Are the police useless ?

mr_eddy

Just been reading a report in the local paper about a woman who had her moped nicked, She had CCTV evidence of the person that took it and furthermore rang the police to report that the bike was with a group of lads in the local pub car park - She did not want to approach as it would have been dangerous to confront a group of lads alone.

She rang the police to give them all this info and the said quote:

" We are not able to assist as we are not actively monitoring this particular crime or similar crimes of this nature"

Now I understand that many forces have had to cut back and as such need to prioritize but she had the guy bang to rights and could give an exact location to the bike's location. All that was needed was a squad car to come and arrest the rider or at the very least recover the scooter !!

I should also add that I have recently moved house and my main reason was due to the massive amount of criminal activity that was going on inside the communal car park - The apartment I lived in was 10 years old and in a decent area but the car park was dimly lit and over the course of 6 months it went from being crime free to having big groups of drug dealers and users as well as people causing vehicle damage / property damage etc. I rang the local police probably 100 times to report active drug deals taking place with license plate info as well as full HD CCTV recordings and on every single occasion I was fobbed off - "Sorry we have no one in the area"

On one particular occasion I saw a group of lads smoking dope etc and one of them was showing off to his mates - He pulled out one of those crazy looking hunting knives , It was about 9" long. I reported it and still I was told " I'm sorry no one is in the area" when I replied stating that a guy has a massive knife the operator simply said " I will make a note on the system"

ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME!!!!

I don't want to be a dick about all this stuff and I am sure there are lots of decent coppers out there who are just as frustrated but surely stuff like this should not happen ?

mr_eddy

I have come to the conclusion that NO-ONE will help you so you need to make sure you stuff is as hard as possible to damage/steal etc. All my bikes are insured and quadruple locked with 24mm wide anchor chains and D-Locks to multiple ground anchors in my brick outhouse. Its covered by CCTV plus burglar alarm and Window alarms.

I know that reporting a bike theft or house break in etc to the police will just be a waste of call time.

Sad really but that is what it is.

pblakeney

Rest assured that if an MP's house was burgled then there would plenty police activity.
You just need to learn your place in society.

mr_eddy

Yep agreed a mere mortal like myself must know my place, Paying taxes gives me no right to expect anything other than to be completely ignored.

Tashman

Mention a firearm and they'll be there in a flash. It's not your fault that at a distance it looked different

tangled_metal

I knew a tradesman who had some very expensive kit nicked from a locked warehouse at work. Small neighbourhood where people know each other so he knew who stole his kit. Sure enough one of his equipment was being touted for a tenner in a local pub by one of two druggee brothers. He told the police. The police booked an appointment to visit the house of these brothers in about 6 days time!

Anyway, being a big guy with a reputation himself the tradesman walked into the house searching it. He found almost everything in the shed in the garden so he put the kit back into his van.

I basically tell you this true story because most tealeaves are known among their own community. If anything goes missing in that neighbourhood it'll be the same few people. When a few bikes got nicked people all knew who had done it. The police did too. My bike was never recovered but the others were. Reason? I'm not from that neighbourhood so nobody would tell me who had my bike. The others paid the theif a visit when a mate spotted him riding it. A few choice words and he got his bike. Another true story.

The truth is petty theft of bikes or equipment isn't a priority. If you can't recover it yourself then anything nicked won't be recovered. Police don't care or have time. If they have to make an appointment to search a known thief's house after reports of stolen goods being held there then what's the point? Seriously that first story I told you about had the victim of the theft calling the police from the garden of the thief telling the police he's looking at his own kit right there and then. Ridiculous situation!

tangled_metal

Firearms? Keystone cops!

I was at Leeds when a final year student locked people in the gun cabinet after nicking a load of guns and ammo (years ago i might add). He got tracked into his department and was surrounded. Well, apart from the back door which the gunman walked out of. He went to his flat and then took a train home. After several hours the police were told by students leaving the building that the guy had left hours before!

The whole thing made national news complete with films of armed police hiding behind low walls surrounding the building about the time the gunman must have been getting off the train home.

He was found at home watching tv oblivious to what he had done.mental breakdown. He didn't know the gunman was him IIRC, but i think he was found watching tv eating a snack.

We found it entertaining not least because it was the department i was in. I'd have been in there if i hadn't been bunking off.

