Police should commute in uniform

[Danthus]

Dolph, in a nutshell it is easy for police forces to cut police staff posts to save money and backfill those posts, or at least some of them, with warranted officers.

My force has done that but not without reform of frontline, namely following a Met model where officers arrest, quick pre-cis, handover to a PHT and back out.

Cheshire do they same, arrest and then a quick handover to PRT.

What they are also doing now is using lots of retired officers to visit witnesses and take two statements, it is a really good system and an excellent use of years of experience.

My wife recently witnessed an assault, both of her statements were taken by a retired police officer in a civilian role.

 

[Burnsy2023]

As I'm on my phone I'll keep to one point of debate only: Dolph and other's assertion that loads of warranted officers that don't make an arrest is a bad thing.

Firstly, its a very flawed argument to say that the number of arrests is a metric for a police officers performance. That's like saying the performance of an office worker can be measured by the number of email they send. They may have a weak correlation but it's not a direct causal relationship. Remember what Robert Peel said in his principles of policing: its not the sight of police dealing with crime that shows their effectiveness but the absence of it. If I am the best officer in the world by preventing and deterring crime, then I'd have no arrests and people would question why I still have a job. This just doesn't make sense. The police's duty is as much about preventing as detecting crime.

Secondly, just because an officer doesn't make arrests now, doesn't mean you should take their warrant card away. Police officers move around departments a lot to keep a varied career. Some will do a year or two in a major crime unit and then move back to do response. Some will need other powers as a constable other than the ability to arrest. It's this cross discipline work ethos that means that officers cam get w much more hollostic view to policing and they become better officers because of it.

 

[Pate]

My local Morrisons do a full breakfast for a £1 for on duty bobbies, everyone is a winner, a nice regular presence from the police and a cheap breakfast!

Lets just hope the cooks don't hold a grudge.

 

[RopAyy]

A brilliant post by 'Andy90.'
I cant imagine the idea ever been forcefully imposed, or at least i hope it never is.
This may be a good idea in theory to get more uniforms on the street but it is just that, a theory.
If i was on the force i wouldnt want to knowingly endanger my family or lodgers regardless of how slim the chance of a phsyco attacking my place of living is, no one would.
Ive seen and met plenty of off duty coppers intervene in matters while off duty safety gear or not and i commend them for it, good morals are few and far between these days but forcefully putting them in those situations is not right.
The lack of respect officers or any other force related workers get in the this country is appalling, maybe we have 'the system' to blame or just society itself, either way officers should not be forced into dangerous situations as stated through out this without any PPE and especially not right up to their door step!