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Letter: Why don’t the police patrol?
Friday 20th November 2009, 6:25AM GMT.
LETTER: It never ceases to amaze me when reading the actions that the police service now resorts to in order to justify its existence and regain public confidence, which now seems to have been lacking for some considerable time.
I refer to the latest (Star November 9, “Police team’s priority is to improve area”), which refers to their getting out and about in the community being the key to improving neighbourhoods. So what is new about this, I ask.
This is what the service was all about some 20 years ago when police officers regularly patrolled the streets and stations were open for virtually 24 hours.
To see a uniformed presence on our streets, now a rare sight, is what the public have always wanted. It goes a long way towards reducing drunken behaviour, assaults, violence and wanton damage.
Unfortunately senior officers show very few leadership qualities, which reflects down through the rank structure.
Our towns are left to their own devices with traffic gridlock only too apparent. For whatever reason the police consider that any form of traffic management is beneath their dignity.
The use of Community Support Officers (CSOs), with few or no enforcement powers, is not the answer.
They are now being used for duties that they were never intended to do, which has resulted in their absence on the streets.
Senior police officers everywhere need to get their heads out of the clouds, exercise better leadership, stop wasting time on Pact and similar meetings, constant self praise and the closure of stations.
Criminals throughout the UK must be laughing their heads off at the “soft touch” justice system.
Bernard Jones
Powys
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even the Community Support Officers are only present on the housing estates during mid day.
in the rare instances that you see them,they only walking straight through the middle of the estate then disappearing (thats not a patrol or of any use).
they expect the public to report & go to court to convict anyone,which most people wont due to revenge attacks on them or their propperty.
real police on the street i cannot say the last time i seen one on a housing estate (talking years not months or weeks).
i only Hear real police as they drive past my house with sirens on,or see the odd car driving around on the way to wherever they all must hang out & hide.
if you could have a poll on shropshire star website,i bet people would relate more to what i’ve wrote.
than another option of actual police doing real police beat work & showing a presence in the comunities that pay for them.
theres 2 parts of my council tax bill that are of no use to me.
1, schools & education (i dont have kids).
2, the police.
#2 is the one that greives me to pay for.
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Interesting letter Bernard if a little ill informed..
PACT meetings were set up for residents to voice their concerns over local areas, maybe you should turn up once in a while.
You expect officers to walk the streets 24/7, well stump up the extra cash in your council tax, didn’t think so…
20 Years ago policing was very different to today. So to expect the service to give you the same service you previously received is not debatable.
There are 142,000 police compared to 125,000 ten years ago, so contrary to your claim there ARE more officers on the streets…
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Another person with little respect for the police i see.. its people who have attitudes like yours Mr Jones who cause the police to be tied up with paperwork and Statitory procedures preventing them from being on the street where they want to be.
And secondly, if everyone wants to pay less and less council tax every year then there is going to be less money to recruit new officers to walk the beat. you cant have it both ways.
for those of us who respect the police, we recognise that we can walk down the street safely without fear for our lives because we know that behind the scenes the police are stamping on these narrow minded ‘gangs’.. removing guns and knives EVERY day
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Well said Eric
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I think it is time the Police have set response times for all incidents, the Fire Service have these response times depending on the type of fire, what the building is used for etc.and they have to be adhered to. Why not the Police?
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what sort of world do you live in Steven Davies-Moss, I want to move there.
You’re living in a dream world if you think the poilce are stamping down on anything other than their own self importance.
Don’t talk to us about respect for the Police, respect is earned.
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Facts are they have not walked the beat for years, reason they have now got the ability to attend most incidents quickly due to high speed cars/motorbikes, radios, helecpoters etc hence the need not to be on the beat. The cso is another issue I am sorry but this is policeing on the cheap blame labour for that they are poorly trained, over paid security guards with little if any powers and to be honest 3 for every police officer I will take 1 extra police officer thank you.
