The Policeman's Blog

I can only reiterate what has already been said: Oh... my... God!

Manc Bobby
 

Two words:

Voice. Mail.

Try to see the positives. A "neighbourhood police team" will likely be a kludge[1] of actual coppers, 'P'CSOs, Community Wardens, civilian support frippets and such. Just make sure that you're the one doing the important bit (the paperwork) and leave answering the 'phone to the bushy tailed mock-coppers.

[1] I believe that's the correct collective noun.
 

This will never work. Our force already gives out to locals, a mobile phone number to the 'yob patrol' who operate from a van,mob handed, on Thurs/Fri/Sat nights. This leads to locals not only reporting yob type jobs - but anything and everything including - much to the frustration of the control room and control room inspector, and response officers - things like firearms jobs and serious assaults and other incidents where there is no record of the call, no witness details taken by the officer in the 'yob patrol' van (because they ar enot controllers and not trained to take a call from a panicky screaming person at high speed and get all the details) and no way of controlling a serious incident until everyone is on the back foot and someone gets injured. So now we have a two tier operation in our force where the public bypass the control room after years of educating them to use either the emergency or non emergency number and who are now reporting stuff via this mobile number. I hate to think what this will be like when every officer also has a mobile number to give them. Like it or not -the control rooms need to have a record of the calls, and are trained to ask the relevant questions - including getting details of witnesses. This new system is undoing years of hard work in getting the public to ring centralised numbers or use 999 if an emergency - and despite all criticism of centralised control rooms (I am the biggest critic and could write a book on it)unfortunately that is the system we are stuck with. Until neighbourhood policing also includes LOCAL control rooms staffed with people who have local knowledge, as in the days when I joined up - this new well meaning intention will do nothing but scupper all the hard work we have done in trying to gain public confidence in the system of initially reporting incidents. My force has many faults - but one thing it can brag about is call handling, both 9s and non emergency. In this respect the public have little to complain about and issuing mobile phones to individual officers will give people a false expectation that they will somehow get a better service when they won't.
 

Solution 1 - redirect the calls to the mobile number of the chairman of the Police authority; or
Solution 2 - do the same to the Ch Supts mobile.
N.B. You must have the nous to look innocent and be able to deny all knowledge.
17 months and counting.
 

It doesn't mean I have to turn it on! Mind you see an opportunity as someone in an office monitoring how many calls are not being answered and sending snotty emails to officers with phone asking for explanations.

It really does undermine the whole purpose of call centres screening calls and control rooms actually being able to best direct resources but hey, Gordon clearly knows best - the man is a fool, clearly jeered on an supported by ACPO.
 

The problem with this is, as a neighbourhood officer (and any other officer), i am not on duty 24 hours a day as i have to do human things like rest and eat... i also have rest days, training days/weeks and annual leave... what happens to the individual officers mobile then?
As someone pointed out, public will report all manner of things including serious incidents which then run the risk of sitting on a voicemail for days/weeks on end undetected.
It is unworkable.
 

The public may not share the immediate pessimism expressed here. Of course there will be examples of the type of misuse quoted - which the government hopefully considered. There will be no surprises if penalties are incurred for abuse, equating to wasting time. On the positive side, where comments may best focus, is the opportunity to re-establish lost community links and intelligence gathering.

This worked well in local communities in spite of its labour intensiveness. What may once have taken half an hour over the social cup of tea could be distilled into essentials amounting to a few seconds text reading. With helpful public participation, an officer is enabled to make decisions and judgements on how best to respond to rapidly transmitted information. Until superior suggestions materialise, everyone should make the best of it. Attaching limpet mines on the slipway is sabotage without merit. Police and public can eventually see how well this ship sails, prior to either side contemplating any scuttling.
 

Hey.. On the posative side, you could always listen to what they have to say then tell them straight.... "I am not doing anything about it because...

A. You do not pay any tax and do not deserve any public service.

B. You have not grown up beyond the mental age of 13 years and this is petty childish rubbish.

C. I am too busy dealing with all the other petty childish rubbish that has come in via the control room and is montiorable.

However you must remember not to pass your name when answering and be ready to deny all knowledge when the cretin turns up at the front desk to speak with an Inspector. Saying you lost the phone a fortnight ago.

