The Pro-active side of Policing

With all our complaints about paperwork & talk of being kept off the street, I thought it important to talk about pro-active Policing. There are those Officers who, on a scale from active <---> lazy, will sit in the office for 2 hours at the start of their shift griping about rubbish logs of their large workload, & there are those (usually the newer ones, who still have their enthusiasm) who are straight out the door as soon as briefing's finished. My partner & I are still the latter.

So, let's paint the picture. 1400 start yesterday. 1445 first stopcheck of the day... positive for Class 'B'. Roll on a S18(5) search of the home address. 2 prisoners in the bin for possession. 3 double-crewed units tucked up at custody leaving only 1 on the street.

Net result = prisoner at 1445 >> don't leave custody until 0100 (2x prisoners interviewed & bailed).

What's the moral of this little story? Pro-active policing still keeps officers tied up in custody for a whole shift with paperwork!!! So much for staying out of the office!!

Good, but not that good...

Does this situation seem familiar to anyone?

Copper "45 Union Street?"
Householder "Yes"
Copper "You called us? About the domestic with your husband?"
Householder "I ain't go not husband. I lives here with my 80 year old mother & that's it"...

That's because members of the public ring 999 & say "help, I'm having a domestic at 45 Union Street", then hang up. Now, I'm no expert, but I know that 0121 is somewhere in & around Birmingham, 0207/0208 somewhere around London, etc. - I'm sure local call-handlers can be more specific - which kind of gives you a clue which town they're in. However, when calling from a mobile, your call-handler could be sending someone to their home town, because they live on Union Street, instead of to the domestic 50 miles away.

Moral of the story? Mobiles are good, but they're not that good!!

*Real moral... always say what town you're in & listen clearly to the call-handler's questions!

SO-CRAP

The Serious Organised Crime & Police Act 2005, the single biggest change to come to the Policing World since the Police & Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 & we get 45 minutes training. Come the end of January they'll be wondering why our entire years' budget has been paid out for wrongful arrests!

Our Force never ceases to amaze me...