Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

[Grays_1890]

Law enforcement agencies always say on the beat policing is a complete misnomer. It just stops them being strategic and intelligence led with their resources.

Then you speak to people on the streets and they say they have a lack of respect for the law as there is no one to engage with. Scotland have been brilliant at it and its been one of the leading deterrents of knife crime in some cities. Being on the street and understanding issues and knowing who is who is also a key pathway to "intelligence".

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

Not sure that's strictly true, also depends what you define as neighbourhood. There is one constable accountable for approx 163sqM where I live.

Our local paper did a report not so long ago, something ridiculous like 3/4 on the beat police on the ground to cover a massive area of West Essex from Harlow to Lakeside.

Its been an issue for ages

IF and I admit Its an IF, IF he makes the changes he set out today, which are not happening currently, then its def new and change and much needed. There is zero visibility of police in our area a change of that would be hugely welcomed. The Conservatives decimated Essex Police Force with cuts, if they get their share of the 13,000 extra police promised thats only a good thing.

The change is to make forces assign officers to neighbourhood beats as a matter of maintaining funding. To be clear, if you want officers out on foot patrol, it means having less officers available to respond to emergencies by quickly jumping in a vehicle in a centralised strategic hub.

The announcement includes the typical political gonads of "freeing up officers from administrative desk jobs to return to front line policing".

Front line policing = wandering around housing estates chatting to people and generally being as much use in fighting modern crime as a chocolate teapot.

Administrative desk jobs = investigating i2 chart analyses of drug seizures to establish patterns of distribution, organising and analysing forensic accountancy analysis of financial movements obtained through POCA production orders (that require drafting and presenting to a crown court judge) to analyse patterns of money laundering and where the criminals assets are. Analysing IP and device geo location data. Analysing, disseminating amd classifying intelligence, going through disclosure schedules to ensure a case doesnt collapse due to an admin error, writing reports to the CPS, I could go on and on....

 

[Grays_1890]

The change is to make forces assign officers to neighbourhood beats as a matter of maintaining funding. To be clear, if you want officers out on foot patrol, it means having less officers available to respond to emergencies by quickly jumping in a vehicle in a centralised strategic hub.

The announcement includes the typical political gonads of "freeing up officers from administrative desk jobs to return to front line policing".

Front line policing = wandering around housing estates chatting to people and generally being as much use in fighting modern crime as a chocolate teapot.

Administrative desk jobs = investigating i2 chart analyses of drug seizures to establish patterns of distribution, organising and analysing forensic accountancy analysis of financial movements obtained through POCA production orders (that require drafting and presenting to a crown court judge) to analyse patterns of money laundering and where the criminals assets are. Analysing IP and device geo location data. I could go on and on....

I think thats a wild generalisation, there is scope in any community policing to do both. No one is expecting a police officer to be stood on the corner of the same street 24/7, but not knowing a single thing about what's going on in your community, not having a presence, not commanding any respect or understanding the root causes of issues in the community is as harmful as anything.

Of course there should be resources in the crimes you listed, but more and more people are becoming victims of community crimes which are not being deterred or dealt with, those are what people have to live with day in day out and it needs attention. You don't deal with that by analysing charts, you don't deal with inner city issues like knife crime by being reactive or sat behind a PC, its comes back and down to grassroots policing.

People are not reporting crime because of a perceived lack of interest from the police because of a lack of visibility, which then breeds a belief in a lack of follow up.

The police has lost all ability to communicate with people on the streets and its been massively harmful to local community and crimes that happen in those areas.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

I think thats a wild generalisation, there is scope in any community policing to do both. No one is expecting a police officer to be stood on the corner of the same street 24/7, but not knowing a single thing about what's going on in your community, not having a presence, not commanding any respect or understanding the root causes of issues in the community is as harmful as anything.

People are not reporting crime because of a perceived lack of interest from the police because of a lack of visibility, which then breeds a belief in a lack of follow up.

The police has lost all ability to communicate with people on the streets and its been massively harmful to local community and crimes that happen in those areas.

No, what you've posted there is a wild generalisation. As I've said, neighbourhood policing, including named officers and PCSOs for local neighbourhoods and regular foot and vehicle patrols is already a thing. This policy is about making funding conditional on arbitrary targets re: % of officers conducting these activities to win votes rather than leaving experienced senior police officers to organise their resources to best serve their communities.

