Policing

[UndercoverElephant]

Currently doing the rounds on facebook:

The below letter has been written by one serving police officer to the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Whether you agree or disagree, think their moaning, or empathise with their situation, it highlights the reality of policing right now. Their identity for obvious reasons has been omitted. -

Dear Mr Cameron,

Yesterday I was called out to an incident where an 80 year old man had fallen out of his bath seat and landed in the bath upside down. He was trapped and screaming for help with his legs trapped in the bath seat.

His neighbours heard him screaming and called 999. The doors and windows were locked and he was screaming in agony. I arrived, broke the door down and went into the bathroom to find a very scared elderly male laying naked, freezing cold trapped in his bath by a disability aid that was supposed to help him. He took one look at me and began to cry with relief.

We are so short of officers and resources on every shift that we are stretched to breaking point and already we are forced into saying no to some jobs that used to be graded prompt… such as this. At some point very soon we will be dealing with CRIME ONLY because 1) we are being told to keep the figures up and 2) we haven’t got the resources to deal with anything more.

There are serious arguments going on over the radio between control room staff and officers on the ground regularly because they have statistics to meet, and we aren’t dealing with incidents we attend quickly enough. We are all stressed and biting at each other, when we used to work as a team. Stress = mistakes and mistakes in this job costs lives.

What’s going to happen to the old man in future? Whilst dealing with this man, wrapping him in a dressing gown, my radio goes off again. A 16 year old girl – suicide attempt- stood on a bridge on the M25.

No other units available. None! I’m not trained to talk down a suicidal teen! But there is no one. All tucked up far away on other jobs. It’s a good job I don’t need immediate assistance with a male trying to break the bedroom door down and knife his wife, like the previous evening, when I was once again single crewed.

What do you want me to do? Stay with the man who’s still shaking in shock? Go to the girl who’s just about to jump onto a busy motorway or do we not attend these jobs and just deal with crime? Like the man trying to kill his wife …… On my own with no back up!

I’ve just got home and I’m sitting here wondering if I can handle this anymore; is it worth me getting hurt? I have 2 young disabled children. What would happen to them? I’m a single mum, with childcare fees and with the cost of living so high I’d be better off on benefits.

Being a police officer is firstly about saving life and limb and not statistics, not saving money and certainly not votes. We are stretched to the point that it is now dangerous. Your cuts are putting my life at risk and that of the public. You have just destroyed my pension and frozen my wages.

All these things are going through my mind all the time, morale at work is at rock bottom. All police officers are feeling like this at the moment but we are all holding on in hope you will realise what a mistake you have made.

Surely you will see sense before it’s too late? This isn’t just whinging because we don’t like cuts…. this is a genuinely dangerous situation. Would you like me to wear a body camera for a week? Will you watch what’s really happening on the frontline and what police officers face on a daily basis?

Mr Cameron, you tell me why I should stay in my job?

[vtsnowedin]

Of course I'm now thinking- can libraries, in their role as an information/education/general community resource, indirectly be beneficial for helping reduce crime?

Hard to imagine a teenager reading a book and committing a crime at the same time.

[the_lyniezian]

(The above being a reference to libraries being possibly cut which I deleted for reasons of my own... are the police more important, is the question?)

[kenneal - lagger]

Perhaps if the police took a paycut, like many people in the private sector did to save their jobs, we could put more police on the front line. As Greer is quoted as saying in another thread, the age of oil is on the way out and so is the lifestyle that it paid for, unfortunately for public sector employees.

When will the bulb light up in that part of their brains that looks at what is happening in the world and illuminate the new facts of life in the UK.

Meanwhile I do feel sorry for her predicament but perhaps they should have called out the fire brigade to free the old man. As a rural dweller I'm used to slow or no police service.

[nexus]

I agree Ken, the fire service would probably have been more appropriate, but the police tend to be the 'go to' service. I think in terms of public safety and welfare they are the first port of call.

The best service for the suicidal teen would be the NHS- an emergency mental health team, but historically the police go first and then call the MH teams.

I wonder if it would be better to have an emergency triage service, so that the situation could be assessed and then the correct service be called, I guess that's what the emergency operators are for?

More worryingly the PC shouldn't be having to deal with an armed person without back up.

[clv101]

Perhaps if the police took a paycut...

Like this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21027176
Police pay to start £4,000 lower, at £19,000

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Reads like just another piece of Internet fiction.

How else do you think it reached YouTube after being sent to No10?