R.I.P common sense – Totallyun-PC

Copyright © Totallyun-PC – View this article and others HERE 

First published Friday 16th February 2007:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, as his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn’t always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Panadol, sun lotion or a sticky plaster to a student but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realise that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion, his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else Is To blame and I’m A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realised he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not join the majority and do nothing.

*the preceding blog is not mine, I didn’t make it up, and Google shows it has been reproduced thousands if not millions of times, but in the sad sad memory to all our friends and colleagues, and anyone else who has become a victim of our times…. I say blog it in memoriam to us all. 

 

But now am found… – Belfast Peeler

Copyright © Belfast Peeler – View this article and others HERE 

First published Thursday 28th December 2007:

But now am found…

You might scarcely believe it but there are still one or two tasks that do not require a ridiculous amount of forms in order to do them. Yet.

One such duty is the “return home interview” carried out with young people who have turned up safe and well, to some degree or another, after having been reported missing. The aim is simple; to instil in said young person some idea of the impact their disappearance has had on their loved ones. So it is with the sternest composure I can gather that I enter the home of a girl, aged 13, who has come home 24 hours after leaving with mates. How do you impress on someone that age the immense foolishness and very real peril they place themselves in when they leave their safety in the hands of strangers?
Do I tell her the truth ? That I have seen and met people so vicious and callous it makes me ashamed to regard them as being the same species as me? That I’ve dealt with victims for whom being merely raped and beaten would have been a mercy? I don’t see how I can.

I don’t see how you could ever explain to anyone the gaping lack of humanity that is implied by people’s action and inaction every single day. I don’t believe it so why would someone else who has absolutely no frame of reference possibly consider the very least of what I could tell them as any more real than the bogey man.

Perhaps it would suffice to explain that whenever she wakes in the middle of the night and imagines there are monsters peering in at her from the darkness outside her window; there are, there really really are.

A gentle reminder… – The Sleepy Policeman

Copyright © The Sleepy Policeman – View this article and others HERE 

First published Monday 5th February 2007:

A gentle reminder…

This blog recently passed its one year anniversary. I was going to write a piece about a year of how I’ve found a way to pour my vitriol out into the public domain, but then I kind of forgot.

For what it’s worth I have thought about giving this thing up quite a few times and the anniversary semed as good a time as any to draw a discreet veil over things and retire to my modest mansion in Sleepy Hollow.

But then every now and then I see something that reminds me why I need this blog and how it is sometimes the only way I’ve got of stopping that twitch I get in my left eye when I want to destroy things and tread on kittens.

This is one of those times.

I rarely read newspapers. I like to get the news from a source that doesn’t try to make my mind up for me or make me feel like I’m reading an editorial by someone who was banging their fist on the table and foaming at the mouth while they wrote.

I especially never read The Daily Mail. I’m not one for stereotypes, but if I wanted to read that sort of stuff I’d buy a copy of Mein Kampf.

But tonight, as I wandered through Tesco’s, wondering what sad-bastard microwave meal-for-one tickled my fancy, I saw a copy of The Mail displayed as I passed the comic section.

The headline blared “Hour a day police officers”. Or something.

I gave into my baser instincts and had a look.

Today, The Mail is getting into a strop about police who go off work sick or injured and then return to work on reduced hours to ease themselves back into the normal routine. The Mail grabs some impressive-looking figure out of the air that has the word “million” in it and goes on to express moral outrage that officers on these reduced hours are paid the same amount as full-time officers, “at an average of £30,000″.

I refuse to post a link to The Mail on here, mainly for the same reasons as I would never post a link to the BNP website, so you’ll have to trust me on the content.

But let me make the following points to any eagle-eyed Mail “journalists” reading:

1 – I’ve been in the job almost 5 years and I’m one of the most experienced officers on my shift. I don’t earn anything near £30 grand a year, so I have no idea where you plucked that figure from.

2 – People go sick. If the offices of the Daily Mail are some illness-free utopia then good luck to you. But if that is the case then you clearly aren’t living in the real world, although I suspect that applies on many levels.

3 – Your article suggests that officers that return on reduced hours should not be paid the same as those officers on full-time. So what is your preferred option?

a) Officers return full time when they’re not ready for it, so they can make mistakes that your rag can then write more stories about?
b) Officers just stay on full time sick for longer?
c) Officers return to work, having been injured on duty, on reduced pay and are thus punished for getting injured doing their job?

I imagine it’s easy to write stories abou how lazy the police are when you’re sat on your arse in a comfy office in Wapping, where the only danger is from getting your tie caught in the shredder or drowning in your own sense of smugness and self-worth.

But I, like a lot of my colleagues, do a job where getting injured is part of a very real daily risk. And we do it so that people like you can sleep safe at night in your bed and write your articles dripping in outrage.

If you want to serve a year in uniform and then return to your nice office jobs then you get to write about people in that manner. Until then, you can stay sat in your office while we take the risks for you.

And if it’s alright with you, we’d quite like to get paid while we’re doing it.

PS: My eye’s stopped twitching now.

Should I arrest? – PC Bloggs

Copyright © PC Bloggs – View this article and others HERE 

First published Sunday 4th February 2007:

Should I arrest?