Drunkplod
 

Dear Dr Melvin T Grey,

I would like to thank you for the nautical terms used by your good self to try and explain why us as police officers should accept this proposal.

However as a straight talking flatfooted landlubber I would like to point out that this may well be nice in a sleepy little seaside village where the most a local bobby will have to deal with is a few teenage scallywags drinking in the park or a couple of drunken fishermen having fisticuffs outside the crown and anchor.

In reality most of us work in urban slums filled with the 3rd generation of none working scum. We would be used even more as a tool to get back at thier family / neighbours / ex-partners in thier petty small minded squabbles. My phone would be on melt down every Friday / Saturday / Giroday / Bank holiday when these individuals have had thier regulation 2 litres of Bellabrusco. I would spend hours and hours of tax payers time dealing with this dross only for them to not be bothered in the morning when sober because they realise they love the other party and want to forget about it.

The public can contact the police quite readliy via phone, text, email or heaven forbid getting off their leatherette sofas and walking into a police station (alright they would get a taxi really). We do not need to encourage any further contact.

So I propose that this idea is scuppered, broadsided and sent straight to Davey Jones's locker where it belongs.

Drunkplod
 

Ha ha ha - makes me cringe!! Have you ever tried to get a Community/Local Policing Officer to answer there radio?

Now a mobile phone - it will just get switched off!

On the positive side - if it was answered by a sensible bobby it would reduce paperwork - no log by CMC, no crime report.
 

10 pints of "natch" cider inside some waste of space and the beat managers phone number on speed dial. What fun.

Mr. Brown probably thinks he's being helpful but any genuine caller who wanted to contact their local beat manager would be drowned out by the hundreds of calls that would be totally pointless. It's called 'signal to noise ratio' or something technical like that.

At least wtih a 999 you have screeners who do exactly that.

I wonder if any senior politicain is going to read the comments on this blog.

As the first post said Oh...my..GOD!
 

I am a neighborhood cop with a work mobile number that is given out to the public.
I work in a rural area and I have to say that it has worked out okay so far.
There are a few loonies who call and leave long meandering voice-mails that go nowhere, but it thats not as common as you would think.
Its switched off when I'm off duty.
Its is handy for a those locals with whom you have a good rapport and useful if you want someone to get to you directly. However I'm not keen on every hobildy-hoe having my number.
 

Clearly, this is a ridiculous idea. It would be *much* cheaper and more effective if we simply paid criminal types a "bonus" on their social security for committing less than a certain number of crimes per week.
This would both incentivise good behaviour AND rejuvenate the economy.
 

*Plan A*
The Home Office, in partnership with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, plans to establish a nationwide service using a single, memorable number for the public to report or enquire about non-emergency issues relating to police, crime and anti-social behaviour. The service, referred to as the “Single Non-Emergency Number” or “SNEN”, will be rolled out in a staged process, achieving national coverage by 2008.
But, Monday, 28 January 2008
101 Non-Emergency Number Loses Funding
The government has abandoned direct funding for the Nationwide 101 Non-Emergency Number.
The 101 phone number was being piloted in certain areas around the UK to complement and take the pressure off 999 emergency services.
Around 10 million 999 calls to the police were made in 2004, yet an incredible 70% of these were not for genuine emergencies.
According to www.101.gov.uk not all problems need an emergency response, but many people call 999 because they don’t know what else to do.
*PLAN B*
"Mobile phone police in every neighbourhood,vows Gordon Brown"
 

A little custody secret - take the mobile number of your regulars next time you book them in and doing the IMEI checks. then, when your nights, give em a call and check they are ok. Tell them your the police and can we provide any service tonight?

it totally spooks them. i've made total gobshites speechless. after a couple of nights, the line is dead! new mobiles all round... its a global economy!!!

Now Thats customer Focus!!!

Oh the long winter nights used to fly by!
 

Don't forget all the anonymous hate and nutter calls.

The only winners will be the phone companies and their extra revenue.

Another wonderful 'thought up in the morning over a pint in the pub, instigated in the afternoon' initiatives.
 

