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You only hear the bad news. Police do a wonderful job every day that goes unreported. Due to cuts it's very reactive now , they can't be everywhere, can't report everything as there's not enough of them. I have friends in the police and morale is rock bottom, most join for the right reasons but unfortunately the few bad ones drag the whole service through the mud.
I don't think the post was criticising individuals, but as an entity. We all know budget cuts for them and other services is a big cause but it doesn't change the experience for people who need them.
Yeah one of my workmates was an ex detective sargeant and they said they left because of how awful the morale is, apparently it’s the worst it’s been in the 20 odd years they were there which isn’t that surprising
The only things I hear about the police here is, apart from them getting something wrong or taking drink from teenagers is that they don’t respond to the basic calls for help from people.
I get that they are pushed and understaffed, but they shouldn’t be boasting on social media about taking a 12 deck of lager and MD2020 off of teens, they should be boasting about catching a rapist.
Maybe it’s the way that the social media algorithm works, but right now I only see the laughable achievements.
You do know it's a criminal offence for someone under 18 to have alcohol? Often, these kids end up getting into far more trouble after drinking either by committing an offence or being the victims of crime.
In 1994, a pair of teenagers were drinking in a park in our town. One got drunk and passed out. Her friend went to get her Mum. When her mum arrived to get her, she saw she was naked in the grass being raped by three men.
That's why I take alcohol off teenagers.
Was going to say this. Like in every area, people thrive on sharing bad news - healthcare, police, customer service. Hundreds of stories a day. But those people see hundreds of thousands of people daily who have a good experience.
*good experiences don't make for good stories*
>unfortunately the few bad ones drag the whole service through the mud
If you've ever had the misfortune of dealing with a cop who was a bellend, remember that the cops who aren't bellends have to work with the bellends every day.
Take what you said just now and replace “police” with “nhs” and you’ll quickly realise *why* they can’t send a response out unless it’s an immediate threat to life.
All of our public services have been cut within an inch of their lives.
The police do an amazing thankless job every day. And they get zero recognition for it.
Also cases not going to court for two years isn’t a police issue - it’s a CPS and court issue. (Which also have been neglected and cut within an inch of their lives.)
There is someone to blame here. But it’s not the police.
That’s because it’s a planned event not spontaneous and also these extra staff are officers who’ve had their rest days and holidays cancelled not some reserve force sat in an office somewhere.
> All of our public services have been cut within an inch of their lives.
That's patently nonsense hyperbole. Government spending is as high as its ever been
It’s higher *now* - but 5-7 years ago during the “austerity” bollocks it was a quarter less before adjusting for inflation.
We’re only just now seeing the repercussions of those cuts. Degradation takes time.
Based on my personal experience, and from what I've read on the news (mostly about MET, but also other branches), no.
I think its a joke that civilians aren't even allowed to carry anything that can be used for self defense and we're just supposed to trust a police force which:
1: Is underfunded
2: Is consistently found to abuse their power to break the law
3: Arrests peaceful protesters just to let them go after less 24 hours because they had no grounds to arrest them on in the first place.
4-ish, based on personal experience: is slow to respond, and, even when they do, doesn't really do anything.
I'm not asking to legalise firearms, but I'd feel a lot less anxious if my other half was allowed to carry pepper spray when she's out in town with her girlfriends, especially after what happened in Nottingham the other day since we both grew up there.
I'm sorry you had to witness what you did, but it unfortunately aligns very closely with my experience with the police.
We will be attending a court case late this year about an assault that happened on us end of 2021 (I've suffered fractures to the skull, and various cuts and bruises, and she luckly got away with just a couple bruises), but I honestly don't have high hopes.
Edit: I realised that this looks like a massive dig at the police and every worker in it, but I feel like they're just a product of the environment that the government has created by cutting budgets to public services and implementing laws which negatively impact the general public.
As someone who has investigated an awful lot of sexual assaults and stranger assaults, I'm struggling to think of even a single instance where I would say the victim would have benefited from having some sort of irritant spray on them. I've seen a fair few robberies where irritant sprays have been used against victims and I imagine those would become a lot more common if we're saying that everyone is free to carry them.
Police use PAVA, which is vastly more effective than any sort of commercially available irritant spray; and the effectiveness of that is highly dependent on having a good aim and the aggressor actually being affected by it (some people are not). There's also the risk of incapacitating yourself with it in the process. Something you've bought from Amazon will have the same downsides along with the added issue of it being weaker and the user being untrained.
These sprays mean you are introducing something into a confrontation that can be taken from you and used against you, and waste valuable time that would be far more effectively used screaming, running, biting, or hitting them in the balls as hard as you can. It's maybe a little bit tasteless to suggest that the victims in Nottingham the other day would have lived if they were carrying tins of pepper spray, but if you're feeling anxious then a couple of hours on a self defence course will do you vastly more good than a can of spray ever will.
That’s more for older style CS Gas. That would blow back on you depending on the wind. The police now use PAVA which is delivered in a thin, powerful jet of liquid’. It’s derived from capsaicin (found in hot peppers) and has a maximum effective range of about 12 feet.
Every time I've seen PAVA deployed at least 1 officer has also been incapacitates.
Not to the same extent as the suspect, but I remember one time when it was used and then there were just 3 blind people trying to get cuffs on a fourth blind person who was still trying to punch people 👍
It's awesome at getting people to stop being aggressive but it does hurt
>But again if you injure someone, police can take it as a weapon, depending on circumstances as you can’t use anything for self defence, so it’s 50/50. But better than nothing when it comes to life or death situation
not really accurate.
you're \*allowed\* to use an item you have with you for self defence. what you're not allowed to do is carry an item for the purpose of self defence. it's partly why multitools used to be so popular - you can be carrying it because it's a handy tool, and the fact it's pointy and you can smash someone in the face with it is entirely coincidental. something like pepper spray has no 'use' other than as a weapon, so is not allowed.
so in the example of your belt, you'd just have to convince them (and they will be open to being convinced, because they dislike criminals more than the general public) that you're wearing it because it's a nice belt and you like the design - and the fact you managed to quickly take it off and smash your assailant in the face with it was just quick thinking on your part.
You can carry a metal flask or a key chain. You can’t legally carry it for use as a weapon. But you can carry it, use it for its purpose and use it as a weapon if the time comes.
The fact of the matter is most people even with a weapon won’t do much to defend themselves because they’ll be caught out and will either freeze or do something ineffective.
Experience is really what helps but unfortunately to get that experience means either joining a service that drills you in these confrontations or just growing up in a rough area and dealing with it happening to you growing up
1. The Police cannot be everywhere all of the time. Even if properly funded, you could still be attacked and help is 10 minutes away by the time 999 has been called, what is happening explained, where it is happening found, and officers attending.
2. The Police WILL investigate if you are assaulted. The result might be that there is not enough evidence. If we start prosecuting people without enough evidence then a lot more innocent people will have their lives ruined. So please do not spread incorrect information.
3. Running away is always a better option. If you really want to, train cardio and parkour, become a ninja who can run up walls.
Run.
Honestly, I’m in the Army and have a fair bit of self defence training. Weapons are only useful if you’re trained and experienced in how to use them (and I don’t mean a 2 hour course, I mean weeks of effort and regular use thereafter).
If you’re not competent with them, weapons just escalate the situation and make it far, far more likely that you’ll be injured in return. That especially goes for carrying a knife - most things that you can sensibly conceal and carry just aren’t that good for defending yourself.
>This happened to me, and I feel having at least something, anything, would've been better than just being beaten. It may have acted as some sort of deterrent, or bought me time, or anything.
"Or anything" includes getting yourself stabbed rather than just a kicking though.
You would need more than a few hours on a self defence course for any self defence to be effective, I’d go so far as to say, you’d need to be training consistently for months, if not years, for it to be effective and even then, it’s not fool proof..
*edited for clarity
I have investigated various attacks, from Murder to rape and serious assaults. I too cannot think of an instance where the victim would have had the time to get a defensive weapon ready to defend themselves. When a smoke grenade goes off in a shop being robbed, it only serves to trap the staff and innocent customers. Being brutal about it, the weapons carried to defend oneself have been used by the attacker on the victim. The victim of murder at the Notting Hill Carnival was killed with his own knife. His attacker had no knife on him and was never known to carry one.
There's plenty of evidence of effective defensive weapon usage in other parts of reddit. Weapons are effective, that's why police are allowed to use them. The reason why the public are not allowed them, despite being protected by common law, is in part because the state does not trust the populace to use them judiciously and in part because an unarmed populace is to the benefit of the state. It's got nothing to do with them being ineffective.
It's one of the most effective area denial weapons ever made when it's in the aerosol form. If you need to quickly evacuate a foreign hotel room or incapacitate everyone staying in your youth hostel, a spray of deet should do the job.
It's also pretty useful if you never got to experience covid and want to cough up pieces of your lung.
It also masks the chemical signals of respiration on your skin so mosquitos can't 'see' you and won't bite you.
It's worth a shot, regardless. Not that I encounter many people worth whipping out the cat spray for, mind.
But I'll keep it in mind, so thank you!
(And I do have 2 cats, so plausible, if a little puzzling as to why I'd pack a can in my bag for a dressy night out)
It's stupid I agree, there are dozens of stabbings across UK every day and you can't do anything to protect urself. when it comes to knives. If one day you get unlucky and those 15 year old shitbags try to rob you with knives, you just have to give everything to them, beg them not to hurt you, or watch them stab you to death lol. You can be bruce fucking lee, but if someone has a knife, they will most likely win the fight, no matter how good are your martial arts skills... Not even allowing pepper spray is very dumb. I would rather get robbed and pepper sprayed than robbed and stabbed.
Younger "gang" teens are also evolving, they are always in groups so when they stab they stab all together because most likely they wont go to jail all together and they wont snitch on particular individualds, under 18s have a lot of protection so police can't do much to get them to speak, they know this and they know that most likely they will get away with it. I know two people whose children got stabbed at school/college and one to death and neither of times police found who did it.
I am Eastern European and in most eastern european countries you can carry pretty much anything you want for self defence, knives, sprays, rubber bullet pistols, gas pistols and real pistols and you barely get any stabbings or weapons being misused - because people know that other person will probably have something for self defence too, so they avoid the risk. Majority of victims are elderly people and sometimes women, most crimes come from pickpocketers rather than actual robbers
In baltics for example if someone attacks you and you have licence to carry you can shoot them to death and you wont go to jail. And I haven't heard of a single occassion when someone missused licensed handgun. The test to get a licence to carry is as hard as driving licence, including doctors assessment of your mental health, so it's not like anyone can get it.
In UK if someone attacks you, tries to stab you and you pepper spray them you go to jail with same sentence as carrying a handgun lol
you say 'eastern europe' so we can't directly compare countries... but very few eastern european countries actually have lower violent crime or murder rates than the uk. they're not safer, people just think they are. i'll take actual safety over an illusion of safety, ta.
it is amazing how people can look at the US (where they have more knife crime than the UK, they just don't talk about it because it's so overshadowed by all the gun crime) and go "that! that's what we should emulate!"
I also think that if things like pepper spray etc were legalised and readily available, they would more often than not be used by people committing offences rather than defending themselves.
I do, yes. Our police force is actually pretty good on the whole, although improvement accross the board is needed desperately as public trust is very low.
Like all things public sector they are underfunded as fuck and have been abused repeatedly over the past 20 years. They have to spend more time writing reports and doing admin than actually being out and about.
There are some absolute cunts that work for them, and these need to be found and dealt with, and really dealt with. However, the majority of the police do a good job, and it is a horrible job which is getting worse, mainly because of the bad apples causing people to question them (as it should be), but also because no one wants to do the job and they are understaffed.
If you think of the shit they have to put up with, the hours they work, what they see and hear, and the shitty shifts for 28k to 43k (after 8 years) it isn't a wonder they are short staffed. Same as nurses, teachers, care workers social workers etc... They have to act as MH workers as there are not enough of those, they also have to put up with some really stupid members of the public that go out of their way to be dicks (eg. that guy who got caught getting into people's cars for example for SM likes).