Last week a Blandmore resident watched two youths robbing a young kid of his mobile phone. He dialled 999 and confronted the youths, asking the call-taker, “Can I use force to detain them?” The call-taker said, “No. It would be an assault and illegal.” Oh dear.
Next week’s Panorama talks about whether you should fight back if you are the victim of crime, but more usually the question is whether to get involved in other people’s crimes, by trying to prevent it or capture the offender. Here is a checklist for whether or not to make the “citizen’s” arrest:

Can you pronounce the word “indictable”?

Do you know what the word “indictable” means?

Do you know what the word “offence” means?

Can you put the two together and understand it?

Can you make a list of “indictable offences”?

Can you remember all of this when you are on the stand in court?

If the answer to any of the above is “yes”, well done, you are ahead of most police officers and can now consider issues of your own personal safety and whether, when all is said and done, you really give a crap. If you do not, try Tony McNulty’s suggestion of “jumping up and down“. That will ensure that the baddie turns his attention away from his victim and onto you.

Memory is the guardian of everything – Inspector Gadget

Copyright © Inspector Gadget - View this article and others HERE

First published Monday 22nd January 2007:

Memory Is The Guardian Of Everything

Question for you:
You are a Chief Inspector, and you attend the parade at the start of a shift (which is rare for you to do). During that parade you hear for the first time that one of the Constables present has been awarded a nationaly recognised gallantry award. This is a huge achievement for the officer and the Force.After the parade, would you;

a) Take the officer aside and congratulate him personally?

b) Ignore the whole issue?

c) Send an angry email to his Inspector complaining that some of the other officers were dressed incorrectly during the parade, and that the Sergeant did not conduct the parade in what you regard as a correct manner, making no mention of the bravery award?

The Chief Inspector at F Division chose c) as the answer.

Note to self; Personal ambition is all very well – but let’s not forget the context within which we serve, and get so obsessed by the ‘points’ to be earned by highlighting uniform standards and crime statistics that we cannot see the imense damage we have just done to morale. In the final analysis, noone will remember the Sanction Detected rate on that day, noone will remember if a Constable failed to iron his shirt – but they will remember this crass stupidity and lack of imagination forever.

I’m embarrassed to wear pips this week. I’ve seen some poor leadership in my time, even in war, but this is the bottom of the barrel.

I’ve given up saying ‘you couldn’t make this up’.

The new fraud act – PCFrankyFact

Copyright © PCFrankyFact – View this article and others HERE

First published Wednesday 31st January 2007:

The New Fraud Act.

A more apt title would have been “How the home office is acting fraudulently.”

Here are a few gems of guidance on this wonderful new piece of legislation.

Q: What has changed in relation to police recording plastic card and cheque fraud?
A: There are two major changes, the first is the introduction of a new category of ‘economic crime’ and the second is to make the financial institutions the first point of contact for account holders when dealing with these fraud offences.

Q: What does an ‘economic crime’ mean then?

(Look into my eyes.)
A: Previously if a person had their credit card stolen and it was subsequently used on 10 separate occasions to buy goods fraudulently from 10 different shops there would be a requirement for 1 crime record for theft and 10 for deception. Under the ‘economic crime’ category there is only a requirement for 1 theft and 1 fraud by false representation.

The principle is based on the number of separate accounts that have been defrauded as opposed to the number of individual transactions on each account

Q: So if a member of the public comes into the police station and tells me that their credit card has been stolen and used on 10 different occasions what should I do?

(You are feeling sleepy…)
A: Record a crime for theft of the card and a Crime Related Incident for the economic crime. The member of the public should be instructed to inform their financial institution about the fraudulent uses of the credit card. The financial institution can then report the economic crime direct to the Police via a central recording point in each force if they wish to. They will supply further details such as a schedule of usage that is necessary to prosecute such offences.

Q: What about a member of the public who comes into the police station and tells me that they believe their credit card has been compromised/cloned and then has a number of unlawful transactions made on it?

(You will use the force mind control on Joe P. You have not been a victim of crime. wave your hand at the same time)
A: Record a Crime Related Incident. The member of the public should be instructed to inform their financial institution about the fraudulent uses of the credit card. The financial institution can then report the economic crime direct to the Police via a central recording point in each force if they wish to. They will supply further details such as a schedule of usage that is necessary to prosecute such offences

Q: So the Financial Institutions could send every single economic crime to the single point of contact and overwhelm us?

(No stupid. They’re in league with us and shall receive knighthoods for massaging the figures.)
A: At the moment the institutions could give the Police every fraudulent transaction that occurs on every plastic card to record as a deception. They choose not to do this as there is recognition that Police do not have resources to record or investigate each individual instance.

Q: Will the institutions be expecting that each economic crime they report to Police will be investigated?

(I refer the right honourable gentleman to the reply I made to his earlier question.)
A: No guarantees have been given that each crime will be investigated, although they must be recorded. The more information the institution is able to give the Police to lead them to the identification, apprehension and prosecution of offenders, the more likelihood there will be for the Police Service to investigate these crimes.

Q: Surely this is just a manipulation of the figures for fraud?

(Why isn’t this mind control working on Fact?)
A: This economic crime category was originally suggested by ACPO in 2004, although it was felt prudent to dovetail the proposals with the introduction of the new fraud act, which is what we have done. The Home Office will be using figures from the Association of Payment Clearing Services (APACS UK Payments Associations) on plastic card fraud to better represent the overall figures for plastic fraud crime, in the recorded crime figures. (Did anyone understand this answer)

Watch this space. This time next year the home office will be crowing about how they have slashed fraud offences. No, really.