I've also seen with my own eyes how this awful idea works. I was previously attached to a plain clothes pro-active unit where our mandate was to deal with street robbery, burglary and drug dealing. The mobile phone number was made available to a number of persons which resulted in a mass of calls about absolute rubbish which were most definitely not crimes or anything the Police should be concerned with. Bearing in mind we're sent to deal with just about anything, you can imagine how 'rubbish' these were as it was actually possible to NOT send a Police Officer to deal with them. With the phone constantly ringing with calls about nothing and some people using it instead of the force number and 999, it caused no end of problems.
Terrible idea but then this government are absolutely chock full of them. Can't wait for the next ingenious scheme.
 

This really show's how far from reality Brown and his government are.Every single terrorist, sorry " community rep" has had these for years here and its a real pain.I can't remember how many times I've heard " Why is there two Landrover's facing us when there's only one facing them". Any time you wanted to take action cue some scrote telling you he wasn't speaking to you because he had the Super on the phone.It just gave them more power than the Police and of course we caved.
I'm in comm's at the minute and it's driving me nut's listening to some idiot complain about a dog is following me or the light's out in his fridge.
Some poor sod will fall for it.
 

As someone who is involved with my Neighbourhood Watch scheme, and has recently experienced the effects of others wasting police time, I have to agree - I'd love to be able to phone Gordon Brown right in the middle of Prime Minister's Questions.

What a dumb idea!
 

They did this with us. They gave us all mobile phones and business cards. We were told to hand them out to everyone. Soon enough the ‘regular callers’, you know the sort, resident association chairs, head of neighbourhood watch etc. They started calling. Then we start getting reports of crime. We can’t take reports of crime over the phone, log the call or give a crime or log number.

So what happens? We ask them to call the standard number. It sort of defeats the object.

They also get really annoyed when we have our phone switched off. If you go (dare I say it) off duty, on leave, you should expect messages from angry people.

We also get numerous prank calls.

Then, and you’ll like this, they took the phones off of us, stating that it was because they didn’t have the funding anymore. We couldn’t remember everyone who had the number to tell them the numbers will no longer be in use.

A year later, a new sergeant and we get new phones, new numbers and it all starts again.
 

Wow, the silver lining is that whomever take over the position will never feel bored, will they?
 

How about this phone message:

"Mandy, I am going to declare war on you and I have declared it as of now. See what I will do to you. From now on, you are dead. I will start with your mum first, if in the next hour you don't leave a message.
"I am so emotionally disturbed now that anything is possible from me.
"You are not safe. I am going to come and catch you, on my mother's life.
"You want war, bitch, you're going to get some war. You will see now what I can do, so you will cry for years.
"First, I will start with your family, then I come to you and your reputation. I will spread all over London that you are a prostitute."

An offensive message?

It was from CI Ali Dezaei, please give him the Met.
 

The comment about 'CI' Ali Dezwhatever is outrageous. He's a commander (or close) and thoroughly deserving I'm sure. Fairly. A bit. Er...
 

Im joining the firearms unit to get away from all of this.
 

I heard a horrible rumour that Ali Dizaei is going to be running the utter cluster fcuk that has become Westminster after the last wnaker decided to ruin the working lives of close to 3000 people so he could get a promotion. So now in the 'capital of the capital' they are putting out the same number of people as 18 months ago to patrol an area 4 times bigger and 10 times busier, and its all the fault of the PC's for missing I grades, because no one above the rank of CI had the guts to tell Allen that he plan was ridiculous and would fail immediately. As it did.

As for giving out mobile phone numbers, I used to be a beat officer, we used to do it and after a month ended routing it through to the force control room as 95% of the calls were actually people who should have dialled 999 as they thought they would get a response faster, listening to the messages after being off for 3-4 days actually made me feel sick a couple of times.

It's not just the job that's fcuked now, the whole country is completely fcuked.
 

The job may be fcuked. The country may also be fcuked and if Gordon Brown isn't booted out of number 10 soon, the whole world will be fcuked. The man is a jinx full of dark bad energy, but he FOOLS people with his "soothing" voice.

Well he DOES NOT fool me. I can see him naked, arrogant and drunk with power. Has anyone else noticed, that wherever he happens to go in the world, TROUBLE and violence follows shortly after.

