West Mercia police told to ‘reclaim streets’
Thursday 23rd September 2010, 11:59AM BST.
West Mercia police need to take reports of anti-social behaviour more seriously to “stop the rot” and reclaim the region’s yob-ruled streets, a watchdog has said.
Police have retreated from the streets in the last 30 years and have given up trying to control threatening, rowdy and abusive teenage tearaways.
The damning report by HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O’Connor calls for action to restore “civility” in communities and troubled estates.
He warns neglecting the issue by reducing the time spent combating the problem in the face of spending cuts will allow the menace to escalate with more than 26 incidents reported every minute in Britain.
The report says there we- re more than 3.5 million calls about anti-social behaviour last year. But only one in four cases is reported to police. In the region’s force area, more than 400 people who reported anti-social behaviour to the police last September were asked about their experience.
Some 58 per cent of those surveyed who reported yob violence and intimidation to West Mercia Police said they were satisfied with the way their call was handled. But only 43 per cent of those felt it had made a difference.
Sir Denis said:”We all want civility restored to society and the public relies on the police for that to happen.”
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It is all well and good telling the polie to reclaim the streets, but this issue begins at home.
Discipline and respect is the key, this is the responsibility of the parents first and foremost, followed by their tutors in school. Unfortunately many parents do not know or sometimes care what their children are up to out of the house. It is also unfortunate that stricter discipline in schools is no longer allowed, but forwned upon by the more liberal PC brigade.
If you look back 30 years there was not the problems there are now. This is due to the breakdown of the family, the emergence of many single parent families where the parent/child relationship is replaced with a buddy theology, and lastly the removal of corporal punishment.
If something isn’t done now, then there will be a minority of each generation that will get progessively worse.
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Wonderful news for the public and a nightmare for the officers who will try to follow through on this.
Will they have proper back up? Will the inevitable complaints against police be dealt with appropriately? The reality is that the more yobbos that officers get into conflict with , the more complaints the little darlings register against the individual officers. When an officer is appraised by senior officers they will express concern that he has complaints registered aagainst him and this is bad on his record. Senior officers, in my experience fail to take note of the number of arrests and persons dealt with by the individual officer and accept that even though an officer may have dealt with many times the average number of people in front line policing situations it is easy for them to then point the finger and say that an officer is a problem.
If the public want the streets reclaimed then there are many officers who are still physically and mentally capable of doing so. BUT will it be allowed and will they be supported?
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The point made by Mac can not be stressed enough. Individual Police officers are NOT supported when they take positive action against the criminal and anti-social elements in our society. There used to be a saying that, ‘if you didn’t get complaints you weren’t doing your job properly’ and although I don’t agree totally with that point of view, it is true that if your are proactive and challenge these indiviuals you do recieve complaints. The fact is that these people that the public think we are protecting them from, make complaints in order to intimidate and discredit officers. In most cases the complaints are not only unfounded but malicious. However there is never any action taken against these individuals, even though it can be proved that they are lying. So you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? Police officers are human beings with families and mortgages just like everyone else. Until your local Police officers are supported, the situation will get worse not better….
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awww listen to the whining Policemen and women.
Perhaps if you started doing your job properly, respecting ALL members of the public and remembering that you too, are a citizen and not above the law then you will find the support of public.
I could write about numerous examples of innocent people who have been abused, incited and even arrested for speaking out when they see police officers acting inappropriately, a large number of complaints are bought on by the police officers behavior.
Until then, you’ll be seen simply as what you are; paid thugs in uniforms with little respect for those whom you are paid to serve.
My father was a Shropshire police officer for 30 years, he’s now almost ashamed to admit it.
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It is too late now the bad guys have won again.
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Are they going to rebuild an injured police officer as a half human half robot, who has huge firepower, who will roam the streets, saying “Come quietly or there will be… trouble.”
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I like many others could have told the police this years ago . When do you see them on the streets . Its easy to catch motorists to get figures up and the drunks late at night .
