Police spend no time investigating certain crimes

scorza

scorza

scorza

Caporegime
Joined
22 Jun 2004
Posts
26,684
Location
Deep England
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29053978

Most of us knew this already but now there's actual evidence of the scale of the problem from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Victims of crime are being "encouraged" to investigate offences themselves, an inspection of police forces in England and Wales has found.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said criminal damage and car crime were "on the verge of being decriminalised" because forces had "almost given up".
Click to expand...

How does that tie in with the official figures that are showing decreases in the levels of crime? Apart from discouraging people from reporting crime in the first place.

And don't forget, while victims might be "encouraged" to investigate the crime themselves, if they do anything about it then the police will be somewhat more enthusiastic investigating that.
 
burglary is the same in my experience.

won't do anything than the bare minimum unless it's an easy result, fat CID will happily roam around in an unmarked car looking for people breaking bail conditions though :|
 
I can kind of see both sides of this really.

Yes it's frustrating for the victim, and I would probably be pretty ****ed off if my car was broken into and all the police did was issue a reference number.

but...

Being realistic about it, without CCTV footage or some other really obvious evidence, if someone smashes your car window and grabs your phone/bag/wallet/laptop/whatever off the front seat then what exactly are the police going to do about it? The chances of them catching the person are unfortunately extremely slim. :(
 
As for burglary it depends on where you stay up here in Edinburgh. Most areas will have a cursory police investigation. But once you move to the more affluent areas and you are burgled then the full weight of police investigation is brought to bear.

But on thinking about it that pretty much covers most crimes up here.
 
Aye we've experienced it when the car was broken into and tens of thousands of pounds worth of equipment stolen. Equipment that would be extremely hard to shift and is all serialled and registered and fairly easy to trace.

The police couldn't give a toss.
 
Trouble is, The way that Burglary and car theft/ theft from cars are trivialised by being regarded as "Low Level" crime. They are not! They are actually the most serious crimes!

Think about it. Where would you rather live?

Somewhere with the Murder rate of "Midsomer" or an area where Burglary and vehicle crime has to be accepted as a matter of routine?

"Low Level" crime, far from being trivial is socially corrosive and extremely destructive!

An otherwise strong society can likely survive quite a high "Murder rate" without issue (The only thing that might cause serious concern might be an obvious serial killer)

However, by contrast a high level of Burglary and theft will rapidly precipitate social (And ultimately economic) decay.

"Low Level" crime really needs to be given the priority that it deserves! (And that goes for sentencing too!)
 
I encourage anyone to read "Wasting Police time" by PC David Copperfield (pseudo name :p).

In that he talks about how they boost numbers by the way in which crime is reported and "solved". I.e. You report your partner for an offence (let's say ABH), your partner makes a counter allegation against you during the visit (let's say "he hit me first") = 2 "crimes" in the system.
 
Orionaut said:
Trouble is, The way that Burglary and car theft/ theft from cars are trivialised by being regarded as "Low Level" crime. They are not! They are actually the most serious crimes!
Click to expand...

Theft from motor vehicles and burglary are not considered low level. They're classed as SAC offences (Serious Acquisitive Crime). However, criminal damage isn't a SAC offence and generally is regarded as a low level offence.

Whilst I appreciate that some people think the Police couldn't care about criminal damage, you need to realise quite how short staffed many Police forces are. Sometimes there's not enough resources to deploy to urgent 999 calls simply because there aren't any officers that can go. Bedfordshire recently got stung by HMIC about their response times to urgent calls and this is becoming more common.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-28806636
 
EVH said:
I encourage anyone to read "Wasting Police time" by PC David Copperfield (pseudo name :p).

In that he talks about how they boost numbers by the way in which crime is reported and "solved". I.e. You report your partner for an offence (let's say ABH), your partner makes a counter allegation against you during the visit (let's say "he hit me first") = 2 "crimes" in the system.
Click to expand...