Tashman

At least they turned up though. That would be enough to make most undesireables flee from an area

DeVlaeminck

Always been the same - 30 years ago a mate and me came out of a club in West Bridgford to find our vespas had been nicked. One of the locals told us who did it and where they lived and that they'd stashed them in their garage so we phoned the police up who came out, visited the address we gave them and then came back to us and said they'd asked the suspect and he denied it.

At this point we said well in that case we will go round and visit them ourselves because we've got a witness said they've got them in the garage - at this point they did actually go back and retrieve them but there were never any charges brought.

rick_chasey

#Torycuts

meursault

Rick Chasey wrote:

#Torycuts

Came here to post this.

Write to your MP, and council, is all I can suggest.

fat daddy

Rick Chasey wrote:

#Torycuts

really ... the 1st thread on here about "complaining to the police" and their incompetence was back in 2007 ... think that was Labour causing that one wasn't it .. unless of course the needle is still stuck and its Thatchers fault.

Maybe the real reason is that the powers in charge just don't care about you

Tashman

#Torycuts is the same as #publicsectorcuts and is independant of whoever is ruling. The truth is that there's not enough money to fund everything and subsequently we either need to raise more funds (higher taxation) or reduce the expenditure

Tashman

I'll also say that the police themselves aren't useless just heavily constrained and paperwork heavy making minor transgressions a real PITA to deal with

mamba80

Tashman wrote:

#Torycuts is the same as #publicsectorcuts and is independant of whoever is ruling. The truth is that there's not enough money to fund everything and subsequently we either need to raise more funds (higher taxation) or reduce the expenditure

thats not really true through is it? we used to be able to fund basic Policing and the NHS.

ALL the out lying police stations in Cornwall have been shut, replaced by a 101 tel system and thats it.....

i recently found a set of car keys in a lane, i phoned the Police and asked who to handed them into? they said no manned station, do lost/found anymore, they pointed me to a website where i could advertise i had them and then met up with who ever contacted me... p1ss off.... i dropped them back in the lane where i found them.

a friend is a copper, she says they cannot respond to all violent incidents as the area they cover is so large that by the time they get to the crime, the assailant has gone, they administer 1st aid till the ambulance arrives, being attacked is classed as minor crime, to the victim, it isnt.

Why not disband all community policing and have local vigilantes to Police the area? much like local people are given tarmac to fix potholes or volunteers run libraries, leaving the rump of the Police to concentrate on major crime etc? of course the definition of major crime will change over time...

Steve-XcT

mamba80 wrote:

Why not disband all community policing and have local vigilantes to Police the area? much like local people are given tarmac to fix potholes or volunteers run libraries, leaving the rump of the Police to concentrate on major crime etc? of course the definition of major crime will change over time...

This is what used to happen, at least where I grew up.

I don't know where blame lies and in reality it's spread out.

Part of what's wrong is that the idea of vigilantes is frowned upon... or violence in general seems to be frowned upon instead of just seeing it as another way to solve a problem.

To illustrate when I was at school the way we dealt with bullies was fighting back...
Now kids are punished for fighting back... they are meant to lie roll up and then go and find a teacher.

When they find the teacher (assuming they don't need an ambulance) ... the teacher is powerless to do anything

When my kid was 5 there was one disturbed kid in the class and eventually I told my kid to just hit him back and keep hitting him until he can't stand up next time he hits you.

My kid initially objected saying "but I'll get into trouble for fighting back" to which I pointed out "but you get into trouble anyway for being hit"

Anyway ... my kids pretty physical so he gave the bully a beating and got in trouble and guess what... the bully never hit him again....

So ... you think that was the end of it... but the teacher then paired my kid with the bully as he was the only kid the bully was scared of... this then led to a year of my kid (300 days younger) progressively being led into trouble by the older kid.

Anyway ... the point of all that is the teachers and police are all mostly several generations into this whole mentality...
We live in an era where someone with a small penknife can hijack a plane because everyone is trained to not act.


Bikes have always been a particular problem and even back in the 80's it was rumoured that the police take their cut from organised bike crime. Its now proven and documented that some police take part in human trafficking so it would hardly surprise me if many are also taking a cut on bikes.

When I was a kid we had a beat copper... and for 90% of the stuff we did as kids it involved being dragged home by the ear and a lathering off my mum. Now both my mum and the copper would probably be in court for assault....