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Charlie – isn’t arresting drunks late at night dealing with ‘anti-social behaviour’ then. Alcohol is one of the main triggers involved in the majority of assaults and anti-social behaviour?? The buck always seems to stop with police; they are the first to be called for anything and everything, missing people, child protection, vulnerable adults, eg a mentally unwell person causing concern to the public, theft, burglary, robbery, sexual assault, public protection, ie putting things in place so as to minimise the risk a person poses to the community such as sex offenders, violent offenders, prolific offenders, domestic violence and again putting things in place to protect them, road collisions,local policing, people found deceased and the subsequent investigation to estalish why/how they died, whether it be murder, suicide, accident, natural courses. Then theres the drink drivers, dangerous drivers, speeding…oh and your drunks and traffic tickets. This is just a snippet of what they deal with. Every single area of their work involves huge amounts of paperwork for each and every incident and they are intrusively audited. Its not that they can’t deal or dont want to deal with anti-social behaviour but, if a loved one of yours was the victim of any one of the above, which would be most important to you – which should they deal with first?? They have to prioritise and if the anti-social behaviour incident needs urgent attendance then they will go at the expense of something else. If there are more pressing commitments then the anti-social behaviour incident will be further down the list…Observer is right, its starts the day a child is born – show me the 2 year old, 6 year old, 12 year old etc – and I’ll have a very good guess as to the adult they will become. It does start at home! The responsiblity for managing the streets does not rest solely with the police.
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and when you do call for assistance, you never see sight nor sign of a copper…obviously far too busy dealing with crime elsewhere. I’ve lost count of how many times I have been forced to not go shopping because of the large groups of boy racers that collect on Tesco’s car park at night and as for large groups of youths on housing estates…we dare not go out most of the time now, especially the infirm or elderly.
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Know what you mean. I’ve reported it to Tescos and they’ve done nothing. I can’t be bothered to report it to the Police because they can’t be bothered (from experience). But they will try and blame someone when someone gets killed. It’s not just Tescos though, it’s all the car parks at Wellington Retail Park. One night I saw a car going round the car park at must be 60mph. Crazy.
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Is this deja vue or what?.this argument seems to be on some sort of 6 monthly loop.
1 call for something to be done
2 call for more bobbies on the beat
3 media blurb
4 politicians commit to do something
5 media forgets
6 public forgets
7 nothing gets done
8 refer back to item one in 6 months
this has only been going on for the last 30-40 years
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A bit extreme maybe but wouldn’t it be good if the police could hire half a dozen members of the SAS to patrol these areas, Instant peace, instant justice and what fun for the local residents to watch this. Well—-we can dream.
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Too late boys, those days are gone for good.
What I find just a little bit annoying about this report is it was the Senior Officers, members of ACPO, who took the decission to ease off on anti social activities.
There were no ”brownie” points awarded to the ground level officers performance for dealing with these type of offences.
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Police targets have been a crazy invention. If we have to have targets they should be based on how we, the real customers, feel that the Police have handled our complaint.
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The article isn’t exactly clear as to what the report said. It seems to be suggesting only West Mercia has been told to ‘reclaim the streets’ and had a damning report but articles on this elsewhere seem to be suggesting it was national. A bit of ‘selective editing’ by the Shropshire Star perhaps, suggesting our comparatively low crime and pleasant county has become akin to Moss Side in Manchester?
It’s all well and good telling the police what to do, it’s just a shame they are not given the back-up and support to do it. As another poster has already said, the biggest problems stem from home and the fact to many parents fail to take responsibilty and deal with their children themselves.
If I had ever been dealt with or taken home by a police officer, my parents would have gone ballistic and I would have ended up grounded for the forseeable future. They would have been wholly on the side of the police.
These days, a little sod gets taken back to his parents for getting drunk and terrorising anyone who passes by and the parents have a go at the officer for upsetting their darling little demon child.
It’s sad but the rot has set in at the very root from when these little cretins are born and unless something drastic is done to overhaul how the police can deal with them or force parents to take more responsibility, I can’t really see how the HMIC report can have the cheek to ‘order’ the police to do more than they already are.
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The full report is available here, should anyone care to read it…
http://www.hmic.gov.uk/Programmes/antisocialbehaviour/Pages/home.aspx
As has been stated elsewhere, the call to ‘reclaim the streets’ is a general reference contained with the report and is not used with any specific reference to West Mercia, but why let that get in the way of a good headline, eh?