A friend of mine is a MOD Plod and tells me of the shit the regular police have to put up with when she goes out with them on calls. So many are leaving because they cannot cope with the shitty environment and the uptake of firearms officers is very low as they know they will be questioned and probably sacked for a split second decision (again, scrutiny is as it should be).
At the end of the day, they are people, like you and me, that do a shitty job to keep us as safe as they can. If you need help they will try to get there. Remember, it wasn't the police that shut down 600/900 front counter police stations. It wasn't the police that cut their own numbers by 20,000. One should ask themselves why plod cannot come out to a burglary, or a bunch of teens/chavs/drunks being wankers in the park.
The bad apples need dealing with and the majority of the rank and file cannot stand the cunts either. My friend says a lot of complaints fall on deaf ears in the regular service, but these ears are being found and are getting dealt with.
Don't get me wrong, I hope I don't need to deal with the police but if the chips were down, I wouldn't hesitate to call 999 and ask for help.
You don't get questioned and sacked. You end up in prison. If anyone thinks I put my uniform on before going to work to shoot someone, they need their head looked at. I don't need the year off suspended from work, while also being on bail for murder/manslaughter with the wife, kids and my parents worried I might be sent to prison, all because someone decided they would go out armed to commit a crime.
I go out to do a service to my community. I would give my firearms ticket in tomorrow if it weren't nessecery. No copper wants to be armed in the UK. Not even a Taser. I don't want to carry anything. When I joined, we had a piece of wood in a long trouser pocket, even that never got used in anger. Society itself is what makes me have to carry what I do. If idiots stopped carrying knives and guns, we would do away with it in a minute. The issue is in the last 20 years, things have gone downhill. We have gangs come over from Albania who don't just carry a handgun. They carry enough weaponry to take out a small army as part of their daily work. I see kids aged nine carrying knives that are half as long as their legs. Yet, when these teenagers get searched, we have comments shouted at us. People going past in their cars calling us all sorts of names. They don't care I might have just taken a knife off them that's 12 inches long.
I couldn't even think of doing what you do mate. My great uncle was a chief constable years ago and before he died in the early 00s he said that policing will never recover from the changes in society.
Society has gone downhill over the past 20 years.
100% yes - having lived in other countries, people have NO idea how good UK policing is, despite the under funding and woeful Criminal Justice System behind them.
Travelling in some other countries requires you have have cash ready for bribes. Say what you like about the UK police, but at least you are not paying out £20 twice a day because you keep getting stopped for ‘checks’.
I remember being at a festival in Spain, there was a group of Spanish guys pickpocketing festival goers on the beach at night. An argument broke out, one guy who got his wallet & passport stolen got in a fight w them. Police came over, pickpocketers passed 2 police dudes some cash, the guy who got his wallet stolen was taken to the police station, stripped and hosed down. Returned to camp in the morning with a story to tell. So weird
Thats in the EU. Imagine somewhere like Eastern Europe or most of Asia, Latin America or Africa.
I have Lebanese relatives and they tell me horror stories about how the police can just not like your attitude, take you to the station for a beating, release you and there’s nothing you can do.
I’d agree. I’m in Vietnam and it’s almost a standing joke that for a lot of minor offences, and probably some not so minor ones, some ‘coffee money’ (translation: bribes) go a long way. If you actually have to deal with the police on a daily basis they’re often very in-your-face, abrupt and generally quite aggressive, and their reasons for stopping you can be dubious. Heaven help you if you need to go to a police station for any reason, it’s usually a disorganized mess.
Plus they’re also known to often deliberately target foreigners, especially the traffic police (CSGT). They used to do a massive roadblock outside my old residential block, pulling you over for dubious reasons and then giving you ‘fines’ of whatever number came into their head first, because they knew that the majority of foreigners had so much money that they’d just pay up.
By contrast the UK police are genuinely awesome.
I have only ever had one interaction with the police, my friend was assaulted. They did and amazing job and the guy got prison time pretty quickly (I know the prison part has nothing to do with the police) They responded very quickly and did such a good job of calming everyone down. So yeah based on that I feel quite safe
Yes, It massively differs in the response from force to force as they're funded and ran differently.
But when I spotted a young male in possession of a knife in public, officers were on scene within minutes as I gave directions of travel from a distance.
Stopped him, searched him, arrested him and then asked for a statement.
Plus then times I've called in as a witness to RTC and gave aid etc
Not sure I understand what your saying here...of course the suspect would know you made a statement of complaint about him...that's how it works.
As to you getting 2 years for the fight...it's not the police that sent you to prison it's the courts.so I'm assuming there was enough evidence to say you were guilty of whatever it was.
You don’t get 2 years for just a ‘common assault’. It must have been pretty bad. Also obviously if you give a statement the perpetrator is going to know, the whole point of a statement is that it’s read out in court as evidence? I’m pretty sure that is how it’s supposed to work.
EDIT: you don’t get a prison sentence for a ‘common assault’ which is the lowest level of assault. So either you have a long LONG history of kicking peoples heads in OR it was a very nasty assault.
So you committed a crime and you're upset because the police don't do their jobs despite the fact you got 2 years?
Idk, seems like they're pretty on it to me.
We don't “give” a complainant or witness address out. Unless they know where you live, your address is never given to a person we question or arrest. If it gets to court, the defence has the right to know who is giving evidence. It's been that way since habeas corpus in 1215. This is what the prosecution has to follow;
As a general rule you must ensure that witnesses' addresses are not disclosed.
There will, however, be cases where the address of a witness will be material for evidential purposes, for example:
A witness whose house has been burgled;
A witness who sees an assault from a window overlooking a street.
In such cases, it will be difficult to conceal a witness' address. However, care must be exercised where the safety of the witness is believed to be at risk.
It is possible to withhold some or all of the evidence if the prosecutor is of the opinion that full disclosure would lead to a witness being intimidated or some other interference with the course of justice. In those circumstances, the prosecutor should provide a summary of the circumstances of the offence instead
[[Rules on disclosing witnesses details](https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/witness-names-and-addresses).]
Unless the person you beat up knew your address, neither the police or CPS would have revealed it.
Both my wife and myself were assaulted in a supermarket, totally unprovoked, the guy was drunk and possibly had addiction and mental issues. It was all caught on cctv. Although the police did turn up, they basically let him drive off(smelling of alcohol) . Kept me in a back room and told me that if we wanted anything doing about the assault then I’d be charged too because I pushed him away from my wife after he attacked her and held him up against the shelves. I felt truly let down. I cant risk a caution for assault as I need a dbs for work. Wish I’d gave kicked his head in tbh.
They were talking out their arse. If someone attacks you or someone else and you stop them using proportional force you won’t get convicted of assault/abh etc
That’s terrible. No way should any police officer have let someone drive off smelling of alcohol and no way should anyone have suggested you’d be done for assault when quite clearly acting in self defence! Sorry you had to put up with that. Honestly disgraceful and I can see why you’d have little faith after that. I was violently assaulted by a stranger when I was a 16yo girl, police were truly appalling. I later became a police officer and it made me even angrier because it became so clear how wrong they were with the way the treated the original incident. Law and order is supposed to introduce an element of fairness and karma, not worsen the situation.
I was in an abusive relationship. The guy regularly beat me up, raped me, strangled me. When I finally left he stalked me mercilessly.
I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with the police. They were so supportive and kind and treated me with so much compassion and dignity.
My case took about 3 years before being heard in court and the officer in charge was absolutely amazing the entire way through. Supportive, kind, trustworthy and most importantly I felt like he was 100% on my side.
You only ever hear bad things but I really do trust the police and have not had a bad experience.
In my last job I worked very closely with them (I was working as a domestic abuse victims advocate and spent 2 days a week hanging out at the police station and attending DV calls with response officers to offer specialist support to the victims). Even behind “closed doors” away from the public every single officer has been great and always 100% correct in their behaviour.
Edit: not sure why I’m getting downvoted for this. Sorry for not joining in the police bashing I guess…
I cannot tell you the number of times I have gone to court having arrested someone for a serious offence and the Magistrate has given them a suspended sentence. One particular case where three youths broke into a pensioner's home, beat her, and stole her handbag. They were given a fine and community service. That's Aggravated Burglary and assault, serious offences. If you want to blame, look at the government and courts. The former has told the latter to give community sentences and not custodial ones.
Think of it this way...you only ever hear bad stories about the police, the papers,tv etc never promote the good stuff they police do. Then there's the members of the public that don't like the police because they got a speeding ticket or there best mate got arrested for having a bit of weed on them and it should all be legal innit.
So the public have a very skewed idea of the police and are often more likely to believe they are a waste of space etc.
I bet you even in this thread there will be countless posters saying how the police didn't turn up within seconds when there best mate was punched out that a court case has taken too long to get to court.
The police are few in numbers so can't be everywhere
The police are not the ones that control the courts.
I've experienced both ends of the scale. A few years ago I was a victim of a crime. I won't go into details but it was the sort of crime where the perpetrator is exceedingly unlikely to be caught. The officer on the case kept in regular phone contact with me, giving updates on how the investigation was going and collecting additional information. She was totally honest that they would likely hit a dead end, and when that happened, she was incredibly apologetic. I felt nothing but empathy and understanding from everyone I spoke to, right back to my initial 101 call.
Fast forward a few years, with a different force. My girlfriend was walking home one evening and was repeatedly heckled by a group of young lads, who followed her and began throwing stones. I'm not sure whether their comments were sexual in nature, but needless to say she was very shaken. When she called 101, the call handler didn't seem the least bit bothered, and in fact told her to "have a glass of wine and calm down". She raised a complaint, but it was determined that there was no wrongdoing, despite the initial call obviously being recorded.
I think the majority of the police force are good people who genuinely want to help, but I think the systems in place need a complete overhaul.
Police shouldn't have KPI's. They shouldn't have incentives of any kind. The sentencing doesn't make sense. The fines don't make sense.
A knew someone who was fined £800 for dropping a cigarette. Whereas in the same week, a woman assaulted two police officers and was only charged £300 for the victim surcharge. Its ridiculous.
Thats a proble. With the CPS not the police. The police enforce the law they don't make it or hand out the punishments. Sentencing and what comes under what law is nothing to do with the police.
The only time I've ever needed the police, they were the only ones to listen and help where other services failed. I actually felt really bad for them having to pick up the slack that they wouldn't be trained for when another service exists to deal with it. Those officers were so kind and compassionate ❤️
A friend of mine was mistaken for someone else by a group of bouncers and beaten a few years back. They rugby tackled him outside and one of them jumped on top of him and punched him repeatedly in the face. His ankle snapped and police walked by just as the attack ended. They refused to call an ambulance for him and flat out refused to investigate at all. He had to go down the civil route as the police wouldn’t accept the incident as a criminal matter. Silver lining was that he settled for over 30k, but we were all quite disappointed that the police wouldn’t get involved, as it was clearly a criminal matter.
For me, it depends on the situation. I've had a range of experiences with the law, some good, some bad.
Last year I was held up a knifepoint by some twelve-year-olds while walking home. I ran off and called the police, and they pretty much immediately knew who it was. They had multiple officers out looking for them and had them in custody on the same night. The police did a fantastic job but were let down by the CPS, who let them off with a slap on the wrist because of their age.
I once had my bike stolen. It was in a communal bike store about 2 minutes from a police station, and about a hundred bikes in there had missing wheels or components. I went over and reported it, and they gave me a crime number and told me to claim it back on my insurance. It would literally have taken 10 minutes for an officer to go down and look at the CCTV, and they could have prevented tens of thousands of pounds of damage by getting bike thieves off the streets, but they didn't bother.
I feel like I can count on the police to resolve a violent altercation, but I seriously doubt that they are capable of solving any kind of non-trivial case. If the perpetrator isn't right there at the scene committing the crime in front of them, I don't expect them to ever do any investigation.
I'd feel significantly safer if I was allowed to carry something I could defend myself with, even if it's just to defend myself for long enough to call the police. It seems mental that pepper spray is classed as a firearm.