 

[Grays_1890]

No, what you've posted there is a wild generalisation.

No its really not

Knife crime is a number, police analytics from a desk has come nowhere near working out levels and patterns of behaviour behind it. Teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, alcohol use, in any area comes down to community led issues and needs community led policing, its not all down to organised crime.

High ranking mate in the Met, best mate works in South London working with criminality reform in the community, sociology degree heavily built around the study of inner city policing and impact on community, studied the impact of grassroots policing, go read the writings of the likes of John Carnochan and what community policing has done for cities with huge levels of street crime.

Anyway, I will leave it there and for people to agree or disagree, I am off to Fallow for lunch.................Cheers

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

No its really not

Knife crime is a number, police analytics from a desk has come nowhere near working out levels and patterns of behaviour behind it. Teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, alcohol use, in any area comes down to community led issues and needs community led policing, its not all down to organised crime.

High ranking mate in the Met, best mate works in South London working with criminality reform in the community, sociology degree heavily built around the study of inner city policing and impact on community, studied the impact of grassroots policing, go read the writings of the likes of John Carnochan and what community policing has done for cities with huge levels of street crime.

Anyway, I will leave it there and for people to agree or disagree, I am off to Fallow for lunch.................Cheers

All that about "police have lost the ability to engage with communities" stuff is gonads. Community policing is already a highly funded priority of chiefs.

 

[Grays_1890]

All that about "police have lost the ability to engage with communities" stuff is gonads. Community policing is already a highly funded priority of chiefs.

You are making the mistake of believing that "funding" means that it is leading to successful engagement...........but its not. Communities up and down the country are all saying the same things, which includes local business, people are not even reporting crime because of a lack of engagement at a local level and a lack of faith in crime being followed up with.

The retail crime report from the end of 2024 is fcuking scary at how badly policing is at a community level, so the money and priority is clearly not being used correctly

 

[johnola]

I will give them their due, considering hoe much they are getting in a muddle, community led policing has been long overdue to make a comeback

View attachment 19219

Most of us here are already well known to police surely.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

You are making the mistake of believing that "funding" means that it is leading to successful engagement...........but its not. Communities up and down the country are all saying the same things, which includes local business, people are not even reporting crime because of a lack of engagement at a local level and a lack of faith in crime being followed up with.

The retail crime report from the end of 2024 is fcuking scary at how badly policing is at a community level, so the money and priority is clearly not being used correctly

Every year there's a new political priority for policing. Couple of years ago we need to get *struggle cuddle* convictions up and protect women. Then it was human trafficking and immigration crime last year. Now its shop lifting, burglary and community crime and anti social behaviour.

It's always a political gimmick. If they really do give out the phone number for your local hobbies you know exactly what will happen. Police officers will be too busy dealing with disputes with neighbours over boundary fences and reports of "theres teenagers riding bikes outside my garden" to do anything else. And then the policy will be quietly shelved.

 

[Grays_1890]

Every year there's a new political priority for policing. Couple of years ago we need to get *struggle cuddle* convictions up and protect women. Then it was human trafficking and immigration crime last year. Now its shop lifting, burglary and community crime and anti social behaviour.

It's always a political gimmick. If they really do give out the phone number for your local hobbies you know exactly what will happen. Police officers will be too busy dealing with disputes with neighbours over boundary fences and reports of "theres teenagers riding bikes outside my garden" to do anything else. And then the policy will be quietly shelved.

The policing priority of cutting 30,000 police in this country clearly had a detrimental impact on the state of our streets, which we are still seeing the impact of now.

But the 1st highlighted are serious crimes and on a steep curve, like knife crime and those are community level crimes that require community its also criminality that intersects with more serious crime.

On your second highlight, they can call 999 no but the stats last year were around 37% of crime is not reported in this country because a lack of faith in the system. The facts are there is almost no community facing officers and they are losing engagement and confidence within the community and business to the point that crime in many cases is not even being reported. There is clearly a middle ground to meet where people get the access to support they need and those that are time wasting and its more than the 50% or so visitation to those impacted by crime or whatever the latest stat is on that in 2025

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

The policing priority of cutting 30,000 police in this country clearly had a detrimental impact on the state of our streets, which we are still seeing the impact of now.