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Firstly, according to the news last night, Sir Dennis and his family have perosnally suffered from anti-social behaviour – unfortunate and distressing for him, but hardly the basis for an impartial and balanced report – he may well have a personal axe to grind on the topic.
Secondly, I think those that talk about more police on the beat must have a very strange view of the numbers of officers available and the size of area they are required to cover. Interestingly, I would guess at a strong correlation between the supporters of more police on the beat and supporters of the current government. Yet we are about to see cuts in front-line police services to pay for the mistakes of the banking community – you can’t have your cake and eat it chaps! I’d far sooner have an officer available to respond quickly by car than be stranded miles away on shanks’s pony!
And please don’t come back with the myth that police are too busy doing admin – the vast majority of that was ‘civilianised’ years ago – though paradoxically the forthcoming cuts will also hit that, putting more of that work back in the the officers’ laps.
Finally – ‘reclaim the region’s yob-ruled streets,’ really Shropshire Star? What, the whole region? Isn’t that just a wee bit sensationalist? I don’t see much in the way of this behaviour.
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#1 and #11 make the best point. The only way to solve the problem of anti social behaviour is to tackle the source of the problem. Survey 1,000 anti social yobs and the massive majority will be from “broken homes”. It is perhaps unfair to tell people who are in their teens, or who are not married, or who do not have a lot of money, that they should not have children. But why on Earth incentivise them to have four, five, six or more children!? Make it financially prohibitive to have lots of children and you stop the rot.
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A few years ago the public in Wrexham reported boy racers using the car park at night for anti-social behavior,[it's now a shopping centre]The Police adopted a zero tolerance approach and took their vehicles of them which the law allows them to do. Problem solved. no more anti-social behaviour. I don’t know what happened to the vehicles after.
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A few hours ago, my wife and I were leaving a very large local Supermarket, as we passed the “express” checkout, she said to me, “now don’t get angry but just look at that”. I looked and in one glance saw everything that is wrong with our Police Force. In something that was supposed to pass for a Police uniform stood a man carrying a basket filled with groceries and surmounted with a bunch of flowers.He was not wearing a cap or helmet, he was in a black uniform draped with straps, double epaulets with two numbers showing, his belt was adorned with a loosely attached extending baton, handcuffs were clearly visible and his trousers had never seen an iron or a crease in their lives and were tied (army style) above his heavy boots. Indeed, he looked like a scruffy Martian ready to wade into a rioting crowd rather then our friendly neighbourhood Copper.
This is the scruffy, undignified, indisciplined face of our present Police Force, where nothing is thought wrong about shopping whilst on duty decked out in full aray. In the Police Force I knew, this characters feet would not have touched the ground, indeed, the standard of supervision and self pride was such that it would never have happened. This approach goes to the very heart of what the Police is about, pride, appearance/smartness, dignity etc etc etc is now irrelevant and “anything goes”, the supervisors wear badges of rank but seemed damned to know what responsibilities they carry because supervision, command and leadership is almost certainly not required of them. This is not surprising when a recent photo of the present Chief Constable shows him in full uniform wearing a totally unofficial lapel badge pinned to his uniform. No doubt we will soon see him wearing an earring in uniform. They threw the baby out with the bathwater years ago, as I have said, many times before, I could save the Police Force generally and West Mercia in particular, millions and millions and I wouldn’t have to leave the chair that I am present sitting in. It is all about the “police” culture and “public service” ethos which has it’s roots in a disciplined service – all this has gone and it is now just a sad joke which can be compared to just another “job”, just the same as a bus conductor or postman.
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It’s all to do with the officers human rights………
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As you are such an oracle on what is wrong with the police force these days, have you ever considered joining yourself and putting your words into practice by ‘sorting them out’, seen as you think it is so easy?
As for a police officer doing some shopping while ‘on duty’, they are entitled to refreshment breaks the same as any other employee and can, like you on your lunch, pop to the local supermarket if they wish. Would you like them to get changed into civvies before nipping out to do a couple of errands while having lunch?
It is easy to critise from a newspaper comment page when you know a couple of coppers who are not happy in their job so might not be as inclined to work as hard as the majority that are committed.
Have you forgotten we live in a county in which one of our police officers was shot and killed attending a domestic incident not that long ago? Who went to the aid of two unarmed officers being held at gunpoint at the cost of his own life? Try and tell those who knew and worked with that man that 99% of police officers do not do the very best they can.