And strangely the world was much safer with local thieves being taken care of inside the community and beat coppers who dragged you home by the ear!

kingstongraham

mamba80 wrote:

thats not really true through is it? we used to be able to fund basic Policing and the NHS.

Demography, isn't it? The answer to every question about why can't we afford what we used to.

davebradswmb

KingstonGraham wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

thats not really true through is it? we used to be able to fund basic Policing and the NHS.

Demography, isn't it? The answer to every question about why can't we afford what we used to.

Not entirely. We have gone from being one of the highest taxed countries in the western world to one of the lowest. I'm not saying we should return to early 70s levels of taxation, but there must be some room in the middle.

napoleond

You could insert any public sector area into this thread title because people love to moan without understanding the underlying landscape.

One thing I really take umbrage at however is the phrase 'the police don't care'. Just because we physically can't be there doesn't mean we don't care. It's immensely frustrating for us too.

mamba80

NapoleonD wrote:

You could insert any public sector area into this thread title because people love to moan without understanding the underlying landscape.

One thing I really take umbrage at however is the phrase 'the police don't care'. Just because we physically can't be there doesn't mean we don't care. It's immensely frustrating for us too.

Of course they care, thats why a lot joined in the first place, as i said, i know a copper, she s great lady, hard working and bl00dy brave but she is completely hamstrung, not enough of them, unbelievable stress and she cant wait to reach retirement, in 3 or 4 years time, luckily she is just old enough to get a decent pension, unlike some of her younger colleagues.

bompington

So does anyone actually know what the stats are for the number of police officers over, say, the last 20 years? It must have halved or something, right? Maybe down by ¾?

mr_goo

I live in a town of population 22k. We have no police station as the Chief C**tstable decided it didn't need one. Over the xmas holidays there was an RTA couple doors down with one passenger injured. It took the police 25 minutes to attend!!

On a note of my own experience of them. Mrs Goo's car was targeted on our driveway about 14 years ago, with the back window smashed in during the night. We got it repaired via insurance and it was smashed in couple of days later. A definite case of being targeted. The police came around on this occasion but dismissed it as 'high jinx'. I wish I'd taken the officers collar number and reported him.

ballysmate

People say it is down to money. To some extent , that is undoubtedly true.
The county I live, Staffs, has a population of 1.1 million and a police force whereby 1400 have constabulary powers.
That is a police officer, regardless of rank or role for every 785 people.
Now not everyone can be on duty 24/7 so if you put everyone one out on patrol for 8 hour shifts, that means an officer for every 3140 people.
Accounting for specialised roles, sick, annual leave, training, court appearance and this ratio gets even worse. Guesstimate a factor of 2 so say that makes it around 6000.
So a town with a population of 100.000 could expect a police presence of around 15/16 officers. Not many is it?
This obviously is not an exact picture but only an illustration of how resources get stretched so thinly. NAPD may well give some better indication.
Now, think of how many police officers you think necessary to cover a town/city of 100,000 and work out the increased costs involved and think whether people would pay the extra.

rick_chasey

bompington wrote:

So does anyone actually know what the stats are for the number of police officers over, say, the last 20 years? It must have halved or something, right? Maybe down by ¾?

10 year low 3 years ago: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... r-low.html

I remember reading about crime in the Economist. Crime overall is at its lowest it's been for a long long time, so ultimately that tends to mean needing fewer police....

tangled_metal

I used to know an ex copper. Retired with pension young enough for a second career. He married a lass who was from a police family with brothers, dad, grandad and so on for something like 5 generations. So family gatherings usually meant they were stacked full of coppers. His view of police was very low which i found strange having done his years in the police.

Stories about weddings or stag nights where guys were so drunk at 3am that they had i be carried home. Then next morning they were on the m62 police car park slumped over the steering wheel sleeping it off. His view was that you can't trust a police officer. That's his view having done his full years to get a full pension, what 30 years in the job man and boy?

Then I've got a friend who's a police officer (constable). She's totally dedicated to her job as a beat cop in her car. Stories from her are about her and a colleague sneaking up a farm road to arrest the farmer living there who's known to own illegal guns and have a violent temper. The one officer got a sprained ankle or knee on the way up but carried on not knowing whether tyre guy was there or whether he'd come out with a shotgun. Luckily he was out but the bravery or stupidity of that act still stood.

