What a great shame!
I've just joined this register to learn a little about a car I admire and am considering purchasing and the very first post I read is almost entirely composed of slagging off the job I have been doing for 26 years!
It's always frusrating when people clearly have absolutely no concept of what it's like nowadays to man "the thin blue line".
Sadly, successive governments have increased the amount of red tape required to do the most mundane of tasks and have reduced beat strength to the point that it's almost laughable. Many of you would be shocked at just how few bobbies there are available to deal with the thousand of calls a day, indeed half my time is spent apologising for how long it's taken the police to get to their incident. That is purely because there are so few of us that we have to grade calls according to their urgency, ie life or death, ongoing etc. The rest I'm affraid often have to wait. Even in some larger cities such as Leeds city centre, staffing levels are often into single figures and one alcohol fueled disturbance, murder, fatal RTC etc etc can often tie everyone up.
The government have spent a fortune employing 'Police Community Support Officers' for 'high visibility' patrols, but they have very limited powers and, frankly, it's money for old rope! When you consider that a PCSO can earn anything up to £24,000 a year for basically walking around, one wonders why a married copper with two kids and five years service bothers for the same money, you could earn more as a trainee manager at Macdonalds!
All those 22,000 officers marching in London were on their day off because they feel betrayed by this government, as do most public sector workers.
A top scale PC now with less than around 12 years service takes home around £1700 per month working earlies, lates and nights. He is personally accountable for his actions 24/7 on or off duty, can't strike and can't take any form of industrial action. In my service I have been assaulted several times, once seriously, been shot at, had to disarm deranged knifemen and been stabbed with used needles, picked up parts of dismembered, decomposed bodies etc etc
It's very easy to slag off the Police when you have no concept of what they face everyday. After all, enforcing the law either criminal or road traffic is not a popular passtime.
And as for retired or ex cops, the job has changed beyond recognition in the last few years.
When I joined this job 26 years ago, it was "a bobbies job". You were paid not as much for what you did, but what you may be called upon to do. Now, the polar opposite is true.
I would not dream of slagging off anyones job unless I had a firm grasp of what they do and what difficulties they face.
Perhaps if one or two of you feel that you can do a better job for the money, then you know what to do..............................!
And as for describing us as "muppets" well, sadly that reflects very badly on the scribe................................
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