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Lou,
I make a practice of not commenting on something I know nothing about and my opening comment to myself from my wife should give some indication of what I am about and where I am coming from on this particular issue . Not to far from where I am sitting at the moment is a retired Chief Superintendent of comparatively recent service. He read your comment with extreme re-conviction of what is wrong with the service because he suspects that you are one or related to one and you come out with the stupid rubbish that supports the fact that the Force force has lost it’s way. By the way, the chap not to far from me was a once a Tactical Firearms Commander so please don’t use the melodramatics of examples of Police bravery and courage which, when called for, the majority have it in abundance. I am talking about the “everyday lives” of our Police Force not the once in a thousand case which rarely happens, in other words, the bread and butter issues of Policing which to them no longer seem to matter but for the people who pay their salaries, are matters which affect the quality of their lives, the security of themselves and their families and all the tangible signs of a well ordered, peaceful and contented society. The Police have allowed anarchy to prevail on our streets and nothing that you or those that think like you can make me think otherwise.
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Stuart – if its any consolation, at least these days officers do actually detect crime and in fact continue to detect crimes probably committed during the time of that “retired Ch Supt” you talk of that was in their ‘too difficult basket’. Only the other day a person has been charged with 3 murders that were committed many years ago. What were the officers doing at the time and why didn’t they sort it then if they were so brilliant – probably drinking down the pub, cos thats what they used to do in those days…. I know several ‘retired’ officers myself and have heard the many stories; you can bet your bottom dollar your retired Ch Supt would have known them too. I’m not saying there is not room for improvement and change but lets get real about this, things don’t get swept under the carpet like they used to.
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In The Know, yes, you possibly are but don’t believe all you are told by the “old timers”. Ex coppers like to swing the lead just as much as old soldiers. I grant you, with all the modern technology and aids available in the job, the ability to detect murders, rapes and serious crimes where there are sufficient forensics available is little short of astounding and credit must go in this direction where it is due. I never cease to be amazed at the detection of some of the more serious offences by DNA in particular but what you must bear in mind is that in years gone by there was no DNA or advanced technology and, notwithstanding this, many headline crimes were detected by pure, dogged detective work- yes, in many cases by means of information gleaned from pubs and dance halls.
The public, in the main are not directly concerned firsthand with murders and the like so it is wrong to bring into the equation such offences. They are concerned with the fact that hooliganism, disorder on the streets, low level crime, drunkeness, damage etc etc etc now appears to be out of control and this is where the Police have failed. If you and others like you think that our Police Force is doing a first rate job in the things that matter to the public, then I am sorry you are wrong and deeply out of touch, but seeing that most modern officers – and more importantly supervisors and senior officers have only been brought up in the modern culture which appears to be sociologically inclined to the absence of anything else associated with what should be a disciplined service, then it is not surprising that the job is in the state that it is. Dennis O’Connor the Chief HMI is fighting a losing battle and short of sacking the whole of ACPO and starting again from scratch, the job will just go on in a society which almost daily becomes more like that of a “clockwork orange”.
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‘In the know’, if we’re talking about brushing things under the carpet lets talk about Ian Thomlinson, about Jean Charles de Menezes, about Mark Andrews, caught on CCTV assaulting a woman in custody walking around a free man claiming his full salary, lets talk about the TSG officer who slapped a woman half his size in ‘self defence’, I could go on.
This, (and I appreciate not all officers are bad eggs) is why people have no respect for the Police, how can you respect a group of people who act like they are above the very law we pay them to uphold.
Policing used to be about a service, there was pride in being a public servant. Now it’s a cushy career for those who can do little else. I’m afraid to say that unless Government/Police forces take action to rid their organisation of this cancer within, we might as well have the Army on our streets.
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Its not the Police that have to ‘reclaim the streets ‘ its the good people of Shropshire..
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they are all typcial public servants drinking tea all day at my expense, sack the lot of them id rather had private secrurity patrols it would be cheaper and moer economically efficient
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Trolls – so tedious, boring and predictable. Grow up why don’t you?
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Bring back Red Shoe Diaries and Eurotrash on a Friday night that would stop the young yobs going on the streets.
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Public flogging will sort them out.
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