, is to provoke debate as to the reality of policing. I don't think anyone should ever take what is written here as gospel, no more than anyone should believe what they read in the news. The media can be shockingly inaccurate, believe me.

If I had to put a single reason as to why I do this, it is to proclaim this message: Don't believe what you are told. A bit like police work really. Whatever your politician or police force says, take it with a pinch of salt. Question it. Investigate it.

Enough from me for now.

Well informed?

I love it when I hear about new things that us (the police) are trying out. Except of course, I don't hear about it through the job, I hear about it via the BBC.
Well informed? Moi? To adopt a favoured catchphrase of David Camerons favourite hooligan: "Yeah whateveeeeeer".

So we are to have new mobile fingerprint ID jobbies are we? (Like the ones the immigration service have had for years?). Well, I'm sure that it'll make absolute diddly squat of difference. I predict the following problems.

1) no network coverage. The projected response time of 3 minutes is laughable. It might be just three minutes when bedfordshire alone are using them, but as soon as other forces get involved, the projections for the use it will get will be woefully inadequate.
2) unreliable hardware (they will be the cheapest available on the market, guaranteed)
3) it won't make any difference to whether you get arrested or not. If you're not happy with someone's ID, then you'll probably be arresting them anyway, as a warrants officer won't file someone as wanted on the strength alone of this gadget
4) you have to be on the national fingerprint database in the first place for it to work, which most of us (excluding police and criminals) aren't
5) It's voluntary anyway. (But having said that, a radio report I've just heard says you'll be arrested if you refuse. I have no idea which is true.) If it is voluntary, I'd agreee with the chap on the BBC website report, that the government in the future (if they stay in power, please no) will probably make it a lawful requirement. There'll be an amendment to the Road Traffic Act that a police officer (in uniform!) can demand a fingerprint from a person driving a car on a road.

I also find it laughable that this new gadget will, according to the police minister, help us reduce paperwork and stay on the front line. I can guarantee there will be some form or other to use with this gadget! Hell politicians speak some crap. IF anything, if the claims are true and more bad guys get lifted, then we will be spending less time on the road, as arresting someone is not a half hour job!

Anyway.

I wait to be proved wrong.

Days Off

Finally, a day off after 7 on the trot, including a glorious 3am start on one particular day, which was great fun. Word has got round the Operational Planning department that there is a new batch of coppers in town and all of a sudden I'm getting calls and requests from all over the place to help with operation this and that. Which I am beginning to have to say No to more often than not, as while it may it sound very nice to say you have x number of officers doing HiViz patrols (HVP's) on your operation wingnut or whatever it is, I have got to be more concerned with the development of my officers, and as they tend not to learn too much by flooding a specific area with yellow jackets, (as all the scumbags quickly figure out there is an operation on, and disappear) I don't want them to do it too often.

Police morale is Inspector Gadgets current problem. Thankfully, for my lot who are brand new and for whom everything is new and interesting, they haven't yet developed into cyncical weary gits, and are refreshingly enthusiastic. Nobody even complained about the 3am start at the weekend! I'd give them 2 months on team, whereupon all the support and flexibility I can currently give them will vanish, before they are as fed up as the rest of them with the perpetual grief and criticism.

Anyway, I only have a couple of days off so I'm not going to spend any more time on here than I have to. I watched that PCSO fly-on-the-wall prog on the box the other day, I might get round to posting something about that. But the other half has a list of things for me to do which I better crack on with else I'll be in trouble!

Links bar on the right has been updated with a couple of bloggers, newbie and established, feel free to peruse around, which I'm sure most of you do anyway.

In the meantime, stay safe y'all