A Decline in Personal Standards?

I'd come in early to tackle a particularly important job. I say important as it meant I scored another detection this month, so obviously it was vital. I'd done what I needed to do in terms of dealing with the client, i.e. charging the reprobate and had returned to the office to crew up with a colleague. There was a file to be built before the end of the shift, so that the courts would know why said reprobate was appearing before them.

File-building is a tedious administrative task that merely involves replicating information on a multitude of different forms. For the really big files we do have a team of civvies to do the job, but for the initial hearings we have to do them ourselves. This takes me, a sworn constable, off the streets and puts me firmly behind a desk for an hour or two. It's part of my job, and I find admin. tasks fairly easy to deal with so I get on with it with the same enthusiasm as the rest of my job, but it is at odds with what the media leads me to believe the public wants - more police on the streets, not behind a desk.

I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Shuffling bits of paper about and dealing with 'red tape' is not what I want to be doing, I'd rather be out there catching scumbags. Employing some efficient police staff to handle this type of admin which is essential each time a person in charged would surely be cost-efficient. Perhaps this happens in other forces, but mine is too poor I think.

So anyway, I picked up a couple of jobs with my colleague, as they were piling in thick and fast, there was no time to sit in the office completing the file. I return to the office with a new job to write up, plus the file to build. It would be tight, but I might just get everything dealt with before I was due to book off. I had a very decent reason to book off on time, I needed to get home for something important.

As I'm sat there tapping away at my next MG form for the file build, an immediate response job comes in over the radio. There are four or five of my colleagues sitting in the office, probably a couple more smoking outside, and a couple watching football in the kitchen. No one offers up for it. A few more details are passed. It a shoplifting, and the offender has left the scene. Granted, it shouldn't be a top priority job, but still no-one calls up for it. Something similar happened last week, and I turned out after five minutes while my colleagues carried on chatting. A further radio broadcast gave a direction of travel and description of the offender.

I would have been up and out the door in a second had it not been for the mound of paperwork that had to be completed before the end of the shift. One of my colleagues, who was surfing Ebay turned round and asked me if I was going. I replied I had a bunch of stuff to complete and I was pushed for time as it was.

I felt guilty at not getting out the door immediately, but surely one of the sergeants would turf some of my colleagues out? Eventually, after 10 minutes someone assigned themselves.

With such laziness no wonder our detection rate is so poor. It's also the first time I've not been running out the door when a prioroty shout has come through. I resolved not to let my standards slip again, but it's hard to tip the work/life balance in favour of work every day when those around me have already settled into a lower standard. As it was I still finish an hour late.

How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police in the US

For those of you planning on a holiday to the USA this summer, Chris ROCK provides this short educational lecture on how to avoid any 'issues' with local law enforcement officers...

Hot Fuzz

If you missed this quality flick at the cinema, get the DVD that's due for release next month. And watch out for my cameo.

A night on the town

Ahh, Saturday night in Sandford. The bars, pubs and clubs; going out for a few drinks with your mates, getting a bit wobbly; grabbing a kebab made of god-knows-what ahd heading for the taxi rank at 2am; getting into a fight over nothing, knocking some hapless bloke to the ground and kicking his face to a pulp before getting nicked and fighting four coppers all the way down to the cells. What fun!

I actually quite enjoy policing the town centre on Friday and Saturday nights - it's always varied and usually involves dashing from one urgent call to the next. I get to be just as mouthy back to the punters with little chance of a complaint and on the whole there's not a great deal of paperwork. Plus with my new-found love of detections I can hand out the odd £80 FPN for those that just won't listen when I tell them to stop squaring up to innocent revellers and piss off home. Basically it feels like proper policing, which dealing with yet another non-crime domestic or text-based 'harrassment' doesn't.

With a decent number of officers around (extra staff are drafted in for these peak times) there's also a fair chance we'll get to the incidents in time and with enough pairs of hands to arrest the culprits. Bring on next weekend...

The Numbers Game

Bugger. Earlier this week in briefing my skipper dropped a bit of a bombshell. The top brass have decided my crew aren't getting enough detections. My new guv (more on him later) has put a lot of pressure on my skippers to get results. Threats of 'sticking them on' were apparently waved about - this is a discipline procedure, a warning system. Everybody thinks the new guv is a numpty, including his peers, who have raised concerns with the brass.

So, all is not well, morale is affected and we were told that the worst performing two would be shipped off to dreary admin roles.

Where does this leave me? Pissed right off, I can tell you. Rather than concentrating on learning the job, dealing with each incident on it's merits and employing best practice as I go, I now have to chase the detections along with all my colleagues. We're in effect in competition with eachother, which further affects morale. I left my previous career to escape the targets culture - I thought the police service was there to provide just that, a service.

I hope common sense will prevail, but it's not much hope.

Supervision

Sergeants, skippers, line managers, supervision - they vary wildly in quality, but it looks like I've got a couple of decent supervisors.

They are both very helpful, tolerant of my occasional balls-ups and resolutely scornful of the corporate line. When a particular edict, directive or policy is introduced, if it's an LOB (Load Of Bollocks) my skippers will tell me so. It's very refreshing to work with such pragmatism after the stifled atmosphere in the tutor unit.

More on them later.

Tea bitch

The first thing I noticed when I pitched up on my first day was that some of my section didn't pay any attention to me at all, whilst others came up and started chatting, which made me feel much more at home. It's quite daunting knowing that you're being chucked in at the deep end and everyone will expect you to know what you are doing. Thankfully I found out fairly quickly that some of my new colleagues are more open and approachable than others, but that they are all willing to help me out when I get stuck.

I'd been fully briefed that the newbie on section was the 'tea bitch'. I don't drink the stuff, it's horrible - however, in the spirit of tradition and deference (I was going to need all the goodwill and favours I could get) I got on with it with a smile. This generally entails pitching up 20 minutes earlier than everyone else, searching the nick for dirty cups to wash (as there are NEVER any clean ones about) then preparing 12 teas/coffees as per individuals preferences. I also had to manage the tea fund, buy new supplies and ensure the cupboard remained locked (it's shocking how much stuff can go missing between shifts if you don't secure it - coppers can be thieving bastards when they want to be!). It's a pain, cuts into my own time, but I respect the tradition. I have heard that others on my intake refuse to do it as 'it's a form of bullying' - I think those individuals need to get a flipping grip and learn the value of being a team member.

Opps, extended absence!

Where have I been? Well, I've been busy with both work and home life. I know I said I would get on the case three months ago, but what can I say? Life on section is a whole different ball game to the cosy hand-holding that is the tutor unit and the outright slackers paradise that was university (god, I miss those 2 hours working days in civvies). As for my home life, well I've been kept very busy and had a lovely trip abroad.

I will try harder in future to post some vaguely interesting stuff (I hope) on a regular basis. Promise!