Police Constable

[The1nonly1]

Hey all, I'm applying for the Special Constables in Staffordshire and got a few questions for any present or past constables if you don't mind answering.

Firstly, does being an officer effect your social and domestic life? Do you find that others treat you differently now that you are a Police Officer and if so, how?

Also, what are the day to day duties involved. I imagine that no 2 days are the same but what tasks do you do routinely?

 

[The1nonly1]

Thank you. Any help is appreciated.

 

[The1nonly1]

Yes, it does affect your life. This is obviously hugely personal to whoever it is, but this is how it affects me:

A lot of my social circle are centred around the police these days, I spend downtime with people from all over the Constabulary. I have very little free time, as well as being a Special, I also run a Police Cadet unit, so combined I average around 20 hours per week on top of a day job doing either admin, cadets stuff or frontline duties with the latter being around 2/3 of my time.

As to whether I'm treated differently, I have always picked company where association with the Police isn't a big deal, but obviously depending on what friends you keep, some may take exception to it. It's not unusual for some people to make choices over your new job.

As for duties, I'm based on a response shift, I only work with one response shift and have done for the last 5 years, so we all know each other really well. Therefore, my duties are usually dealing with Assaults, Domestics, Thefts, Criminal Damage, MISPERs and Mental Health jobs - that's my bread and butter. I also get involved with Public Order policing at football matches and various other events such as festivals. I would estimate that on a response shift we'll go to around 3 proper jobs a night and each job is about an hour on scene and about 2-3 hours for the write up, so there's plenty of paperwork involved.

That's great. Thanks for taking the time to provide the information. I'm hoping that I do become a special in this next recruitment drive.

 

[The1nonly1]

Thanks. Lots of useful information