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I served as a police officer for 8 years until 2007. I rarely had the opportunity to patrol and spent the majority if my shifts responding to calls: reactive policing rather than proactive. The CSO’s were (and probably still are) relied upon to represent the physical presence of law on the streets and they are simply not up to the job. Time and time again regular police officers were called to assist CSO’s who were out of their depth. Why not replace them with fewer but better trained regular officers? Sadly I never had the opportunity to meet or play a proactive part in the community I worked for and I’m sure that’s the same for many officers.
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I heard that it had been proposed in the UK to have Chief Constables elected by the electorate, and the Chief Constables were all threatening to resign if that happened.
Surely this proves that the Police don’t wish to be accountable for the abismal state of law enforcement and until they are held accountable, nothing will change?
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Re NO 5
JEFF B: There are response times set by the government and local forces, which are adhered to.
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Flatbob, the pinion in cso is widespread and i before the election intend to bring this up with my mp it is not good enough.
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The construction of ever larger centralised police stations allows the management, inspectors and above, to micro manage their empires better. It also provides more room for desks with chairs for constables to place their bottoms on and work office hours doing paperwork such as making sure they are complying with all gay, lesbian, black, muslim promotion and health and safety legislation. Any odd hours left are available for patrol.
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Keith,
Well done. You win the prize for the most mindless prejudice-filled posting of the year. A true achievement given the level of competition within these pages…
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Eric,
If there are now 17,000 more bobbies than 10 years ago, where are they all? You evidently live in comfortable surroundings and I envy you. From my perspective, the police are just as under resourced as they were a decade ago (let’s not forget population growth in the same period) and even more hampered by bureaucracy than ever. We should not place any faith in statistics either. Much routine crime on my estate now goes unreported for two reasons A) Insurance excesses have changed so as to exclude many thefts and B) There is so little confidence in the ability of the police to do anything about all the mundane stuff. It’s not their fault. I blame the government.
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how wonderful it would be to have a 9-5 job,monday to friday. 2 of my relatives are police officers, and they work bloody hard,earlies, lates, nights, half-nights, you name it they do it, and have to deal with endless crap from the public and copious amounts of paperwork. if you feel you can do a better job then i challenge you to apply to the police department…..no? thought not. so shut up and let them do their jobs to the best of their abilities. most days they dont have enough staff to cover one housing estate never mind a whole town. please be respectful, after all they are only acting on the governments orders.
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As a serving police officer, it never ceases to amaze me what expectations the public have of the service the police provide. Just browsing the Shropshire Star News site – Tribute To Truck Driver;Respects Paid to River Death Pensioner;Drug Dealer Gets Six Years;Body Found in Pool; just show some of the incidents your local police and CSO’s will have been dealing with over the last few days – none of them completed in 20 minutes with one officer – all will have taken some time with a small team working all hours. No mention of course of the domestic abuse victims – and the perpetrators of such violence who are arrested day after day, night after night. No mention of the child abuse victims that officers and CSO’s are often the first ‘people’ (yes they are people who are regularly excposed to some of the most horrific aspects of society). No mention of the ongoing major crime investigation (murder/manlaughter etc) that will take many months for officers to complete. No mention of the minor injury or no injury road accidents. No mention of the constant fight against burglars and thieves on the run up to Christmas. Not ommitted, just not in the headlines today. And of course, whilst officers are dealing with these, they can’t be stood on your street.
Can I ask that you take this to your MP, and whilst you are there – would you offer some guidance on how the ineffective leadership of the police should administer the continued reduction in public sector funding to ensure that they continue to manage as best they can the many many different social issues they are measured on achieving.
Oh, and finally – to any cops or CSO’s reading this – the benefits of living in the UK are everyone has a freedom of expression – just take a minute to reflect on the many many victims of crime that we help to get something positive out of devastating circumstances, the prisons are full, and, as long as there is space, we will keep filling them!
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Jake, the trouble is you mention a few successful cases.
How about the Hilda Murrel murder? – it took you 20 years to solve that when you had the perpetrator in your hands three days afterwards and his finger prints from the crime scene. That blunder cost the tax payer literally millions of pounds.
That’s the problem. We are fed up of hearing about the ‘Christmas Burglary Blitz’, which resulted in ONE arrest and NO convictions!
Go back behind you desk and calculate your final salary pension rather than inflame the public here.
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