But the 1st highlighted are serious crimes and on a steep curve, like knife crime and those are community level crimes that require community its also criminality that intersects with more serious crime.

On your second highlight, they can call 999 no but the stats last year were around 37% of crime is not reported in this country because a lack of faith in the system. The facts are there is almost no community facing officers and they are losing engagement and confidence within the community and business to the point that crime in many cases is not even being reported. There is clearly a middle ground to meet where people get the access to support they need and those that are time wasting and its more than the 50% or so visitation to those impacted by crime or whatever the latest stat is on that in 2025

There are loads of community facing officers. And new officers have to pass 2 years probation as community facing officers when they're first recruited. You're talking nonsense.

 

[Grays_1890]

There are loads of community facing officers. And new officers have to pass 2 years probation as community facing officers when they're first recruited. You're talking nonsense.

That only happens if you are recruiting new officers at the numbers needed to cover the lack of day to day officers AND has to happen in the areas where needed, something we have not done as a country in the numbers needed to cover the territories effectively for a long time. So no its far from nonsense.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

There are loads of community facing officers. And new officers have to pass 2 years probation as community facing officers when they're first recruited. You're talking nonsense.

It depends on the job remit and definition for a copper to qualify as a 'community facing officer' ....I never see any tbh, not in the sense that I would describe as a 'community facing officer'

 

[Grays_1890]

It depends on the job remit and definition for a copper to qualify as a 'community facing officer' ....I never see any tbh, not in the sense that I would describe as a 'community facing officer'

And not all jobs in the force come under the same probation terms, yes if you want to become a police "officer" of course but thats a direct link into the job. But you can work in many departments now without it. Purely anecdotal, but seems the routes into the force (I imagine to navigate the short falls) seem to have been streamlined alot, I looked into a few roles in administrative, research/intelligence and I could have applied via University qualifications and seemingly looked a fast tracked route

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

And not all jobs in the force come under the same probation terms, yes if you want to become a police "officer" of course but thats a direct link into the job. But you can work in many departments now without it. Purely anecdotal, but seems the routes into the force (I imagine to navigate the short falls) seem to have been streamlined alot, I looked into a few roles in administrative, research/intelligence and I could have applied via University qualifications and seemingly looked a fast tracked route

Intelligence officers and administrative staff are not warranted police constables. They have opened up to stuff like "direct entry detectives" in some forces because they've struggled to get enough police officers to want to become DCs. In the US, detectives are paid more than officers and the FBI/federal agencies paid even higher, but here you do all the detective training and exams and get a tonne more sh*t for no more pay so a lot of DCs end up building up expert experience in stuff like cyber, fraud, money laundering etc and then bugger off to the private sector to work for a bank or something.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

It depends on the job remit and definition for a copper to qualify as a 'community facing officer' ....I never see any tbh, not in the sense that I would describe as a 'community facing officer'

Do you need to see them, or do you think the police prioritise communities that need them? There is a lot of moaning from people in pristine suburban areas where nothing ever happens that they never see a police officer. Guarantee if you live in the right area you'll see them all the time.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Then you speak to people on the streets and they say they have a lack of respect for the law as there is no one to engage with. Scotland have been brilliant at it and its been one of the leading deterrents of knife crime in some cities. Being on the street and understanding issues and knowing who is who is also a key pathway to "intelligence".

Just get AI to process all the conversions collected as people's phones spy on them, and cut out all the inefficency.

 

[Grays_1890]

Just get AI to process all the conversions collected as people's phones spy on them, and cut out all the inefficency.

AI Triages the NHS now which seems to be working, the same could work for the police in that respect.

 

[Silly McSilly Face]

Just get AI to process all the conversions collected as people's phones spy on them, and cut out all the inefficency.

Love how he says police Scotland have been brilliant at reducing knife crime "in some cities"......Edinburgh or Glasgow?

 

[Grays_1890]

Love how he says police Scotland have been brilliant at reducing knife crime "in some cities"......Edinburgh or Glasgow?

Glasgow was one of the most famous global success stories in what they did, just a little bit famous what they did there, in one in one of the worlds most notable cities. Maybe read up about it and how their community lead actions, its an intriguing example of police, community and collaborative work