The Police Application Thread

It's an interesting and exciting career, and even now it's still a decent job. Pay is reasonable (although not enough), pretty secure (for now), still some options for development and specialisation (although that's reducing too).

I don't think anyone chooses to do it for logical reasons though. It's either something you want to do or its not. I hate it most days, but I simply can't see myself doing anything else, and most of my colleagues I think feel the same.

Occasionally you get a good job, and you remember why you joined. It can be very rewarding.
 
jsmoke said:
A deep moral sense of law and order, a sense of honour, family tradition, a chip on your shoulder, a stable job, comradeship, or what?

Considering the amount of flak they can take it's hard to imagine.
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well yeah, I think we're quite fortunate to have a police force with a rather relaxed attitude - you just need to compare with US police tactics you need permission to even just get out of your car when stopped by them etc.. and they're happy to use tazers not just for self defence but simply for compliance when a subject is resisting too much or they're struggling to put handcuffs on


frankly they must have a lot of patience over here given some of the complete scumbags they encounter
 
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...t-man-intelligence-led-operation-north-london

Police shot a man dead as they acted to disrupt a suspected plot to break out a key player in an organised crime syndicate from a prison van which was taking him to court for sentencing over firearms offences.

A 28-year-man was killed on Friday morning by an undercover Scotland Yard firearms officer who fired a single shot on a quiet residential street in Wood Green, north London, as people went to work.

Detectives tackling organised crime were lying in wait after suspecting a group of men were planning to spring Izzet Eren from a van taking him to Wood Green crown court for sentencing from Wormwood Scrubs prison.

Eren was arrested in October while travelling through north London riding a motorbike. He and another man were found with a Skorpion machine pistol and a Tokarev 9mm pistol, both of which were loaded.

Hours after the police shooting, Eren and his accomplice appeared in court and were both sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment, having pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.
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A rare 'well done' to the police from me for this one. Doubtless the usual human-rights lawyers will be seeing £££ reading that article though :(
 
How can a member of the public recognise a genuine warrant card?

If you were approached by a plain clothes officer and you asked them to identify themselves how would you know that their warrant card was legitimate? Are their certain markings or pieces of information you should look out for? Is there anything on a warrant card that would be tricky to forge, like a hologram? Is there one standard warrant card or do different areas of the country use different identification?

I'm sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place but I thought it would be better to ask this here than to start a new thread.
 
js58426 said:
How can a member of the public recognise a genuine warrant card?

If you were approached by a plain clothes officer and you asked them to identify themselves how would you know that their warrant card was legitimate? Are their certain markings or pieces of information you should look out for? Is there anything on a warrant card that would be tricky to forge, like a hologram?

I'm sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place but I thought it would be better to ask this here than to start a new thread.
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They can't. I've had this chat before. Every force has different styles of warrant card and some have no security features at all. It's a silly system. Some officers have warrant cards without even their name, just their collar or warrant number and a photo.

If you are concerned about the identity of an officer, confirm via 999 if they are indeed who they say they are.
 
I worked with a Prison Officer who was arrested for impersonating an officer.

Somehow he got off with it, at the time our uniforms looked similar to anyone not in the know, the dodgy warrant card he had on him must have taken some explaining.
 
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js58426 said:
Do you get many problems with people impersonating officers?
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Had some utter cretin that worked in my building as support staff get nicked last year for fitting blues to his car and pulling people over. Needless to say he got booted, not sure if he was prosecuted, but I hope so. What a Walt.
 
Just found out that I passed the first stage (the application form and competency based questions) with Kent Police. I have to attend a mandatory briefing session next Wednesday, followed by the SEARCH Assessment Centre (no date set yet).

I'm nervous and excited. I know I can do it as I passed it all before with the Met, just need to not **** it up this time around! Kent Police have a senior officer home visit as part of their application process too, which will be interesting (if I get that far)
 
Good luck ScarySquirrel. As you say, you've done it once, you can do it again. Don't get complacent though, preparation is the key.

I feel like I hate my job some days, I can moan as much as the 20 year vets, and it's definitely a hard time to join, but I still can't think of anything I'd rather do.
 
ScarySquirrel said:
Just found out that I passed the first stage (the application form and competency based questions) with Kent Police. I have to attend a mandatory briefing session next Wednesday, followed by the SEARCH Assessment Centre (no date set yet).

I'm nervous and excited. I know I can do it as I passed it all before with the Met, just need to not **** it up this time around! Kent Police have a senior officer home visit as part of their application process too, which will be interesting (if I get that far)
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Home visit ? Wow, I thought that was done away with years ago. I've been in nearly 16 years and there weren't home visits when I applied.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
They can't. I've had this chat before. Every force has different styles of warrant card and some have no security features at all. It's a silly system. Some officers have warrant cards without even their name, just their collar or warrant number and a photo.

If you are concerned about the identity of an officer, confirm via 999 if they are indeed who they say they are.
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Mine has a security chip in it that activates entry to force buildings and I need to use it to start a a patrol vehicle.
 
Von Smallhausen said:
Mine has a security chip in it that activates entry to force buildings and I need to use it to start a a patrol vehicle.
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We have that too. I have a smartcard for certain types of mobile terminal logons, it also has a RFID chip for door entry, but neither of them are hard to fake and not all Warrant Cards have smartcard chips.

We did have a few vehicles that required you to tap your warrant card to start, but the feedback from officers wasn't very positive so they stopped it.
 
Our warrant cards have a chip in, and we can use them along with a PIN to gain entry to a small number of sites. Problem is, its such a small number of sites, if you don't go to one regularly, like me, no one knows their PIN! Our access control systems are all over the place. We've got two different systems on my division alone, meaning I have to carry two access cards in addition to my warrant card. God help us if we were tried to add it in cars too! We'd probably need a different card for each car..

I've got my name down for a Taser course. I can't do it until I'm confirmed in rank though. Seems like there us a few more courses opening up here too though, which is good. They've relaxed some of the rules of who can carry too, previously it was response officers only, now NPT can carry.
 
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