Where have all the police gone?

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Chippy_boy

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And what are they doing exactly?

My Mrs told me this morning about horrific situation in Chorley (I think) where kids are routinely being several beaten up - like jumping up and down on heads and kids potentially losing eyes or getting brain damage - and the police being "too busy" to do anything about it.

I know police numbers are down, but I wondered by how much, so I did a bit of Googling. Turns out there were roughly 120,000 police officers in England and Wales in the 1970's and although that number rose in between and has fallen back, there are today about 120,000 officers.

But back in the 70's we saw bobbies on the beat, routinely. Burglaries were followed up on, always. Fingerprints taken etc. Patrol cars visibly patrolling often. Local police stations existed, and were not closed due to "cuts". And they had no technology back then to help them either.

And yet nowadays, the police have all sorts of tech to help them fight crime. And they have the same numbers of police as before. So it made me think, what are they all actually doing? Is there lack of action to combat the sort of criminality described above actually more political by them, sending out a message saying "we need more resources", rather than an actual lack of resources, perhaps? The police say they are overstretched and can't cope. Overstretched on what?
 
SnakeDoctor473 said:
How much has the population grown since the 70s?
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Doesn't really answer the question that, does it mate.

The population across the UK has gone up by maybe 20% over the past 40 years, but it's not like police numbers have halved. We still have the same numbers of police, and now they have all sorts of tech which is supposed to help them and make them more efficient. Think how laborious it must have been trawling through paper records or looking through books and books and books of photos of criminals looking for a match. So much of this is now done in seconds by computers.

And yet if you get burgled tomorrow, then in all probability, the police won't even bother turning up. My Mrs worked at Boots recently and there was massive amounts of shoplifting which occurred every week and again, the police would never come out.

I guess there's cyber crime now and other forms of crime, but even so, I am struggling to understand what 160,000 police officers in the UK actually do every day.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Doesn't really answer the question that, does it mate.

The population across the UK has gone up by maybe 20% over the past 40 years, but it's not like police numbers have halved. We still have the same numbers of police, and now they have all sorts of tech which is supposed to help them and make them more efficient. Think how laborious it must have been trawling through paper records or looking through books and books and books of photos of criminals looking for a match. So much of this is now done in seconds by computers.

And yet if you get burgled tomorrow, then in all probability, the police won't even bother turning up. My Mrs worked at Boots recently and there was massive amounts of shoplifting which occurred every week and again, the police would never come out.

I guess there's cyber crime now and other forms of crime, but even so, I am struggling to understand what 160,000 police officers in the UK actually do every day.
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How much more paperwork do you think they need to complete these days?
 
Chippy_boy said:
Doesn't really answer the question that, does it mate.

The population across the UK has gone up by maybe 20% over the past 40 years, but it's not like police numbers have halved. We still have the same numbers of police, and now they have all sorts of tech which is supposed to help them and make them more efficient. Think how laborious it must have been trawling through paper records or looking through books and books and books of photos of criminals looking for a match. So much of this is now done in seconds by computers.

And yet if you get burgled tomorrow, then in all probability, the police won't even bother turning up. My Mrs worked at Boots recently and there was massive amounts of shoplifting which occurred every week and again, the police would never come out.

I guess there's cyber crime now and other forms of crime, but even so, I am struggling to understand what 160,000 police officers in the UK actually do every day.
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Drink coffee, eat cake, post racist and sexist “jokes” to each other?
Im exaggerating of course for effect, but the culture in many forces is appalling. Instead of doing something about it, senior officers turn a blind eye or cover it up.
 
Slightly unrelated (I really do hope!) is that there is wholesale "cheating" going on in the NHS with doctors surgeries.

For example, at my local surgery, there are around 15 GPs. None of them - and I mean that literally - none of them, work more than 3 days per week. You can check it on the publicly viewable roster. It might 3 full days, or maybe 2 full and 2 half days. You get the picture. 3 days total, max. And yet they receive full GPs pay.

When questioned about this, the response is that they do their full 40 hours on the 3 days. This is a lie. If you go past the surgery at 07:00 there are no cars in the staff car park. Ditto 8pm at night. No-one is doing 13 hour days.

I seriously hope this is not a pattern in the police force where officers are basically turning up and doing bugger all, or off on some other training course about how to remove fluff from your naval.
 
Chippy_boy said:
And what are they doing exactly?

My Mrs told me this morning about horrific situation in Chorley (I think) where kids are routinely being several beaten up - like jumping up and down on heads and kids potentially losing eyes or getting brain damage - and the police being "too busy" to do anything about it.

I know police numbers are down, but I wondered by how much, so I did a bit of Googling. Turns out there were roughly 120,000 police officers in England and Wales in the 1970's and although that number rose in between and has fallen back, there are today about 120,000 officers.

But back in the 70's we saw bobbies on the beat, routinely. Burglaries were followed up on, always. Fingerprints taken etc. Patrol cars visibly patrolling often. Local police stations existed, and were not closed due to "cuts". And they had no technology back then to help them either.

And yet nowadays, the police have all sorts of tech to help them fight crime. And they have the same numbers of police as before. So it made me think, what are they all actually doing? Is there lack of action to combat the sort of criminality described above actually more political by them, sending out a message saying "we need more resources", rather than an actual lack of resources, perhaps? The police say they are overstretched and can't cope. Overstretched on what?
Click to expand...
alot of the back office staff roles are now being done by officers. Huge decrease in civilian roles.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Slightly unrelated (I really do hope!) is that there is wholesale "cheating" going on in the NHS with doctors surgeries.

For example, at my local surgery, there are around 15 GPs. None of them - and I mean that literally - none of them, work more than 3 days per week. You can check it on the publicly viewable roster. It might 3 full days, or maybe 2 full and 2 half days. You get the picture. 3 days total, max. And yet they receive full GPs pay.

When questioned about this, the response is that they do their full 40 hours on the 3 days. This is a lie. If you go past the surgery at 07:00 there are no cars in the staff car park. Ditto 8pm at night. No-one is doing 13 hour days.

I seriously hope this is not a pattern in the police force where officers are basically turning up and doing bugger all, or off on some other training course about how to remove fluff from your naval.
Click to expand...
GPs are self employed. They’ll do 3 days in the surgery and the rest private to earn more money.

Loads of GPs are also retiring early because the tax/pension schemes have recently changed and they’re much worse off if they stay working.
 
In the 1970's there was no Drug problem bar 'mandys' and a bit of lsd so no gangs, guns and addicts.
There were no computers so no Internet fraud, no mobile phones worth hundreds of pounds to steal but also to facilitate crime.
The same number of coppers now have to deal with all of the above.
To be fair, GMP have sacked off their band.
But the real problem is not how many coppers we have but how we use them and the laws we give them. The laws are too complex, too hard to enforce and to dare I say it, woke (text messages that upset someone should not be investigated by the police.)
 
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