I think there's a few issues with police. They're human and can be as brave, cowardly, corrupt, criminal or straight/honest as the rest of the population. The other is paperwork is drowning the system apparently. Then there's interference from politicians. Then there's cost cutting (ever the situation) and demographics. Plenty of other reasons too but the recorded violent crime rate is as low as it's ever been. You'll never be satisfied with the police no matter how much is spent on that public service.

andcp

Rick Chasey wrote:

Crime overall is at its lowest it's been for a long long time, so ultimately that tends to mean needing fewer police....

It depends on how 'crime' is measured; I suspect that many actions previously classified as a crime are no longer classified as such and the stats appear to be lower. This is not the fault of the police.

I tend to agree with Tangled Metal's last paragraph on this one - no matter what the police do, there will always be those who are not happy with them.

Me? in very, very brief dealings with them, they've always been friendly, polite and helpful.

tangled_metal

I've only had two dealings with police. One was a stop by the motorcycle cop from village people. Well a Brit version with the full on moustache extending down to the chin but not meeting. I was chuckling away to the mental soundtrack of YMCA to be annoyed that he'd stopped me for1 day late on my road tax (late because the person at the post office was being a jobsworth over something on my insurance paperwork).

The second was an Xmas stop. I had one headlight slightly less bright than the other so they pulled me saying it had blown. So i got a second cop trying to catch alcohol on my breath. I'd had a half but when i realised she was trying to get in my face to smell my breath i stood up to my full height. She laughed and dropped from her tippy toes and told me she couldn't smell alcohol so i was free to go. No way a 5ft officer was getting in my face like that, I am almost a foot and half taller. She found it as funny as ib did.

You've got to have a laugh with police officers. I think they probably like the banter as much as you do

The second

pblakeney

Andcp wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Crime overall is at its lowest it's been for a long long time, so ultimately that tends to mean needing fewer police....

It depends on how 'crime' is measured; I suspect that many actions previously classified as a crime are no longer classified as such and the stats appear to be lower. This is not the fault of the police...

Back to the OP's original story.
If no action is taken then no crime is reported so less police are required so less are available to act........

andcp

PBlakeney wrote:

Back to the OP's original story.
If no action is taken then no crime is reported so less police are required so less are available to act........

Indeed a vicious downward spiral. I would guess it's about who is prioritising crimes, and what the locals deem as important and worthwhile investigating. The point I was trying to make to the OP's original question, personally speaking, I don't think the Police are useless. I perceive they're underfunded, mired in excess paperwork and having to deal with the shortfall in other sectors of public services, particularly mental health and social services.

Crazyjenkins01

^^^^this^^^^^

slowbike

Steve-XcT wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Why not disband all community policing and have local vigilantes to Police the area? much like local people are given tarmac to fix potholes or volunteers run libraries, leaving the rump of the Police to concentrate on major crime etc? of course the definition of major crime will change over time...

This is what used to happen, at least where I grew up.

Similar where I live - local youths harrasing old people in a dark garage compound - police did nothing (probably lack of resources) - old people's kids (adults) waited with baseball bats for the youths to turn up - scared the crap out of them - didn't do it again.

I don't know where blame lies and in reality it's spread out.

Part of what's wrong is that the idea of vigilantes is frowned upon... or violence in general seems to be frowned upon instead of just seeing it as another way to solve a problem.

Steve-XcT wrote:

To illustrate when I was at school the way we dealt with bullies was fighting back...
Now kids are punished for fighting back... they are meant to lie roll up and then go and find a teacher.

When he's old enough I'll tell my son to do what I did - stand up for yourself - warn them then act.
Bully confronted me outside the school gates - I was on my bike - I got off, picked up my bike, threw it at him, picked it up off the ground leaving the bully on the ground - rode off. He didn't bother me again. I got into enough trouble without his help!

Steve-XcT wrote:

When I was a kid we had a beat copper... and for 90% of the stuff we did as kids it involved being dragged home by the ear and a lathering off my mum. Now both my mum and the copper would probably be in court for assault....

Nope - not quite right - Mum would ball out the copper for hurting her poor innocent child then take the force to court for damages and sell the whole story to the papers.

It would seem that the police only react if theres a strong possibility of a conviction - you can only blame those in charge as they set the priorities.