He's a devil in disguise, a wolf in sheeps clothing. A CURSE on this fine land. Oh God forgive us and spare us from the curse of GORDON! He is leading us to DOOM and GLOOM.

Come on Spiderman, kick his ass, please, sweetie pie. I don't want my kids or grandkids to DIE in some future Nuclear disaster and Gordon loves his nuclear. Gordon has ignored good and accurate intelligence warning to give up nuclear power and weapons.

The same source of intelligence was spot on about 9 -11 and 7 -7, plus more. Does ignoring this intelligence warning strike you as the actions of a politician who has OUR best interests in mind? NO, it does not.
Because the man is a moron, a demon who will lead us to misery.
 

Rogerborg, can't believe it's actually a word!

'A kludge (or, alternatively, kluge) is a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem or difficulty. In engineering, a kludge is a workaround, typically using unrelated parts cobbled together. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kludge'

GS
 

step1 take a call on your rest day from Mrs Bloggs reporting pesky kids in her street.
step2 phone it in to comms tell them a mobile will have to attend, get incident number.
step3 submit overtime for 4 hrs double time recall to duty
step4 watch your inspectors head explode, refer him to police regs.
Everyones a winner!
 

utter gimmicky spank as ever,

rather than policy sculpted by experts and the intelligent,

we have a government who makes policy that is aimed at scoring points in the Sun,

celebrities are appointed to lead reviews in areas in which they have minimal knowledge,

i despair i really do
 

Having read this thread and many others I can only say that I feel sorry for you guys (that's the serving officers out on the streets), not the idiots that think up these stupid ideas.

I'm 44 now and when I left school I wanted to join the Police but West Yorkshire weren't recruiting so I went into I.T. as a second choice. Thank God for that is all I can say.

What I can't understand is how they continually get away with all red-tape, form filling exercises, initiatives, etc etc etc that you so openly post about (and not just on this website), every man and his dog can see how futile they are and yet they don't change the system????

Maybe that's the difference between public money and private money because I am damn sure that a business run as badly as the police wouldn't be around long (and that's not a criticism of police officers in general, it's a criticism of the powers that be within the police that implement these schemes)

Mossy
 

Gordon's a crafty one, of that there is no doubt. It's all spin and what people want to hear. I also despair at the blatant hypocrisy of the politicians. The Daily Mail reported on Wednesday that the government were "shameless" regarding their attempts to keep secret the details of their expenses. Which are claimed from tax payers money, like their wages.

Considering the level of local authority and other govt agency SPYING they have brought in, to watch the every move of the public, it's one rule for them and different rules for the rest of us.

How they can be so hard-faced and brass necked about their double standards, really does take the p**s out of the public.
 

What I find amusing, is why any of you are surprised that these lying, corrupt, charlatans, masquerading as politicians and having our 'best interestas at heart' (so long as it lines their pockets)come up with such a pathetic, ill researched idea.
We all know that Brown and his power hungry cronies will do anything to get the underclass and the muisguided, guardian reading, muesli crunching, yoghurt pedlars to vote for them.
Whether it works, whether it causes problems and so long as it's cheap - it doesn't matter.
Another pathetic soundbite from an unelected, gutless creep.

Soon to be ex-cop
 

Could the poster who put up a text message from Ali Dizaei indicate how he knows this to be true? It is unbelievable. Though, believable at the same time.
 

Incidentally, I think several high ranking officers did suggest to Allen that the City of Westminster re-shuffle might end up as a 'cluster fcuk'. They appear to have been ignored. Still, Mr. Dizaei should sort the whole mess out no problem.....
 

Dave H - Just realised where this came from. Cheers.
 

Mossy - I was a cop for 30 years in Birmingham (now retired) and I can tell you why it works. Statistics can be made to conclude anything you want them to. One third of all road accidents are caused by alcohol - therefore two thirds are caused by sober people - conclusion? you're safer drunk !!
The reason all these daft ideas proliferate is that they are reported as successes by the management of the police who would not get promoted with a "failure" on their record. They are no longer policemen and women - they live for the next rung on the ladder. We had a saying when I was in the police and it gets ever more true day by day "Lions led by Donkeys"