how many of those police officers are front line staff that go on patrols and ride about in police cars.
and how many work from home or offices and never make arrests?
wasn't there a stat not long ago something like the average police officer makes 3.5 arrests a year?
A total of 22,753 officers serving in the Met Police have not made one arrest from April 1 2021 to March 31 this year, new 'jaw dropping' figures reveal.
www.dailymail.co.uk
The ones who don't actually do policing should have a separate job title, it looks like they just use these people to boost the numbers of "police officers" but they aren't what people consider police officers at all
It's the DM so you might want a couple of deliveries from Saxo before swallowing it.
Are fines counted as arrests?
Are interviews counted as arrests?
Are inquiries counted as arrests?
If 15 people are involved in a raid on a drug dealer do they all get an arrest of the one person in the house, or does that go to the team leader or one person who actually reads the rights?
Does time spent in court giving evidence count as an arrest?
Does time spent guarding a VIP give many arrests?
Does the officer who deals with the aftermath of a car accident where the driver responsible for the accident died get an arrest out of it?
Do officers whose area covers an entire county and responding after incidents from the other side of the county get as many arrests as those who are routinely within a couple of minutes of an incident?
It's quite possible that in fact most "policing" doesn't take require a lot of arrests as actual arrests are one outcome of an interaction with the police and some duties will mean that most officers whilst doing "full policing" probably don't get to make many arrests, as if you use "number of arrests" as a metric for "are they doing good policing" you're going to see that lower level officers dealing with drunks outside pubs are going to be considered "more valuable" than a team of 50 officers who spend 3 months tracking down and building the case against a murderer or a multiple rapist who has been targeting school girls (an example I use because I know that the DM will be in a froth at the lack of police arrests if there was a serial rapist and the Police didn't catch the person within a few days, and it's the sort of case that will get officers thrown at it*).
Despite the likes of "The Bill" most police officers probably don't get much chance at an arrest because actually making arrests tends to become rarer as you move to more specialist duties that require your more advanced policing skills, and you're dealing with jobs that take longer to solve than dealing with a fight outside the local pub on a friday night, when you've been waiting just around the corner because it's been noted that the 3 pubs within a 5 minute walk tend to have a fight every match night.
These days there has been a big push specifically to avoid making arrests for minor things, hence the rise in fines etc, as it's not exactly a good use of police time to tie up a police officer (or more likely 2+) for most of a shift to deal with something that can be dealt with via a fine and 30 minutes paperwork.
*A single missing child enquiry can tie up hundreds of officers for days, especially if they have to start doing any form of search in which case you'll have hundreds of officers who will definitely not be making arrests and being "good productive officers" whilst they're doing a fingertip search of some woods.
www.lbc.co.uk