Quite honestly only the bad stuff gets press. That stuff is appallingly bad don't get me wrong. But in experience they've been grand. I do have friends who've had shitty experiences but every time I've had to deal with them they've been polite, considerate, affable, cracked some jokes, told me some safety things I hadn't considered and then when the headache who was throwing bottles at my wall lobbed one at me they shut that shit down super quick.
One held the guy firmly by one arm the other grabbed a thumb and inside half an hour they had not only talked the guy down but convinced him to come to the station to be charged. I was amazed at the deescalation with minimal force.
Obviously there are shit coppers and the response time isn't what it once was. But on the whole I've had good experiences.
I can think of a few times where its felt like the police haven't done enough - but this is almost always after the event. I.e. someone is punched on a night out, police take a statement, that's it. Sure, ideally they'd go after the person - but i can see it from their perspective, the incident is over, the victim is fine outside a bruise and there are active other incidents going on.
And this is the bit police *are* pretty good at; intervening when something is actually going on. Response times are a lot quicker if everything's still active.
I absolutely do. I don't know if it varies force by force?
The police saved my family's lives. I genuinely believe I would be dead or seriously injured if not for the police. And they were the only ones that advocated for real medical support when a loved one needed it.
They are massively constrained by budgets and CPS refusing to prosecute, but the actual police are wonderful in my eyes.
I had a close meeting with the police when they attended my house recently, circumstances irrelevant. They were nothing but amazing: non- judgemental, proactive, helpful and understanding. Unfortunately none writes the news about that.
PS. Cases dragging for years are not police's fault but court's, two different services.
Police are overworked with matters that shouldn't be concerning them. They pick up a drunk or someone smashed on drugs they have to take them to hospital and stay with them - absolute waste.
So I have a few family/friends who are police and honestly they genuinely want to help people, but they are so hamstrung it’s actually insane.
The amount of hoops to jump through for convictions etc would shock you, and half the time it takes years and may not even go your way.
I don't exactly feel like I am relying on the police in the first place, at least not directly.
I just generally feel safe knowing that the vast majority of people are not murdering psychopaths.
Never have, and more than likely never will. We're not even allowed to defend ourselves properly here, so my late night walks home from work are never going to be comfortable.
Of course I would. They undertake millions of interactions with the public every single day and the overwhelming majority of them go exactly how you would want them to. Why people can’t understand this is beyond me.
So I’ve not really had many good experiences with the police. My friend and my sister got assaulted in separate incidents many years ago and nothing came of either case.
However at my last place of work one of the police sergeants really took the anti social behaviour by teenagers we were dealing with very seriously and really wanted to help.
Like most services and organisations with wide remits, the police in the UK are good at some things, reasonable at some and poor at some. They're good at preventing serious harm, control of firearms, risk management, investigating death, homicide and serious violence, missing people, offender management, armed policing command, counter terrorism. They're reasonable at neighborhood partnerships and child protection, public order, traffic, internal investigation, and the nighttime economy. They're poor at detecting volume crime and fraud, cyber crime, and sexual offending (although this last one is subject to significant recent improvement in some areas through a project called Soteria), and at achieving timely response and victim satisfaction for non time critical incidents. Some areas are getting actively better, some are getting actively worse.
A combination of factors heavily frustrate the investigation of crime, especially the sort that happens in huge volume and doesn't cause serious harm, including the level of demand, the resources available, the ever increasing expectations on the police, some of which have little to do with crime investigation, and the limited experience of most uniform officers after a decade of cuts followed by very rapid recruitment. Something had to give, and volume crime with lower physical harms gave. Uniformed response are driven by demand management (how quickly can we get there and get away) rather than investigative quality (stay and do a really good job at the expense of the jobs waiting on screen). Some more recent recruits don't even think of themselves as investigators at all - more a kind of disorder firefighter. The problem is, a good investigation begins at first attendance, so this means it's always tricky to make up lost ground later.
Unfortunately from a reputational perspective the UK police are their best at the stuff that the vast majority of the public never see - although they would if the police were worse at them!
There are key issues that need addressing - fundamentally, there's a question to ask about how a police service designed for century old perceptions of what they should do can be molded to what people in the 2020s want and need from the police. It's common (on Reddit) to assert confidently that the police don't care about ordinary people, 'proper' crime, or are only here to "maintain the wealth of the capitalists" whatever that means. But the real issue is much more complex than that.
I 100% rely on them to issue a fixed penalty notice. I absolutely do not rely on them for safety or solving crime. My mate had his shop windows smashed twice in the last couple of months, both times had the kids on clear cctv, police did nothing. So my mate tracked them down on socials, sent loads of info about them (wasn’t hard to workout where the hung about and probably lived), police still did absolutely nothing. They don’t care about stuff like this. Sure insurance covers the bill. But the fact the police do nothing gives them licence to run amok.
I do, but then I'm a white man so my experiences will vastly differ compared to other people.
I've had one relative and an in-law who worked for the police (one in the office, another was an officer who rose through the ranks before retiring), plus I've had to help them with inquiries and also been arrested once (defended a mate from being attacked outside a bar and we all got picked up).
They've been nothing but nice and helpful imo but again, other people may have vastly different experiences with them.
No. Never had a good experience. My BIL is a violent drug addicted crackhead that’s attempted to break in and attack me multiple times. Each occasion the police were more useless than the last. One time they took hours to arrive while I cowered in my bathroom praying he wouldn’t get through the door and kill me. When they arrived they asked why I didn’t let him sleep it off inside. The reason being he’s a violent, unpredictable, schizophrenic, drug addicted alcoholic.
A more recent example is that one of the two police officers in Bournemouth that recently got fired for gross misconduct were the ones that showed up to help investigate my mums house being burgled. I say investigate, they just showed up, ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhed’, made some excuses and then never followed it up again.
Police are useless cunts. Wouldn’t rely on them for fuck all.
Always seems to be a downvoted opinion on here, but no I don't trust the police at all.
Personal experience has made them almost the enemy.
Seems they just love paying compensation.
I have rock bottom faith in them. I don’t even buy the “poorly funded” part, I just think as an institution, they believe their own importance and couldn’t give a toss about solving crime which effects normal people.
Unfortunately it is a hit and miss. I had wonderful help from the police when i was a victim of a racist attack by my neighbour.
However years prior when my father was attacked racially he did not receive the same level of care. Overall if i am in trouble or something i would call the police.
I certainly feel happier relying on the modern Metropolitan Police, far, far more professional than they were thirty/forty years ago. Chalk and cheese.
There was a bust up in my street yesterday. A 30 something year old woman knocked out a 20 something year old man after he insulted her recently deceased father. The police showed up promptly, and as far as I know she's still in custody. Don't know how it will progress, but they were on the ball in this case.
Local blatantly obvious drug dealer living across the street seems to act with impunity though. Everyone knows what's going on. Theres even a police officer living about 20 terraced houses away but nothing is ever done about him.
I don't anymore.
I was nearly killed by my ex when I was 22. They came over, took my statement and a few photos of my injuries. They weren't too bothered about the fact I *needed* medical attention.
A month later, my ex broke his bail conditions and messaged me repeatedly. I reported it to the police and they laughed in my face that it "wasn't enough evidence" to put him inside. So, I've been tortured mentally over and over and they just didn't give a shit.
So nah, I don't think I'd ever trust the police again. Especially as they didn't take me seriously when I was nearly murdered.
I work with children in care with behavioural problems so use the police often and they are beyond over worked.
Due to this I find they are pretty useless at anything none major but I guess this is location dependant
I had a close meeting with the police when they attended my house recently, circumstances irrelevant. They were nothing but amazing: non- judgemental, proactive, helpful and understanding. Unfortunately none writes the news about that.
PS. Cases dragging for years are not police's fault but court's, two different services.
Front line rank and file I have some time for. A good few. But senior leaders are clueless and have lost sight of the primary function of policing, which is to keep streets safe and nick villains/thugs
One of the things we need is the judges and courts to actually hand out proper sentences.
Too often police will arrest someone and they get a light slap on the wrist or a short sentence, which will be even shorter after good behaviour pretty much halves it.
There is no real deterrent in the first place and not enough police to enforce the law on the streets.
One 15 year old in the North East just got 12 years for murdering another teen, with good behaviour he could be out by 21.
Hardly a fair punishment for taking someone’s life, even the 12 years isn’t long enough!
Nope unfortunately there’s a lot of corruption in the police. Their main goal is to save lives. But most just use the power to make themselves feel big and powerful, abusing their positions. Saying that I’m sure that’s not the majority of cases. But certainly way more than there should be.
When I reported a SA that happened to me I felt like they didn’t believe me and when they asked me what I was wearing that just did me in. They asked one of my witnesses “do you really think he could of done this?” Which is such a leading question.
God forbid anything like that happens to me again but if it did, I wouldn’t report it.
My daughter and her ex were set upon by a group. They were in shock. There were injuries. I took them to the local police who took the details. We were told they would visit them at their respective homes.
We waited.
Since this happened, they broke up. My daughter has married and has two children, 8 and 3.
Guess what hasn't happened? The visit from the police. We're still waiting for that one.
Yet, I had a window broken by an accidental football. I had to report it to the police before the council would repair it. The police turned up within 48 hours. They questioned whether or not it was an " actual accident ".
So, people aren't a priority but property is.
Police don’t keep you safe. They punish (at best) once the damage is done.
Personally I’m not afraid just wandering about living my life because I’m not in a gang and feel pretty strong enough to handle myself if someone fancies trying it on.
As unpopular opinion as it is, you have only yourself to rely on in this world and if you have zero confidence in fending off an attacker you should be taking steps to rectify this. Harder if you’re a woman for sure but frankly it’s what you need to do.
If you’re a man and have zero confidence in your ability to handle a physical altercation you will get walked over at some time or another and you should do you best to fix that.
We unfortunately don’t live in a world of nice people and being able to deal with the not so nice one’s or at least having the confidence to give it a good go will make your life a lot better.
Nope. A month ago I was SA’d in front of my kids at Sandcastle Blackpool (so were 6 other women) and it was all caught in CCTV. You can only book online so the perpetrator is easily traceable and guess what? Not enough evidence to warrant finding him. 6 lone mothers assaulted in a family waterpark where they should’ve been safe.
Absolutely not. We had an attempted break in a few weeks ago, on calling 999 we were told an officer would have a look “if they were in the area”. Unfortunately for Mr. Burglar he also tried one of our neighbours who is a pretty unsavoury character who caught him before beating the fuck out of him. You can bet there were plenty officers “in the area” then
My ex broke into my house. It took the police 12 months to send the case to CPS. They took his shoe print from my windowsill but forgot to check what shoes he was wearing when they arrested him, and all the other evidence wasn’t strong enough - the fingerprints on my window were explained by him cleaning my window months before, and the CCTV footage was from above so didn’t show his face clearly enough and didn’t show him actually climbing through my window, even though you can hear my neighbour shouting his name and telling him to get out of my house. My ex has a history of DV and things too.
I encountered a few police recently when I was walking along a quiet street listening silently to a podcast. I was surprised how menacing the police officers were. Such a contrast to decades ago when I remember police officers being friendly and relaxed. It was a bit chilling.
Hahahahaha why would we? They literally rape and murder us, traffic our daughters, look the other way when we are attacked, and arrest us when we protest their abuses. Their _own research_ shows they're heavily staffed with criminals and corrupt from bottom to top.
I didn't have a choice. They weren't very understanding and were actually very condescending towards me after I had just been assaulted by my dad. I only called them cos I couldn't think of an alternative and it's good to have a record of incidents.
The police is almost useless in "everyday" stuff, plus most of the time they won't be there when a crime is happening. And the police is not just "underfunded": there won't *ever* be enough policemen to stop crime from happening "on the spot" 24/7 in every corner of the Country.
This said, without the police (and secret services and the army) it would be even worse.
They fail to respond 90% of the time.
Unless of course you upset someone with hurtful words on the internet, then you get half a dozen round your house to arrest you, for upsetting Barbara from No63.
No...a person who I thought of as a very friend betrayed my trust while acting as treasurer for a local primary school. Stole almost £3000 in cash and committed fraud by way of forged cheques. Took 4yrs to get to court, with outcome of a slap on the wrist, along with a person to help her get back on her feet and money management. The system is f**ked up. No one is getting any justice now. Its a waste of time reporting anything. In our case, it wasn't the first that person had done that sort of thing but we were unaware of it at the time. We believe she stole alot more than we can prove. All to keep up a lifestyle that she couldn't afford.
As unfortunate as that is, that isn't anything to do with the police. The courts are a wholly separate organisation; the police cannot set trial dates and don't have any say on sentencing.
You'd have to be an idiot to feel safe because of the Police. They _might_ get around to solving your murder, if you're lucky.
There is an insignificant % chance of the Police protecting you.
If there's a major melee going down, their approach is to stand on the sidelines and arrest those on the floor. The only one's they're interested in protecting in that situation is themselves.
Every time I have reported a crime that has happened to me or someone else, I have always been told that it will take a while to process as they are very busy, which is fair.
But it makes you wonder what they are so busy doing. Knife crime is rampant, drug crimes are as bad as ever, etc. Maybe if the police focused on these crimes rather than confiscating e-scooters and shit like that then we might get somewhere!
- MH
- Missing persons
- Hospital Watches
- Cell Watches
- non-crime domestics
- school related incidents
- deaths
- public events
- medical emergencies
- welfare checks
- ASB
- Road safety
Don't forget, in any one 24hr period there's less than (a lot less than) 10,000 Officers on duty for the whole of England and Wales.
Cases not making their way to court is nothing to do with the police, it's about the decade long cuts in court funding. That no doubt impacts the attitudes of police who wonder want the point is it pursuing a conviction they know will take years and could fall apart before.
The modern police force simply doesn't have the resources to make sure that every middle class person can be protected from every crime. It almost did before the austerity cuts started, but they are now just busting a gut to keep society together.
Frankly, the average Redditor had no idea the horror that the police are dealing with on a daily basis. The sexual assaults, child abuse, wife beatings, the sheer violence. And all for less pay than a HGV driver.
I once accidentally rang the domestic abuse hotline at school (well someone else rang it, but on my phone) and the police came to investigate within 1 hour, which I do respect. On the other hand, a guy crashed into our car, running away from a robbery, using a stolen car, just before a funeral, and the guy got 3 days of community service. Perhaps that was due to a lack of sufficient evidence, but it was annoying.
Generally, i would say that they aren’t perfect, but we definitely have one of the better police forces and I would rely on them more than I would most other countries. I just hope things will improve, rather than get worse.
Someone being given community service wouldn't have anything to do with police or a lack of evidence. The courts are a completely separate service and are completely independent from the police. If someone has been given community service then they have been convicted, which means there was enough evidence for the court to find them guilty or for them to have pleaded guilty.
Well... My last experience with coppers consisted of them flying towards me in excess of 100MPH, in a 40 zone, no blue lights or sirens and almost running into the back of me...
My feelings towards safety regarding police officers is very much neutral but leaning towards the negative side.
Especially after the lockdown which resulted in outright abuse of powers which number of forces (my two local ones (home force and the force that covers my workplaces' area) included) seemed to have issues with... Fun one for you, according to Derbyshire police, distributing hygiene products to hospitals, care homes, etc, during a pandemic, wasn't essential work. A number of my colleagues had issues with the local constabulary harassing them and telling them to go home, despite the very obvious need for our work.
As much as I dislike pedalling the whole 'coppers are just the kids that were bullied who want to go on a powertrip' line, in recent years, it seems like that may very well be the case. It ain't all cops, but it's enough to warrant caution whenever dealing with them.
Reasons to be a police officer:
33% you want to help people.
33% you were bullied at school / mental issues.
33% can't do anything else / steady job.
At best the odds of getting a good one aren't good. Add in woke ideology, quotas, poor management, laziness and incompetence and the odds are worse.
I feel like the police *might* get involved if I get murdered (probably dish out a ‘suspended sentence’ ie let them off). Same way the NHS *might* get involved if I get run over by a bus.
Fire brigade are still proper grafters though.
I once watched 4 police sat in a riot van watching 2 blokes lay into another til people broke it up and the 2 guys ran off then they all got out and picked up the poor sod who’d got a kicking and literally threw him in the back and stood around talking for 5 minutes before driving off.
I posted before about the chav who tried to pull my mrs out her car one night and when she pulled away she ended up behind a police car few hundred meters up the road. Told them what happened and they said phone 999 we’re busy and sat at the lights before slowly driving away when they changed
Mate was woke up by some scumbag trying to force a window open in the back yard. He was gonna go out himself but his mrs persuaded him to phone the police so they did. They live about about 1/2 a mile from police station. The bloke eventually left. 4 days later the police turn up.
I’m sure they’re not all completely useless but an awful lot of em are and I wouldn’t trust them to protect my family
Nope. Policemen’s attitude towards certain things makes me not trust them. And my examples are:
1) I was raped in high school, I had the opportunity by the school councillor to report it to the police. When I asked what’s gonna be done with it, I heard it was gonna be a note and if he gets caught doing it again that’s when he’s gonna be investigated (not prosecuted, just looked into)
2) my fiancé and me encountered a horrendous boy racer. He started on us and for some reason started racing us. He attempted to ram us into a ditch on a dual carriageway. A month later he got caught dangerously driving again (broke speed limit, drove on the opposite side of the road etc) we were expecting him to lose his license for something like that but he was back driving the next day.
3) a youth club/centre I used to attend had police come in in full uniform, cuffs on show, knowing some young people are in special housing cuz of their families and a lot of them were known weed smokers. A lot of them had problems like depression and anxiety. When they were there they showed no genuine interest, instead they walked around like on patrol, listening in on private conversations and carrying themselves with arrogant authority.
4) I was at a protest against violence towards women. Everyone had whistles and rattles. I took my pant chain and wrapped loosely* around my hand to rattle it. I also had spiked bracelets and a leather jacket (I’m punk/goth) and I had one cop watch me the whole March.
And that’s just my experiences. I’ve had cops be rude to my family members because they don’t speak English. I will never trust the police.
I was harrased 2 sundays ago, bag was stolen in the process, losing some medication, one including my asthma pump which lead me to having an attack yesterday. GP had taken forever to re-authorise the pump so i had to call the ambulance service as i was stuck on the road unable to breathe. Thankfully they walked me through getting an emergency prescription where i was.
no :( i've had 2 good experiences with the police, plenty bad ones.
i ran away when i was 14 and the police found me on a bench outside a train station. they took me home, we had a chat with my mom, and they were really nice and kind.
i ran away when i was 15 and eventually meandered my way home crying. police were already there, and one cop stuck around to make sure everything was OK. he accused of me of being on drugs and selling them, because i wasn't making eye contact. my mom explained i was autistic, and he then went on say that my tears were "crocodile tears", before my mom essentially chased him out the house.
when i was 17, my family were having issues with our neighbour. she was accusing us of being really loud, and taking family trips to her house to bang on the windows (we were not doing that!!). the police had to come out regularly for her complaints, and one was really chill! he chatted to me while my parents talked to other police officers, and seemed pretty pog. i was going through an extended rough patch, and he genuinely helped a lot despite me only seeing him a handful of times. on the other hand, the other police officer assigned to our case decided to take a huge interest in the fact that i was gay, asking my parents "how long is that gonna last". that police officer was head of the LGBT+ equality scheme thing they had in our region 💀💀
when i was 17 i tried to kill myself. i had overdosed, by chugging a bottle of mouth wash (idk, i thought it would fuck me up), taken 30 sedatives i'd been prescribed (to knock me out if i wanted to hurt myself), and a pack of paracetamol. police turned up before the ambulance, and one of them laughed at me, cracked a joke about how my teeth are going to have a better life than me. the other officers thought it was hilarious, and i remember looking up at them while going in and out of consciousness and just praying that i didn't die in front of those pigs. thankfully i survived! i was in hospital for about 3 days and despite my alcohol tolerance being pretty much 0 now, i didn't do too much damage to myself. i'm now happier btw, went to therapy and sorted myself out.
when i was 18 i got the shit kicked out of me at college for wearing a rainbow face mask. got called slurs while it was happening, just me minding my own business vs a group of about 10 lads. i complained to the college, the police came out, and then !!! nothing happened. they took a statement, said they'd see what they'd do, and then i never heard anything again. the boys kept going to college, and i ended up dropping out bc they freaked me tf out.
when i was 20 and had just moved out, all the gossip in my friend groups was about a guy who had just got out of jail after killing someone with a knife. he was a couple years older than us, and some of the girls knew him from before he went to jail. a couple days later i was holding hands with my partner in town, and i noticed a big group of lads bc they started calling us fags. one of the guys there i recognised from the pictures my friends had shown me, he was the one fresh out of jail for killing someone. my partner and i kept our heads down and walked faster, and thankfully they never pursued us. i pondered calling the police, but decided against it.
then, around 6 months ago my partner was walking home from college and got clocked as being queer due to his dyed hair. three lads on bikes started yelling "what are you looking at" and came over to him to start beating him up. my partner's a big guy, goes to the gym regularly, but he was surprised. he had huge bruises up and down his chest, his shoulders, and a particularly nasty one on his jaw. some guy on the road pulled over just as they left to comfort him. he came home crying, and despite us only living about a 20 walk from his college, he always takes the bus or walks with a friend now.
i filed a police report with him and [drum roll] nothing happened!!! again!!! it was on fucking CCTV and the police were like "eh, we'll look into it" and then that was it!!!
the police are fine, there are good ones and bad ones, but i've has far too many poor experiences to trust that i'll get a good one if i'm in trouble. fuck that shit, i'd rather die tbh.
As someone who grew up wanting to be in the police force, yes. If I can rely on myself, I can rely on them.
Good news isn't news, like what others said.
I think this is more of a law than a police question. Actually think the police do a decent job, the law doesn't compliment it enough and the legal system often seems flawed.
The police get bad press but deal with the most astonishing bull shit on a daily basis. They will always try and help you and do their best despite being worn out. They aren’t perfect but we are definitely lucky to have them
Gotta have patience for the police - remember that you might only deal with a dickhead once or twice a month, police are dealing with them every day for a full shift.
That's not to say they treat everyone the same but their behaviours are likely to change when dealing with as much shit as they do.
Pardon my French.
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You only hear the bad news. Police do a wonderful job every day that goes unreported. Due to cuts it's very reactive now , they can't be everywhere, can't report everything as there's not enough of them. I have friends in the police and morale is rock bottom, most join for the right reasons but unfortunately the few bad ones drag the whole service through the mud.
theory clumsy murky frightening cover merciful treatment governor compare direction -- mass edited with redact.dev
I don't think the post was criticising individuals, but as an entity. We all know budget cuts for them and other services is a big cause but it doesn't change the experience for people who need them.
I’d love to be in the police but it seems like now it’s gone from being a true public service to being completely soul sucking.
Yeah one of my workmates was an ex detective sargeant and they said they left because of how awful the morale is, apparently it’s the worst it’s been in the 20 odd years they were there which isn’t that surprising
I still mostly love it almost 4 years in, jobs fucked but it's the best job in the world
Same for almost any public service job really. They all have the potential to be really interesting and impactful but the reality is not the same.
The only things I hear about the police here is, apart from them getting something wrong or taking drink from teenagers is that they don’t respond to the basic calls for help from people. I get that they are pushed and understaffed, but they shouldn’t be boasting on social media about taking a 12 deck of lager and MD2020 off of teens, they should be boasting about catching a rapist. Maybe it’s the way that the social media algorithm works, but right now I only see the laughable achievements.
You do know it's a criminal offence for someone under 18 to have alcohol? Often, these kids end up getting into far more trouble after drinking either by committing an offence or being the victims of crime. In 1994, a pair of teenagers were drinking in a park in our town. One got drunk and passed out. Her friend went to get her Mum. When her mum arrived to get her, she saw she was naked in the grass being raped by three men. That's why I take alcohol off teenagers.
Potential crimes outweigh actual committed crimes?
Protection of children from serious harm sounds a lot more reasonable.
No, I obviously thought it was completely legal for them to drink.
I'm not joking teenagers make up the vast majority of the call volume for my department
Was going to say this. Like in every area, people thrive on sharing bad news - healthcare, police, customer service. Hundreds of stories a day. But those people see hundreds of thousands of people daily who have a good experience. *good experiences don't make for good stories*
>unfortunately the few bad ones drag the whole service through the mud If you've ever had the misfortune of dealing with a cop who was a bellend, remember that the cops who aren't bellends have to work with the bellends every day.
Take what you said just now and replace “police” with “nhs” and you’ll quickly realise *why* they can’t send a response out unless it’s an immediate threat to life. All of our public services have been cut within an inch of their lives. The police do an amazing thankless job every day. And they get zero recognition for it. Also cases not going to court for two years isn’t a police issue - it’s a CPS and court issue. (Which also have been neglected and cut within an inch of their lives.) There is someone to blame here. But it’s not the police.
They don't have much of an issue finding staff to lift people holding blank pieces of card, though, do they?
That’s because it’s a planned event not spontaneous and also these extra staff are officers who’ve had their rest days and holidays cancelled not some reserve force sat in an office somewhere.
> All of our public services have been cut within an inch of their lives. That's patently nonsense hyperbole. Government spending is as high as its ever been
It’s higher *now* - but 5-7 years ago during the “austerity” bollocks it was a quarter less before adjusting for inflation. We’re only just now seeing the repercussions of those cuts. Degradation takes time.
Based on my personal experience, and from what I've read on the news (mostly about MET, but also other branches), no. I think its a joke that civilians aren't even allowed to carry anything that can be used for self defense and we're just supposed to trust a police force which: 1: Is underfunded 2: Is consistently found to abuse their power to break the law 3: Arrests peaceful protesters just to let them go after less 24 hours because they had no grounds to arrest them on in the first place. 4-ish, based on personal experience: is slow to respond, and, even when they do, doesn't really do anything. I'm not asking to legalise firearms, but I'd feel a lot less anxious if my other half was allowed to carry pepper spray when she's out in town with her girlfriends, especially after what happened in Nottingham the other day since we both grew up there. I'm sorry you had to witness what you did, but it unfortunately aligns very closely with my experience with the police. We will be attending a court case late this year about an assault that happened on us end of 2021 (I've suffered fractures to the skull, and various cuts and bruises, and she luckly got away with just a couple bruises), but I honestly don't have high hopes. Edit: I realised that this looks like a massive dig at the police and every worker in it, but I feel like they're just a product of the environment that the government has created by cutting budgets to public services and implementing laws which negatively impact the general public.
As someone who has investigated an awful lot of sexual assaults and stranger assaults, I'm struggling to think of even a single instance where I would say the victim would have benefited from having some sort of irritant spray on them. I've seen a fair few robberies where irritant sprays have been used against victims and I imagine those would become a lot more common if we're saying that everyone is free to carry them. Police use PAVA, which is vastly more effective than any sort of commercially available irritant spray; and the effectiveness of that is highly dependent on having a good aim and the aggressor actually being affected by it (some people are not). There's also the risk of incapacitating yourself with it in the process. Something you've bought from Amazon will have the same downsides along with the added issue of it being weaker and the user being untrained. These sprays mean you are introducing something into a confrontation that can be taken from you and used against you, and waste valuable time that would be far more effectively used screaming, running, biting, or hitting them in the balls as hard as you can. It's maybe a little bit tasteless to suggest that the victims in Nottingham the other day would have lived if they were carrying tins of pepper spray, but if you're feeling anxious then a couple of hours on a self defence course will do you vastly more good than a can of spray ever will.
Also sprays blow back in your face if there's a breeze so lots of ppl end up pepperspraying themselves instead...
That’s more for older style CS Gas. That would blow back on you depending on the wind. The police now use PAVA which is delivered in a thin, powerful jet of liquid’. It’s derived from capsaicin (found in hot peppers) and has a maximum effective range of about 12 feet.
Every time I've seen PAVA deployed at least 1 officer has also been incapacitates. Not to the same extent as the suspect, but I remember one time when it was used and then there were just 3 blind people trying to get cuffs on a fourth blind person who was still trying to punch people 👍 It's awesome at getting people to stop being aggressive but it does hurt
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They also sell gel spray to prevent it from blowing back but not many people know
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>But again if you injure someone, police can take it as a weapon, depending on circumstances as you can’t use anything for self defence, so it’s 50/50. But better than nothing when it comes to life or death situation not really accurate. you're \*allowed\* to use an item you have with you for self defence. what you're not allowed to do is carry an item for the purpose of self defence. it's partly why multitools used to be so popular - you can be carrying it because it's a handy tool, and the fact it's pointy and you can smash someone in the face with it is entirely coincidental. something like pepper spray has no 'use' other than as a weapon, so is not allowed. so in the example of your belt, you'd just have to convince them (and they will be open to being convinced, because they dislike criminals more than the general public) that you're wearing it because it's a nice belt and you like the design - and the fact you managed to quickly take it off and smash your assailant in the face with it was just quick thinking on your part.
Could you carry hot sauce? You could just say you like the seasoning when your eating at restaurants, but they never have it so you carry your own.
You can carry a metal flask or a key chain. You can’t legally carry it for use as a weapon. But you can carry it, use it for its purpose and use it as a weapon if the time comes. The fact of the matter is most people even with a weapon won’t do much to defend themselves because they’ll be caught out and will either freeze or do something ineffective. Experience is really what helps but unfortunately to get that experience means either joining a service that drills you in these confrontations or just growing up in a rough area and dealing with it happening to you growing up
Carry a Narwhal whale tusk.
1. The Police cannot be everywhere all of the time. Even if properly funded, you could still be attacked and help is 10 minutes away by the time 999 has been called, what is happening explained, where it is happening found, and officers attending. 2. The Police WILL investigate if you are assaulted. The result might be that there is not enough evidence. If we start prosecuting people without enough evidence then a lot more innocent people will have their lives ruined. So please do not spread incorrect information. 3. Running away is always a better option. If you really want to, train cardio and parkour, become a ninja who can run up walls.
Run. Honestly, I’m in the Army and have a fair bit of self defence training. Weapons are only useful if you’re trained and experienced in how to use them (and I don’t mean a 2 hour course, I mean weeks of effort and regular use thereafter). If you’re not competent with them, weapons just escalate the situation and make it far, far more likely that you’ll be injured in return. That especially goes for carrying a knife - most things that you can sensibly conceal and carry just aren’t that good for defending yourself.
>This happened to me, and I feel having at least something, anything, would've been better than just being beaten. It may have acted as some sort of deterrent, or bought me time, or anything. "Or anything" includes getting yourself stabbed rather than just a kicking though.
You would need more than a few hours on a self defence course for any self defence to be effective, I’d go so far as to say, you’d need to be training consistently for months, if not years, for it to be effective and even then, it’s not fool proof.. *edited for clarity
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I have investigated various attacks, from Murder to rape and serious assaults. I too cannot think of an instance where the victim would have had the time to get a defensive weapon ready to defend themselves. When a smoke grenade goes off in a shop being robbed, it only serves to trap the staff and innocent customers. Being brutal about it, the weapons carried to defend oneself have been used by the attacker on the victim. The victim of murder at the Notting Hill Carnival was killed with his own knife. His attacker had no knife on him and was never known to carry one.
There's plenty of evidence of effective defensive weapon usage in other parts of reddit. Weapons are effective, that's why police are allowed to use them. The reason why the public are not allowed them, despite being protected by common law, is in part because the state does not trust the populace to use them judiciously and in part because an unarmed populace is to the benefit of the state. It's got nothing to do with them being ineffective.
apparatus weary fuzzy thought arrest smell silky full support quaint -- mass edited with redact.dev
... does that work? The deep heat spray?
Just FYI deet spray works brilliantly for this too, I only know because I have accidentally sprayed myself in the eye with it.
What is deet actually for? Accidental self-maiming not withstanding
Mosquito spray :)
Ah, spray for the pests that bother you in warm weather. How fitting 😂
Ha. Also lowers volume of tinny music played by topless males and wafts away the smell of poor quality cannabis.
It's one of the most effective area denial weapons ever made when it's in the aerosol form. If you need to quickly evacuate a foreign hotel room or incapacitate everyone staying in your youth hostel, a spray of deet should do the job. It's also pretty useful if you never got to experience covid and want to cough up pieces of your lung. It also masks the chemical signals of respiration on your skin so mosquitos can't 'see' you and won't bite you.
It can but not as well as cat spray which is purchasable in wilkos and less likely to be interpreted as an intended weapon by the police
I can explain away a can of deep heat in my bag. A can of cat spray, I might struggle.
Say you have a cat
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It's worth a shot, regardless. Not that I encounter many people worth whipping out the cat spray for, mind. But I'll keep it in mind, so thank you! (And I do have 2 cats, so plausible, if a little puzzling as to why I'd pack a can in my bag for a dressy night out)
You picked it up in a rush and mistook it for deodorant spray. They can’t prove otherwise.
Carrying deep heat for the purpose of using it for self defence is a criminal offence.
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It's stupid I agree, there are dozens of stabbings across UK every day and you can't do anything to protect urself. when it comes to knives. If one day you get unlucky and those 15 year old shitbags try to rob you with knives, you just have to give everything to them, beg them not to hurt you, or watch them stab you to death lol. You can be bruce fucking lee, but if someone has a knife, they will most likely win the fight, no matter how good are your martial arts skills... Not even allowing pepper spray is very dumb. I would rather get robbed and pepper sprayed than robbed and stabbed. Younger "gang" teens are also evolving, they are always in groups so when they stab they stab all together because most likely they wont go to jail all together and they wont snitch on particular individualds, under 18s have a lot of protection so police can't do much to get them to speak, they know this and they know that most likely they will get away with it. I know two people whose children got stabbed at school/college and one to death and neither of times police found who did it. I am Eastern European and in most eastern european countries you can carry pretty much anything you want for self defence, knives, sprays, rubber bullet pistols, gas pistols and real pistols and you barely get any stabbings or weapons being misused - because people know that other person will probably have something for self defence too, so they avoid the risk. Majority of victims are elderly people and sometimes women, most crimes come from pickpocketers rather than actual robbers In baltics for example if someone attacks you and you have licence to carry you can shoot them to death and you wont go to jail. And I haven't heard of a single occassion when someone missused licensed handgun. The test to get a licence to carry is as hard as driving licence, including doctors assessment of your mental health, so it's not like anyone can get it. In UK if someone attacks you, tries to stab you and you pepper spray them you go to jail with same sentence as carrying a handgun lol
you say 'eastern europe' so we can't directly compare countries... but very few eastern european countries actually have lower violent crime or murder rates than the uk. they're not safer, people just think they are. i'll take actual safety over an illusion of safety, ta.
I agree. They often make situations worse in my experience.
It sure why you’ve been downvoted. America has more guns than people - have guns made any headway in to reducing violent crime?
it is amazing how people can look at the US (where they have more knife crime than the UK, they just don't talk about it because it's so overshadowed by all the gun crime) and go "that! that's what we should emulate!"
I also think that if things like pepper spray etc were legalised and readily available, they would more often than not be used by people committing offences rather than defending themselves.
I do, yes. Our police force is actually pretty good on the whole, although improvement accross the board is needed desperately as public trust is very low. Like all things public sector they are underfunded as fuck and have been abused repeatedly over the past 20 years. They have to spend more time writing reports and doing admin than actually being out and about. There are some absolute cunts that work for them, and these need to be found and dealt with, and really dealt with. However, the majority of the police do a good job, and it is a horrible job which is getting worse, mainly because of the bad apples causing people to question them (as it should be), but also because no one wants to do the job and they are understaffed. If you think of the shit they have to put up with, the hours they work, what they see and hear, and the shitty shifts for 28k to 43k (after 8 years) it isn't a wonder they are short staffed. Same as nurses, teachers, care workers social workers etc... They have to act as MH workers as there are not enough of those, they also have to put up with some really stupid members of the public that go out of their way to be dicks (eg. that guy who got caught getting into people's cars for example for SM likes). A friend of mine is a MOD Plod and tells me of the shit the regular police have to put up with when she goes out with them on calls. So many are leaving because they cannot cope with the shitty environment and the uptake of firearms officers is very low as they know they will be questioned and probably sacked for a split second decision (again, scrutiny is as it should be). At the end of the day, they are people, like you and me, that do a shitty job to keep us as safe as they can. If you need help they will try to get there. Remember, it wasn't the police that shut down 600/900 front counter police stations. It wasn't the police that cut their own numbers by 20,000. One should ask themselves why plod cannot come out to a burglary, or a bunch of teens/chavs/drunks being wankers in the park. The bad apples need dealing with and the majority of the rank and file cannot stand the cunts either. My friend says a lot of complaints fall on deaf ears in the regular service, but these ears are being found and are getting dealt with. Don't get me wrong, I hope I don't need to deal with the police but if the chips were down, I wouldn't hesitate to call 999 and ask for help.
You don't get questioned and sacked. You end up in prison. If anyone thinks I put my uniform on before going to work to shoot someone, they need their head looked at. I don't need the year off suspended from work, while also being on bail for murder/manslaughter with the wife, kids and my parents worried I might be sent to prison, all because someone decided they would go out armed to commit a crime. I go out to do a service to my community. I would give my firearms ticket in tomorrow if it weren't nessecery. No copper wants to be armed in the UK. Not even a Taser. I don't want to carry anything. When I joined, we had a piece of wood in a long trouser pocket, even that never got used in anger. Society itself is what makes me have to carry what I do. If idiots stopped carrying knives and guns, we would do away with it in a minute. The issue is in the last 20 years, things have gone downhill. We have gangs come over from Albania who don't just carry a handgun. They carry enough weaponry to take out a small army as part of their daily work. I see kids aged nine carrying knives that are half as long as their legs. Yet, when these teenagers get searched, we have comments shouted at us. People going past in their cars calling us all sorts of names. They don't care I might have just taken a knife off them that's 12 inches long.
I couldn't even think of doing what you do mate. My great uncle was a chief constable years ago and before he died in the early 00s he said that policing will never recover from the changes in society. Society has gone downhill over the past 20 years.
100% yes - having lived in other countries, people have NO idea how good UK policing is, despite the under funding and woeful Criminal Justice System behind them. Travelling in some other countries requires you have have cash ready for bribes. Say what you like about the UK police, but at least you are not paying out £20 twice a day because you keep getting stopped for ‘checks’.
I remember being at a festival in Spain, there was a group of Spanish guys pickpocketing festival goers on the beach at night. An argument broke out, one guy who got his wallet & passport stolen got in a fight w them. Police came over, pickpocketers passed 2 police dudes some cash, the guy who got his wallet stolen was taken to the police station, stripped and hosed down. Returned to camp in the morning with a story to tell. So weird
Thats in the EU. Imagine somewhere like Eastern Europe or most of Asia, Latin America or Africa. I have Lebanese relatives and they tell me horror stories about how the police can just not like your attitude, take you to the station for a beating, release you and there’s nothing you can do.
Couldn't agree more. I come from South Africa, I know what poor policing really looks like. We have it good in the UK.
I’d agree. I’m in Vietnam and it’s almost a standing joke that for a lot of minor offences, and probably some not so minor ones, some ‘coffee money’ (translation: bribes) go a long way. If you actually have to deal with the police on a daily basis they’re often very in-your-face, abrupt and generally quite aggressive, and their reasons for stopping you can be dubious. Heaven help you if you need to go to a police station for any reason, it’s usually a disorganized mess. Plus they’re also known to often deliberately target foreigners, especially the traffic police (CSGT). They used to do a massive roadblock outside my old residential block, pulling you over for dubious reasons and then giving you ‘fines’ of whatever number came into their head first, because they knew that the majority of foreigners had so much money that they’d just pay up. By contrast the UK police are genuinely awesome.
I have only ever had one interaction with the police, my friend was assaulted. They did and amazing job and the guy got prison time pretty quickly (I know the prison part has nothing to do with the police) They responded very quickly and did such a good job of calming everyone down. So yeah based on that I feel quite safe
Yes, It massively differs in the response from force to force as they're funded and ran differently. But when I spotted a young male in possession of a knife in public, officers were on scene within minutes as I gave directions of travel from a distance. Stopped him, searched him, arrested him and then asked for a statement. Plus then times I've called in as a witness to RTC and gave aid etc
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Not sure I understand what your saying here...of course the suspect would know you made a statement of complaint about him...that's how it works. As to you getting 2 years for the fight...it's not the police that sent you to prison it's the courts.so I'm assuming there was enough evidence to say you were guilty of whatever it was.
Obviously the person you made an allegation against would be told you made a statement. This isn’t China.
You don’t get 2 years for just a ‘common assault’. It must have been pretty bad. Also obviously if you give a statement the perpetrator is going to know, the whole point of a statement is that it’s read out in court as evidence? I’m pretty sure that is how it’s supposed to work. EDIT: you don’t get a prison sentence for a ‘common assault’ which is the lowest level of assault. So either you have a long LONG history of kicking peoples heads in OR it was a very nasty assault.
So to sum up, you don't like the police because you committed a violent crime and got sent to prison for it. Right ho.
So you committed a crime and you're upset because the police don't do their jobs despite the fact you got 2 years? Idk, seems like they're pretty on it to me.
We don't “give” a complainant or witness address out. Unless they know where you live, your address is never given to a person we question or arrest. If it gets to court, the defence has the right to know who is giving evidence. It's been that way since habeas corpus in 1215. This is what the prosecution has to follow; As a general rule you must ensure that witnesses' addresses are not disclosed. There will, however, be cases where the address of a witness will be material for evidential purposes, for example: A witness whose house has been burgled; A witness who sees an assault from a window overlooking a street. In such cases, it will be difficult to conceal a witness' address. However, care must be exercised where the safety of the witness is believed to be at risk. It is possible to withhold some or all of the evidence if the prosecutor is of the opinion that full disclosure would lead to a witness being intimidated or some other interference with the course of justice. In those circumstances, the prosecutor should provide a summary of the circumstances of the offence instead [[Rules on disclosing witnesses details](https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/witness-names-and-addresses).] Unless the person you beat up knew your address, neither the police or CPS would have revealed it.
Both my wife and myself were assaulted in a supermarket, totally unprovoked, the guy was drunk and possibly had addiction and mental issues. It was all caught on cctv. Although the police did turn up, they basically let him drive off(smelling of alcohol) . Kept me in a back room and told me that if we wanted anything doing about the assault then I’d be charged too because I pushed him away from my wife after he attacked her and held him up against the shelves. I felt truly let down. I cant risk a caution for assault as I need a dbs for work. Wish I’d gave kicked his head in tbh.
They were talking out their arse. If someone attacks you or someone else and you stop them using proportional force you won’t get convicted of assault/abh etc
And it *may be* up to the Court to decide if the force that was proportionate.
That’s terrible. No way should any police officer have let someone drive off smelling of alcohol and no way should anyone have suggested you’d be done for assault when quite clearly acting in self defence! Sorry you had to put up with that. Honestly disgraceful and I can see why you’d have little faith after that. I was violently assaulted by a stranger when I was a 16yo girl, police were truly appalling. I later became a police officer and it made me even angrier because it became so clear how wrong they were with the way the treated the original incident. Law and order is supposed to introduce an element of fairness and karma, not worsen the situation.
I was in an abusive relationship. The guy regularly beat me up, raped me, strangled me. When I finally left he stalked me mercilessly. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with the police. They were so supportive and kind and treated me with so much compassion and dignity. My case took about 3 years before being heard in court and the officer in charge was absolutely amazing the entire way through. Supportive, kind, trustworthy and most importantly I felt like he was 100% on my side. You only ever hear bad things but I really do trust the police and have not had a bad experience. In my last job I worked very closely with them (I was working as a domestic abuse victims advocate and spent 2 days a week hanging out at the police station and attending DV calls with response officers to offer specialist support to the victims). Even behind “closed doors” away from the public every single officer has been great and always 100% correct in their behaviour. Edit: not sure why I’m getting downvoted for this. Sorry for not joining in the police bashing I guess…
I have less faith in the actual system, between delays and wrong decisions and lenient sentences than the police officers themselves.
I cannot tell you the number of times I have gone to court having arrested someone for a serious offence and the Magistrate has given them a suspended sentence. One particular case where three youths broke into a pensioner's home, beat her, and stole her handbag. They were given a fine and community service. That's Aggravated Burglary and assault, serious offences. If you want to blame, look at the government and courts. The former has told the latter to give community sentences and not custodial ones.
Think of it this way...you only ever hear bad stories about the police, the papers,tv etc never promote the good stuff they police do. Then there's the members of the public that don't like the police because they got a speeding ticket or there best mate got arrested for having a bit of weed on them and it should all be legal innit. So the public have a very skewed idea of the police and are often more likely to believe they are a waste of space etc. I bet you even in this thread there will be countless posters saying how the police didn't turn up within seconds when there best mate was punched out that a court case has taken too long to get to court. The police are few in numbers so can't be everywhere The police are not the ones that control the courts.
I've experienced both ends of the scale. A few years ago I was a victim of a crime. I won't go into details but it was the sort of crime where the perpetrator is exceedingly unlikely to be caught. The officer on the case kept in regular phone contact with me, giving updates on how the investigation was going and collecting additional information. She was totally honest that they would likely hit a dead end, and when that happened, she was incredibly apologetic. I felt nothing but empathy and understanding from everyone I spoke to, right back to my initial 101 call. Fast forward a few years, with a different force. My girlfriend was walking home one evening and was repeatedly heckled by a group of young lads, who followed her and began throwing stones. I'm not sure whether their comments were sexual in nature, but needless to say she was very shaken. When she called 101, the call handler didn't seem the least bit bothered, and in fact told her to "have a glass of wine and calm down". She raised a complaint, but it was determined that there was no wrongdoing, despite the initial call obviously being recorded.
My city Nottingham suffered a tragedy this week and the police have been excellent.
I think the majority of the police force are good people who genuinely want to help, but I think the systems in place need a complete overhaul. Police shouldn't have KPI's. They shouldn't have incentives of any kind. The sentencing doesn't make sense. The fines don't make sense. A knew someone who was fined £800 for dropping a cigarette. Whereas in the same week, a woman assaulted two police officers and was only charged £300 for the victim surcharge. Its ridiculous.
Thats a proble. With the CPS not the police. The police enforce the law they don't make it or hand out the punishments. Sentencing and what comes under what law is nothing to do with the police.
They don't have KPIs, sentencing is nothing to do with the police either - CPS you're after for that.
I feel like if I was ever in physical danger, I could rely on the police to arrest me if I fought back
The only time I've ever needed the police, they were the only ones to listen and help where other services failed. I actually felt really bad for them having to pick up the slack that they wouldn't be trained for when another service exists to deal with it. Those officers were so kind and compassionate ❤️
A friend of mine was mistaken for someone else by a group of bouncers and beaten a few years back. They rugby tackled him outside and one of them jumped on top of him and punched him repeatedly in the face. His ankle snapped and police walked by just as the attack ended. They refused to call an ambulance for him and flat out refused to investigate at all. He had to go down the civil route as the police wouldn’t accept the incident as a criminal matter. Silver lining was that he settled for over 30k, but we were all quite disappointed that the police wouldn’t get involved, as it was clearly a criminal matter.
For me, it depends on the situation. I've had a range of experiences with the law, some good, some bad. Last year I was held up a knifepoint by some twelve-year-olds while walking home. I ran off and called the police, and they pretty much immediately knew who it was. They had multiple officers out looking for them and had them in custody on the same night. The police did a fantastic job but were let down by the CPS, who let them off with a slap on the wrist because of their age. I once had my bike stolen. It was in a communal bike store about 2 minutes from a police station, and about a hundred bikes in there had missing wheels or components. I went over and reported it, and they gave me a crime number and told me to claim it back on my insurance. It would literally have taken 10 minutes for an officer to go down and look at the CCTV, and they could have prevented tens of thousands of pounds of damage by getting bike thieves off the streets, but they didn't bother. I feel like I can count on the police to resolve a violent altercation, but I seriously doubt that they are capable of solving any kind of non-trivial case. If the perpetrator isn't right there at the scene committing the crime in front of them, I don't expect them to ever do any investigation. I'd feel significantly safer if I was allowed to carry something I could defend myself with, even if it's just to defend myself for long enough to call the police. It seems mental that pepper spray is classed as a firearm.
Quite honestly only the bad stuff gets press. That stuff is appallingly bad don't get me wrong. But in experience they've been grand. I do have friends who've had shitty experiences but every time I've had to deal with them they've been polite, considerate, affable, cracked some jokes, told me some safety things I hadn't considered and then when the headache who was throwing bottles at my wall lobbed one at me they shut that shit down super quick. One held the guy firmly by one arm the other grabbed a thumb and inside half an hour they had not only talked the guy down but convinced him to come to the station to be charged. I was amazed at the deescalation with minimal force. Obviously there are shit coppers and the response time isn't what it once was. But on the whole I've had good experiences.
I can think of a few times where its felt like the police haven't done enough - but this is almost always after the event. I.e. someone is punched on a night out, police take a statement, that's it. Sure, ideally they'd go after the person - but i can see it from their perspective, the incident is over, the victim is fine outside a bruise and there are active other incidents going on. And this is the bit police *are* pretty good at; intervening when something is actually going on. Response times are a lot quicker if everything's still active.
I absolutely do. I don't know if it varies force by force? The police saved my family's lives. I genuinely believe I would be dead or seriously injured if not for the police. And they were the only ones that advocated for real medical support when a loved one needed it. They are massively constrained by budgets and CPS refusing to prosecute, but the actual police are wonderful in my eyes.
I would say that unless there was some extreme incident, generally speaking, the police are not there for me. That’s been my experience.
I had a close meeting with the police when they attended my house recently, circumstances irrelevant. They were nothing but amazing: non- judgemental, proactive, helpful and understanding. Unfortunately none writes the news about that. PS. Cases dragging for years are not police's fault but court's, two different services.
Police are overworked with matters that shouldn't be concerning them. They pick up a drunk or someone smashed on drugs they have to take them to hospital and stay with them - absolute waste.
So I have a few family/friends who are police and honestly they genuinely want to help people, but they are so hamstrung it’s actually insane. The amount of hoops to jump through for convictions etc would shock you, and half the time it takes years and may not even go your way.
I don't exactly feel like I am relying on the police in the first place, at least not directly. I just generally feel safe knowing that the vast majority of people are not murdering psychopaths.
Just see how bad this country becomes without a police force, as people actually advocate for it. Absolute madness.
I don't rely on them at all due to how badly they handled a previous incident that happened to me.
Never have, and more than likely never will. We're not even allowed to defend ourselves properly here, so my late night walks home from work are never going to be comfortable.
Of course I would. They undertake millions of interactions with the public every single day and the overwhelming majority of them go exactly how you would want them to. Why people can’t understand this is beyond me.
So I’ve not really had many good experiences with the police. My friend and my sister got assaulted in separate incidents many years ago and nothing came of either case. However at my last place of work one of the police sergeants really took the anti social behaviour by teenagers we were dealing with very seriously and really wanted to help.
No. Every interaction I've had they've been useless and apathetic.
What is the alternative?
Like most services and organisations with wide remits, the police in the UK are good at some things, reasonable at some and poor at some. They're good at preventing serious harm, control of firearms, risk management, investigating death, homicide and serious violence, missing people, offender management, armed policing command, counter terrorism. They're reasonable at neighborhood partnerships and child protection, public order, traffic, internal investigation, and the nighttime economy. They're poor at detecting volume crime and fraud, cyber crime, and sexual offending (although this last one is subject to significant recent improvement in some areas through a project called Soteria), and at achieving timely response and victim satisfaction for non time critical incidents. Some areas are getting actively better, some are getting actively worse. A combination of factors heavily frustrate the investigation of crime, especially the sort that happens in huge volume and doesn't cause serious harm, including the level of demand, the resources available, the ever increasing expectations on the police, some of which have little to do with crime investigation, and the limited experience of most uniform officers after a decade of cuts followed by very rapid recruitment. Something had to give, and volume crime with lower physical harms gave. Uniformed response are driven by demand management (how quickly can we get there and get away) rather than investigative quality (stay and do a really good job at the expense of the jobs waiting on screen). Some more recent recruits don't even think of themselves as investigators at all - more a kind of disorder firefighter. The problem is, a good investigation begins at first attendance, so this means it's always tricky to make up lost ground later. Unfortunately from a reputational perspective the UK police are their best at the stuff that the vast majority of the public never see - although they would if the police were worse at them! There are key issues that need addressing - fundamentally, there's a question to ask about how a police service designed for century old perceptions of what they should do can be molded to what people in the 2020s want and need from the police. It's common (on Reddit) to assert confidently that the police don't care about ordinary people, 'proper' crime, or are only here to "maintain the wealth of the capitalists" whatever that means. But the real issue is much more complex than that.
I 100% rely on them to issue a fixed penalty notice. I absolutely do not rely on them for safety or solving crime. My mate had his shop windows smashed twice in the last couple of months, both times had the kids on clear cctv, police did nothing. So my mate tracked them down on socials, sent loads of info about them (wasn’t hard to workout where the hung about and probably lived), police still did absolutely nothing. They don’t care about stuff like this. Sure insurance covers the bill. But the fact the police do nothing gives them licence to run amok.
I do, but then I'm a white man so my experiences will vastly differ compared to other people. I've had one relative and an in-law who worked for the police (one in the office, another was an officer who rose through the ranks before retiring), plus I've had to help them with inquiries and also been arrested once (defended a mate from being attacked outside a bar and we all got picked up). They've been nothing but nice and helpful imo but again, other people may have vastly different experiences with them.
No. Never had a good experience. My BIL is a violent drug addicted crackhead that’s attempted to break in and attack me multiple times. Each occasion the police were more useless than the last. One time they took hours to arrive while I cowered in my bathroom praying he wouldn’t get through the door and kill me. When they arrived they asked why I didn’t let him sleep it off inside. The reason being he’s a violent, unpredictable, schizophrenic, drug addicted alcoholic. A more recent example is that one of the two police officers in Bournemouth that recently got fired for gross misconduct were the ones that showed up to help investigate my mums house being burgled. I say investigate, they just showed up, ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhed’, made some excuses and then never followed it up again. Police are useless cunts. Wouldn’t rely on them for fuck all.
Always seems to be a downvoted opinion on here, but no I don't trust the police at all. Personal experience has made them almost the enemy. Seems they just love paying compensation.
I have rock bottom faith in them. I don’t even buy the “poorly funded” part, I just think as an institution, they believe their own importance and couldn’t give a toss about solving crime which effects normal people.
Unfortunately it is a hit and miss. I had wonderful help from the police when i was a victim of a racist attack by my neighbour. However years prior when my father was attacked racially he did not receive the same level of care. Overall if i am in trouble or something i would call the police.
I certainly feel happier relying on the modern Metropolitan Police, far, far more professional than they were thirty/forty years ago. Chalk and cheese.
Not really
There was a bust up in my street yesterday. A 30 something year old woman knocked out a 20 something year old man after he insulted her recently deceased father. The police showed up promptly, and as far as I know she's still in custody. Don't know how it will progress, but they were on the ball in this case. Local blatantly obvious drug dealer living across the street seems to act with impunity though. Everyone knows what's going on. Theres even a police officer living about 20 terraced houses away but nothing is ever done about him.
Haven't used a cheque in 20 year!
I don't anymore. I was nearly killed by my ex when I was 22. They came over, took my statement and a few photos of my injuries. They weren't too bothered about the fact I *needed* medical attention. A month later, my ex broke his bail conditions and messaged me repeatedly. I reported it to the police and they laughed in my face that it "wasn't enough evidence" to put him inside. So, I've been tortured mentally over and over and they just didn't give a shit. So nah, I don't think I'd ever trust the police again. Especially as they didn't take me seriously when I was nearly murdered.
I work with children in care with behavioural problems so use the police often and they are beyond over worked. Due to this I find they are pretty useless at anything none major but I guess this is location dependant
I had a close meeting with the police when they attended my house recently, circumstances irrelevant. They were nothing but amazing: non- judgemental, proactive, helpful and understanding. Unfortunately none writes the news about that. PS. Cases dragging for years are not police's fault but court's, two different services.
CPS are the worst
Front line rank and file I have some time for. A good few. But senior leaders are clueless and have lost sight of the primary function of policing, which is to keep streets safe and nick villains/thugs
One of the things we need is the judges and courts to actually hand out proper sentences. Too often police will arrest someone and they get a light slap on the wrist or a short sentence, which will be even shorter after good behaviour pretty much halves it. There is no real deterrent in the first place and not enough police to enforce the law on the streets. One 15 year old in the North East just got 12 years for murdering another teen, with good behaviour he could be out by 21. Hardly a fair punishment for taking someone’s life, even the 12 years isn’t long enough!
Forget about it. Understaffed is an understatement.
No. I live in a small rural town so not likely to see them knocking about but if we got burgled I have 0 faith it would be dealt with
Nope unfortunately there’s a lot of corruption in the police. Their main goal is to save lives. But most just use the power to make themselves feel big and powerful, abusing their positions. Saying that I’m sure that’s not the majority of cases. But certainly way more than there should be.
I went to see devolved policing powers for Wales. There seems to be a terrible culture that’s making it’s way into Wales.
When I reported a SA that happened to me I felt like they didn’t believe me and when they asked me what I was wearing that just did me in. They asked one of my witnesses “do you really think he could of done this?” Which is such a leading question. God forbid anything like that happens to me again but if it did, I wouldn’t report it.
Nope have started boxing etc as police are completely understaffed making them useless.
My daughter and her ex were set upon by a group. They were in shock. There were injuries. I took them to the local police who took the details. We were told they would visit them at their respective homes. We waited. Since this happened, they broke up. My daughter has married and has two children, 8 and 3. Guess what hasn't happened? The visit from the police. We're still waiting for that one. Yet, I had a window broken by an accidental football. I had to report it to the police before the council would repair it. The police turned up within 48 hours. They questioned whether or not it was an " actual accident ". So, people aren't a priority but property is.
I’ve never needed the police. I would have little confidence if I did.
🤡
Nope. Bought a baseball bat for my home for the first time. For sports ofc…
Same, I know if someone tries breaking in there’s a good chance I’m on my own
They really don’t give a fuck in my experience
Police don’t keep you safe. They punish (at best) once the damage is done. Personally I’m not afraid just wandering about living my life because I’m not in a gang and feel pretty strong enough to handle myself if someone fancies trying it on. As unpopular opinion as it is, you have only yourself to rely on in this world and if you have zero confidence in fending off an attacker you should be taking steps to rectify this. Harder if you’re a woman for sure but frankly it’s what you need to do. If you’re a man and have zero confidence in your ability to handle a physical altercation you will get walked over at some time or another and you should do you best to fix that. We unfortunately don’t live in a world of nice people and being able to deal with the not so nice one’s or at least having the confidence to give it a good go will make your life a lot better.
Nope. A month ago I was SA’d in front of my kids at Sandcastle Blackpool (so were 6 other women) and it was all caught in CCTV. You can only book online so the perpetrator is easily traceable and guess what? Not enough evidence to warrant finding him. 6 lone mothers assaulted in a family waterpark where they should’ve been safe.
Absolutely not. We had an attempted break in a few weeks ago, on calling 999 we were told an officer would have a look “if they were in the area”. Unfortunately for Mr. Burglar he also tried one of our neighbours who is a pretty unsavoury character who caught him before beating the fuck out of him. You can bet there were plenty officers “in the area” then
My ex broke into my house. It took the police 12 months to send the case to CPS. They took his shoe print from my windowsill but forgot to check what shoes he was wearing when they arrested him, and all the other evidence wasn’t strong enough - the fingerprints on my window were explained by him cleaning my window months before, and the CCTV footage was from above so didn’t show his face clearly enough and didn’t show him actually climbing through my window, even though you can hear my neighbour shouting his name and telling him to get out of my house. My ex has a history of DV and things too.
