Monday 1 August 2011

Plodding on

I've whinged about the police often enough. I think my views must be pretty well "on record" by now - i.e. that a police force operating on behalf of the law abiding populace to protect them from criminals is a very good idea and it would be nice if we had one.

As ever, it is a pleasure to see that I am not alone. Oscar India has noticed that a third of crimes reported to the police are not investigated. I find that surprising - I would have put the figure much higher, as my experience is that 100% of non-motoring matters were not investigated to any extent.

Anyway, he makes the point that I have tried to make:
The reason millions of us are increasingly angry about endless speed cameras, fines for "incorrect recycling" and so on isn't that we think we should be able to drive everywhere at 100mph or throw rubbish in the streets, it's because we feel that we're a walking cash machine for the police and State, that authorities are quick to rush in and fine us for such things because it's easy, yet when we need them as victims of far more serious crime, it's just too difficult to bother.
Hear hear.
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5 comments:

  1. JuliaM2 August 2011 at 05:51

    "...that authorities are quick to rush in and fine us for such things because it's easy, yet when we need them as victims of far more serious crime, it's just too difficult to bother."

    Even some of the police are starting to realise that...

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  2. measured2 August 2011 at 20:55

    Imagine the cost if they did investigate everything.

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  3. Old BE3 August 2011 at 10:30

    One of the comments shouted at me just before I was banned from Gadget's blog was a threat that if we didn't keep paying the police a lovely fat salary and a huge pension promise they would become unmotivated and might not even turn up when required.

    Now, I have a lot of respect for the police, but I can't help wondering whether the supposedly-Rolls-Royce service we get at the moment could be much worse in terms of solving crime and turning up quickly.

    I tried to get my local Safer Neighbourhoods team to intervene with the people in the flat below me who smoke cannabis most evenings. As far as I can work out they simply don't work evenings or nights. The argument for the good pay and pensions is that it is an anti-social work pattern, but apparently not if you are on my local team!

    Because my Safer Neighbourhoods team were clearly going to be unable to turn up at the time the cannabis was being smoked I phoned 999 the next time it happened so that the response team could catch them green handed. Did anyone turn up? Did they bollocks.

    I realise that there are bigger crimes in the world, but if they don't bother to provide a service to the people who actually pay for it then they are going to lose their support very quickly indeed.

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  4. Smoking Hot4 August 2011 at 10:22

    @ Blue Eyes

    Why would you call police on people smoking weed?

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  5. Old BE4 August 2011 at 16:36

    Because it floats into my flat. And the twunks sit in the communal areas to smoke it. If they were doing it their own home and it didn't affect me I wouldn't care less that they are addling their brains.

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