I was once a fairly enthusiastic supporter of the police but today my hatred for them would be described as visceral. While part of it is physical - beards, tattoos, paramilitary uniform - I couldn’t quite work out how/why my view had become so radical. I think I do now.
The police have fractured into a series of uneasy groups that resemble religions in their need for belief in their ritual, sacrifice of your time to studying the bible (or the NIE as some refer to their holy book) and a sense of abasement through working from acolyte to priest to Bishop (or whatever hierarchy you believe in.)
The upshot was to rob us of the highly effective polymath that could work across several fields effectively and push the ideal of policing to new levels.
I'm thinking of the flying squad who could deploy firearms, gather the intelligence together, manage complex investigations and had the psychology to pre-empt the criminal by arrest.
Or CID that did the complex investigations, but were able to make themselves available for the Friday night Proactive work in the town...the list goes on and it's one of the biggest failings in modern drama that they perpetuate the do-it-all difference maker. The DS in the Line of Duty who jumps from DPS to Firearm TFC in 24hrs is a prime example.
Nowadays, it's all conveniently separated out to a mix of specialists and an increasing number of civilians to concoct slow moving operations that are built on byzantine foundations of paperwork, audits, impact assessments and budgets.
If you learn one thing from history, it's in the Peloponnesian War that the Spartans only endured after they learned that had to beat the Athenians at what they were best at (Naval Warfare, in this instance).
So it is on the streets today, serial shoplifters, robbers and gropers are out and on their daily business before the job has delivered it's 30 minute daily briefing, cleared it's emails and checked for tasking.
A big part of this current decay was set up by awful IT contracts and the belief that there was a silver bullet out their that could combine crime recording, intelligence and case file management. They were sold to increase efficiency via creating a one stop program that helped the officer speedily create all three in minutes.
Instead we got a treacle pit that no one understands in its entirety, but certain goblins can stay in their office all day working on their little niche and creating hell for everyone else, when the insulted Leadership ask "why isn't everyone as good as you, Johnny Desk-Warmer?"
So you get the fast paced, confrontational officers tied down trying to scrape together decent intel from hopeless products, reworking files constantly for DG6 compliance and updates on crime recording (because the Force can't afford the right kind of civilian resources.)
It goes by many names, Niche is the other, the perfect piece of software to go with a Crime Recording system that is corrupted by political interference and sheer incompetence.
You used to be able run through your crime and sort out the jobs that had a detection against them, close the jobs down that were going nowhere and you could press a button to find out your crime patterns.
All three elements are now the subject of gatekeepers whose empire depends on keeping you out and rationing the service to keep their value up.
So nothing gets done at pace nowadays, beyond wild over reactions.
As a retired officer I fully agree with the author ... sadly the police themselves don't see it. I guess that history is not important even if it's your own.
Excellent. Thank you.
I was once a fairly enthusiastic supporter of the police but today my hatred for them would be described as visceral. While part of it is physical - beards, tattoos, paramilitary uniform - I couldn’t quite work out how/why my view had become so radical. I think I do now.
Thank you so much for an invaluable read.
I'm looking forward to Part II.
What a pity those in authority responsible for policing are not particularly interested in policing as a priority.
It's the same with the NHS. Those in authority seem to have more vital issues to focus on than health and well-being.
The police have fractured into a series of uneasy groups that resemble religions in their need for belief in their ritual, sacrifice of your time to studying the bible (or the NIE as some refer to their holy book) and a sense of abasement through working from acolyte to priest to Bishop (or whatever hierarchy you believe in.)
The upshot was to rob us of the highly effective polymath that could work across several fields effectively and push the ideal of policing to new levels.
I'm thinking of the flying squad who could deploy firearms, gather the intelligence together, manage complex investigations and had the psychology to pre-empt the criminal by arrest.
Or CID that did the complex investigations, but were able to make themselves available for the Friday night Proactive work in the town...the list goes on and it's one of the biggest failings in modern drama that they perpetuate the do-it-all difference maker. The DS in the Line of Duty who jumps from DPS to Firearm TFC in 24hrs is a prime example.
Nowadays, it's all conveniently separated out to a mix of specialists and an increasing number of civilians to concoct slow moving operations that are built on byzantine foundations of paperwork, audits, impact assessments and budgets.
If you learn one thing from history, it's in the Peloponnesian War that the Spartans only endured after they learned that had to beat the Athenians at what they were best at (Naval Warfare, in this instance).
So it is on the streets today, serial shoplifters, robbers and gropers are out and on their daily business before the job has delivered it's 30 minute daily briefing, cleared it's emails and checked for tasking.
A big part of this current decay was set up by awful IT contracts and the belief that there was a silver bullet out their that could combine crime recording, intelligence and case file management. They were sold to increase efficiency via creating a one stop program that helped the officer speedily create all three in minutes.
Instead we got a treacle pit that no one understands in its entirety, but certain goblins can stay in their office all day working on their little niche and creating hell for everyone else, when the insulted Leadership ask "why isn't everyone as good as you, Johnny Desk-Warmer?"
So you get the fast paced, confrontational officers tied down trying to scrape together decent intel from hopeless products, reworking files constantly for DG6 compliance and updates on crime recording (because the Force can't afford the right kind of civilian resources.)
I see you too have felt the cold sticky touch of CONNECT.
It goes by many names, Niche is the other, the perfect piece of software to go with a Crime Recording system that is corrupted by political interference and sheer incompetence.
You used to be able run through your crime and sort out the jobs that had a detection against them, close the jobs down that were going nowhere and you could press a button to find out your crime patterns.
All three elements are now the subject of gatekeepers whose empire depends on keeping you out and rationing the service to keep their value up.
So nothing gets done at pace nowadays, beyond wild over reactions.
As a retired officer I fully agree with the author ... sadly the police themselves don't see it. I guess that history is not important even if it's your own.