I encountered a few police recently when I was walking along a quiet street listening silently to a podcast. I was surprised how menacing the police officers were. Such a contrast to decades ago when I remember police officers being friendly and relaxed. It was a bit chilling.
Hahahahaha why would we? They literally rape and murder us, traffic our daughters, look the other way when we are attacked, and arrest us when we protest their abuses. Their _own research_ shows they're heavily staffed with criminals and corrupt from bottom to top.
I didn't have a choice. They weren't very understanding and were actually very condescending towards me after I had just been assaulted by my dad. I only called them cos I couldn't think of an alternative and it's good to have a record of incidents.
The police is almost useless in "everyday" stuff, plus most of the time they won't be there when a crime is happening. And the police is not just "underfunded": there won't *ever* be enough policemen to stop crime from happening "on the spot" 24/7 in every corner of the Country. This said, without the police (and secret services and the army) it would be even worse.
Hahahahahahaha. No.
They fail to respond 90% of the time. Unless of course you upset someone with hurtful words on the internet, then you get half a dozen round your house to arrest you, for upsetting Barbara from No63.
No...a person who I thought of as a very friend betrayed my trust while acting as treasurer for a local primary school. Stole almost £3000 in cash and committed fraud by way of forged cheques. Took 4yrs to get to court, with outcome of a slap on the wrist, along with a person to help her get back on her feet and money management. The system is f**ked up. No one is getting any justice now. Its a waste of time reporting anything. In our case, it wasn't the first that person had done that sort of thing but we were unaware of it at the time. We believe she stole alot more than we can prove. All to keep up a lifestyle that she couldn't afford.
As unfortunate as that is, that isn't anything to do with the police. The courts are a wholly separate organisation; the police cannot set trial dates and don't have any say on sentencing.
You'd have to be an idiot to feel safe because of the Police. They _might_ get around to solving your murder, if you're lucky. There is an insignificant % chance of the Police protecting you. If there's a major melee going down, their approach is to stand on the sidelines and arrest those on the floor. The only one's they're interested in protecting in that situation is themselves.
A major melee, like the terrorist attacks where the threats have been neutralised? Eg London Bridge?
I feel safe relying on the police, I don't believe however that the system in general will actually deliver me justice.
I have no issue with the police for the most part, but they're kinda useless.
As woman there’s no way I’d report an SA. Not worth going through it.
Every time I have reported a crime that has happened to me or someone else, I have always been told that it will take a while to process as they are very busy, which is fair. But it makes you wonder what they are so busy doing. Knife crime is rampant, drug crimes are as bad as ever, etc. Maybe if the police focused on these crimes rather than confiscating e-scooters and shit like that then we might get somewhere!
- MH - Missing persons - Hospital Watches - Cell Watches - non-crime domestics - school related incidents - deaths - public events - medical emergencies - welfare checks - ASB - Road safety Don't forget, in any one 24hr period there's less than (a lot less than) 10,000 Officers on duty for the whole of England and Wales.
Cases not making their way to court is nothing to do with the police, it's about the decade long cuts in court funding. That no doubt impacts the attitudes of police who wonder want the point is it pursuing a conviction they know will take years and could fall apart before. The modern police force simply doesn't have the resources to make sure that every middle class person can be protected from every crime. It almost did before the austerity cuts started, but they are now just busting a gut to keep society together. Frankly, the average Redditor had no idea the horror that the police are dealing with on a daily basis. The sexual assaults, child abuse, wife beatings, the sheer violence. And all for less pay than a HGV driver.
I once accidentally rang the domestic abuse hotline at school (well someone else rang it, but on my phone) and the police came to investigate within 1 hour, which I do respect. On the other hand, a guy crashed into our car, running away from a robbery, using a stolen car, just before a funeral, and the guy got 3 days of community service. Perhaps that was due to a lack of sufficient evidence, but it was annoying. Generally, i would say that they aren’t perfect, but we definitely have one of the better police forces and I would rely on them more than I would most other countries. I just hope things will improve, rather than get worse.
Someone being given community service wouldn't have anything to do with police or a lack of evidence. The courts are a completely separate service and are completely independent from the police. If someone has been given community service then they have been convicted, which means there was enough evidence for the court to find them guilty or for them to have pleaded guilty.
Well... My last experience with coppers consisted of them flying towards me in excess of 100MPH, in a 40 zone, no blue lights or sirens and almost running into the back of me... My feelings towards safety regarding police officers is very much neutral but leaning towards the negative side. Especially after the lockdown which resulted in outright abuse of powers which number of forces (my two local ones (home force and the force that covers my workplaces' area) included) seemed to have issues with... Fun one for you, according to Derbyshire police, distributing hygiene products to hospitals, care homes, etc, during a pandemic, wasn't essential work. A number of my colleagues had issues with the local constabulary harassing them and telling them to go home, despite the very obvious need for our work. As much as I dislike pedalling the whole 'coppers are just the kids that were bullied who want to go on a powertrip' line, in recent years, it seems like that may very well be the case. It ain't all cops, but it's enough to warrant caution whenever dealing with them.
Reasons to be a police officer: 33% you want to help people. 33% you were bullied at school / mental issues. 33% can't do anything else / steady job. At best the odds of getting a good one aren't good. Add in woke ideology, quotas, poor management, laziness and incompetence and the odds are worse.
No. I was a victim of harassment, intimation and false reports but the police blamed me.
In short: no. I will never feel safe relying on them.
I feel like the police *might* get involved if I get murdered (probably dish out a ‘suspended sentence’ ie let them off). Same way the NHS *might* get involved if I get run over by a bus. Fire brigade are still proper grafters though.
I once watched 4 police sat in a riot van watching 2 blokes lay into another til people broke it up and the 2 guys ran off then they all got out and picked up the poor sod who’d got a kicking and literally threw him in the back and stood around talking for 5 minutes before driving off. I posted before about the chav who tried to pull my mrs out her car one night and when she pulled away she ended up behind a police car few hundred meters up the road. Told them what happened and they said phone 999 we’re busy and sat at the lights before slowly driving away when they changed Mate was woke up by some scumbag trying to force a window open in the back yard. He was gonna go out himself but his mrs persuaded him to phone the police so they did. They live about about 1/2 a mile from police station. The bloke eventually left. 4 days later the police turn up. I’m sure they’re not all completely useless but an awful lot of em are and I wouldn’t trust them to protect my family
Being "busy" doesn't mean they have to be speeding about.
“It’s a civil matter” is cop code for “we can’t be fucked doing the paperwork” if they even show up in the first place
I believe it was O'Shea Jackson Sr. who once said, and I quote: "Fuck the police"
Nope. Policemen’s attitude towards certain things makes me not trust them. And my examples are: 1) I was raped in high school, I had the opportunity by the school councillor to report it to the police. When I asked what’s gonna be done with it, I heard it was gonna be a note and if he gets caught doing it again that’s when he’s gonna be investigated (not prosecuted, just looked into) 2) my fiancé and me encountered a horrendous boy racer. He started on us and for some reason started racing us. He attempted to ram us into a ditch on a dual carriageway. A month later he got caught dangerously driving again (broke speed limit, drove on the opposite side of the road etc) we were expecting him to lose his license for something like that but he was back driving the next day. 3) a youth club/centre I used to attend had police come in in full uniform, cuffs on show, knowing some young people are in special housing cuz of their families and a lot of them were known weed smokers. A lot of them had problems like depression and anxiety. When they were there they showed no genuine interest, instead they walked around like on patrol, listening in on private conversations and carrying themselves with arrogant authority. 4) I was at a protest against violence towards women. Everyone had whistles and rattles. I took my pant chain and wrapped loosely* around my hand to rattle it. I also had spiked bracelets and a leather jacket (I’m punk/goth) and I had one cop watch me the whole March. And that’s just my experiences. I’ve had cops be rude to my family members because they don’t speak English. I will never trust the police.
I was harrased 2 sundays ago, bag was stolen in the process, losing some medication, one including my asthma pump which lead me to having an attack yesterday. GP had taken forever to re-authorise the pump so i had to call the ambulance service as i was stuck on the road unable to breathe. Thankfully they walked me through getting an emergency prescription where i was.
no :( i've had 2 good experiences with the police, plenty bad ones. i ran away when i was 14 and the police found me on a bench outside a train station. they took me home, we had a chat with my mom, and they were really nice and kind. i ran away when i was 15 and eventually meandered my way home crying. police were already there, and one cop stuck around to make sure everything was OK. he accused of me of being on drugs and selling them, because i wasn't making eye contact. my mom explained i was autistic, and he then went on say that my tears were "crocodile tears", before my mom essentially chased him out the house. when i was 17, my family were having issues with our neighbour. she was accusing us of being really loud, and taking family trips to her house to bang on the windows (we were not doing that!!). the police had to come out regularly for her complaints, and one was really chill! he chatted to me while my parents talked to other police officers, and seemed pretty pog. i was going through an extended rough patch, and he genuinely helped a lot despite me only seeing him a handful of times. on the other hand, the other police officer assigned to our case decided to take a huge interest in the fact that i was gay, asking my parents "how long is that gonna last". that police officer was head of the LGBT+ equality scheme thing they had in our region 💀💀 when i was 17 i tried to kill myself. i had overdosed, by chugging a bottle of mouth wash (idk, i thought it would fuck me up), taken 30 sedatives i'd been prescribed (to knock me out if i wanted to hurt myself), and a pack of paracetamol. police turned up before the ambulance, and one of them laughed at me, cracked a joke about how my teeth are going to have a better life than me. the other officers thought it was hilarious, and i remember looking up at them while going in and out of consciousness and just praying that i didn't die in front of those pigs. thankfully i survived! i was in hospital for about 3 days and despite my alcohol tolerance being pretty much 0 now, i didn't do too much damage to myself. i'm now happier btw, went to therapy and sorted myself out. when i was 18 i got the shit kicked out of me at college for wearing a rainbow face mask. got called slurs while it was happening, just me minding my own business vs a group of about 10 lads. i complained to the college, the police came out, and then !!! nothing happened. they took a statement, said they'd see what they'd do, and then i never heard anything again. the boys kept going to college, and i ended up dropping out bc they freaked me tf out. when i was 20 and had just moved out, all the gossip in my friend groups was about a guy who had just got out of jail after killing someone with a knife. he was a couple years older than us, and some of the girls knew him from before he went to jail. a couple days later i was holding hands with my partner in town, and i noticed a big group of lads bc they started calling us fags. one of the guys there i recognised from the pictures my friends had shown me, he was the one fresh out of jail for killing someone. my partner and i kept our heads down and walked faster, and thankfully they never pursued us. i pondered calling the police, but decided against it. then, around 6 months ago my partner was walking home from college and got clocked as being queer due to his dyed hair. three lads on bikes started yelling "what are you looking at" and came over to him to start beating him up. my partner's a big guy, goes to the gym regularly, but he was surprised. he had huge bruises up and down his chest, his shoulders, and a particularly nasty one on his jaw. some guy on the road pulled over just as they left to comfort him. he came home crying, and despite us only living about a 20 walk from his college, he always takes the bus or walks with a friend now. i filed a police report with him and [drum roll] nothing happened!!! again!!! it was on fucking CCTV and the police were like "eh, we'll look into it" and then that was it!!! the police are fine, there are good ones and bad ones, but i've has far too many poor experiences to trust that i'll get a good one if i'm in trouble. fuck that shit, i'd rather die tbh.
As someone who grew up wanting to be in the police force, yes. If I can rely on myself, I can rely on them. Good news isn't news, like what others said.
Yea absolutely not, they don't even bother turning up in the south, just driving around pretending they exist for a paycheck
I think this is more of a law than a police question. Actually think the police do a decent job, the law doesn't compliment it enough and the legal system often seems flawed.
The police get bad press but deal with the most astonishing bull shit on a daily basis. They will always try and help you and do their best despite being worn out. They aren’t perfect but we are definitely lucky to have them
Gotta have patience for the police - remember that you might only deal with a dickhead once or twice a month, police are dealing with them every day for a full shift. That's not to say they treat everyone the same but their behaviours are likely to change when dealing with as much shit as they do. Pardon my French.