You can't take a report of a counter allegation until the first allegation has been concluded.
 
no surprise here its been like this for about 20 years here in the sticks. had 3 mountain bikes stolen over that time and the last one i even knew who stole it and had witnesses yet the police did nothing as its word of mouth.

so who do i see to claim back council tax thats been paid to the police then as if they cant be bothered to provide a service why am i paying for it ?!
 
So what else is new.

I had my mountain bike stolen from my shed (was in there just three days while I was decorating the room where I normally kept it :() over six years ago, with zero ***** given by the police.

No visit to the house at all.
 
A pertinent question to be asked when considering this is do we, the British public, have too high an expectation of a crime being solved? There are obvious incidents where questions should be raised as to why more was not done however, as above, there are going to be cases with no evidence that will be useful in determining who committed the crime. I suppose the answer to such a question depends on when you are asked, on a normal regular day then logically you might agree there is no chance of the crime being solved but if asked just after your car has been broken in to or house burglarised then I suspect the answer may not be so logical.
 
arknor said:
burglary is the same in my experience.

won't do anything than the bare minimum unless it's an easy result, fat CID will happily roam around in an unmarked car looking for people breaking bail conditions though :|
Click to expand...


Back in 2006 while my late mum was laid up dying in a hospital bed some scum bag decided to burgle her empty home, getting away with £10 and a vacum cleaner!!!
I phoned the Police at 8pm and they arrived 10 minutes later and took details.
Forensics arrived at 8am. No fingerprints except an empty L&B cig packet at point of entry. I had a gut feeling who it was (local smakhead) but couldn't prove it.

If the same thing happened today they would take hours to arrive, blaming cutbacks and the court system......As I had the pleasure of one of them moaning about last year.
 
RobWHS said:
Back in 2006 while my late mum was laid up dying in a hospital bed some scum bag decided to burgle her empty home, getting away with £10 and a vacum cleaner!!!
I phoned the Police at 8pm and they arrived 10 minutes later and took details.
Forensics arrived at 8am. No fingerprints except an empty L&B cig packet at point of entry. I had a gut feeling who it was (local smakhead) but couldn't prove it.

If the same thing happened today they would take hours to arrive, blaming cutbacks and the court system......As I had the pleasure of one of them moaning about last year.
Click to expand...

funny 10 years ago when my last bike was stolen i never saw a police officer and they said it wasnt worth taking finger prints ?! so the argument about cuts is rather comical when the service here at least has been a shambles for years.
 
RobWHS said:
Back in 2006 while my late mum was laid up dying in a hospital bed some scum bag decided to burgle her empty home, getting away with £10 and a vacum cleaner!!!
I phoned the Police at 8pm and they arrived 10 minutes later and took details.
Forensics arrived at 8am. No fingerprints except an empty L&B cig packet at point of entry. I had a gut feeling who it was (local smakhead) but couldn't prove it.

If the same thing happened today they would take hours to arrive, blaming cutbacks and the court system......As I had the pleasure of one of them moaning about last year.
Click to expand...

When the government are saying Police forces needs to cut it's back office. Back office for the Police are forensics amongst many other vital departments. I'm not surprised that your experience from 2006 to now is vastly different. We have vastly less resources.
 
GAC said:
funny 10 years ago when my last bike was stolen i never saw a police officer and they said it wasnt worth taking finger prints ?! so the argument about cuts is rather comical when the service here at least has been a shambles for years.
Click to expand...

Where was your bike stolen from? Getting good fingerprint samples is a lot more difficult than people realise. It's also expensive to process. I have had cases where I've been denied forensic examination of an item I know is likely to have dna on it of a suspect because the case was deemed to have enough evidence to convict and so the cost couldn't be justified.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Where was your bike stolen from? Getting good fingerprint samples is a lot more difficult than people realise. It's also expensive to process. I have had cases where I've been denied forensic examination of an item I know is likely to have dna on it of a suspect because the case was deemed to have enough evidence to convict and so the cost couldn't be justified.
Click to expand...

stolen from a locked stone shed at the back of my house, the door and frame where flat and dry and perfect to get prints from id imagine.

the kicker is i knew who stole it and he was seen with it by a couple of people yet the police didnt seem interested and wrote it off and sent me yet another letter with a crime number.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom