No offence, but have you got faith in the British police?

Question

Look at Colin Stagg, accused of the horrific murder of Rachel Nickel, now they have the right guy, but they set honey traps etc, to get a conviction.
Look at that poor guy, mistaken for a terrorist, and shot to death on a tube in London. Another officer has been jailed for leaking information to a drug gang, in exchange for designer suits, the list goes on....do you trust our police force, i find it a bit worrying, when i read stories like this., and they seem to get away with everything, that joe ordinary would be jailed for. What is your opinion? It really annoys me.

Answer 1

I have no faith whatsoever in the British police,they are incompetant,uncaring and virtually incapable of catching the real criminals

Answer 2

British Police are restricted in so many ways but the blame is always placed on individual officers.
Their hands are tied by government guidelines eg) Home Office Criming Rules - an officer is forced to waste time completing paperwork whenever there is the slightest indication that an offence has occured, even when the alledged victim does not want police involvement (what a waste of valuable time!)
Officers are then criticised for not spending enough time on the streets!
The judicial system lets the police down on a daily basis, the general public do not realise that following arrest the decision to charge an individual lies with the Crown Prosecution Service (involving a lengthy telephone call if out of office hours) hours worth of paperwork then needs to completed before a case is ready to go to court - even when it is anticipated that the individual will plead guilty! The courts then give ridiculous sentences to criminals allowing them back onto the streets to commit further offences!
ASBOs were introduced to reduce anti-social behaviour but how sternly is a breach of one dealt with at court - not very!
Officers are given targets on how many people they should stop check, arrest and issue tickets to - how wrong is that, it encourages them to target the wrong people just to achieve their targets!
Nobody takes into consideration the long, anti social hours officers work, they can never guarantee they will finish in time and sometimes go a whole tour of duty without a drink or food!
Take into consideration the above points before dishing out the criticism - if I'd highlighted all the points hindering the police I'd have been here for days!

Answer 3

I beg to differ, in the metropolitan police service alone there are over 30,000 police officers. If you took 30,000 people from any walk of life you would always find a few bad apples.
Police officers aren't super human, they are normal everyday people just like you who have good days and bad days, they break up up with boyfriends, they have mortgages to pay and they work extremely long hours (most met officers do 12 hour days).
Colin Stagg....the honey trap was approved by the CPS so the police went with it, it was only later deemed unlawful.
London tube guy...london had just been bombed, it was known that the house the man came from was linked with terrorism, he was asked to stop by police but instead ran into the tube station, jumped over the barriers and towards the platform...sound like the actions of an innocent man??? If you had a gun and a man with a rucksack who'd come out of a known terrorism address was running towards a crowded train platform despite being asked to stop by police, what would you do??
Information leaks....some people fall by the wayside as I mentioned earlier, there are always a few bad apples.

If you have lost faith in the police, then why not apply to join and see if you can hack it. It's a thankless job and one which I think the majority of police do extremely well. The next time you get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet and it's cold and you can hear the wind and rain belting down outside, just remember... police are out there walking the streets, standing for hours on cordons, at crime scenes and at the scenes of road crashes.

Answer 4

2days police forces have a very difficult job , this government have imposed ridiculous meaningless targets on the ordinary police officer, having worked and lived in many parts of the world still think the British police are among the best ,think the anti police brigade should join up for a few months see what life is like on the beat,

Answer 5

If the guy is located accountable of the offence and their case is adjourned for sentencing then a checklist would be written by skill of the Probation service. This checklist will evaluate the previous warning for an identical sort of offence and it could have an effect on the sentence that Probation recommends. This checklist would be available for the opt to study and consequently she or he would be in a position to observe of the warning while thinking what sentence to pass.

Answer 6

I have faith in the police. A mate of mine was murdered and they caught the guy responsible. Now he is in jail for his crime. When my then boyfriend was involved in a fatal car smash the Police prosecuted the driver of one of the cars for drink driving and causing death by dangerous driving. He is now in jail too.

Look at it this way, the guy mistaken for a terrorist was running AWAY from the police once they asked him to stop. Now, when a policeman with a gun asks you to stop, you stop. Armed Police are not trained to shoot to injure, they are trained to shoot to kill. Therefore you do NOT run away from them.

Another way to look at it is if the guy had turned out to be a terrorist and it had come out that Police had simply let him get away we would be criticising them for NOT shooting him. The Police do a tough thankless job and it's a job that often requires snap decisions. The Police are only human, sometimes they make errors of judgement.

Also, think about it this way, it is only going to be news like this that sells papers. That is why we only hear of the bad stuff the majority of the time. You can almost guarantee that we only hear about a very small percentage of crime. I don't think you can judge the Police solely on the stuff we read in the papers.

Also people need to remember it is not the Police who are responsible for prosecutions. That is down to the CPS (England) and the Crown Office (Scotland).

Answer 7

Yes.

You could turn it all round and ask. Who gonna deal with the man with the gun, the person who rapes your child, the gang that rob you, the boy who knifes you for your mobile phone. The driver who sends your wife through the windscreen, the Drugi who beats your grandmother for her pension. Plus many more.

Its quite obvious no-one here is. But there are those men and women who's jobs it is to do so and they do it without asking why and some have lost there lives not so long ago doing it...

That's why I have faith in the British Police Service ..

Answer 8

No, I'm afraid I haven't. Too much focus now on criminal rights -not on the victims. Had to call the police twice lately because of hooligans throwing eggs at our windows, in our up-market residential area...took the police almost an hour to come and when they did I was told, that if it happened again I should go out to the hooligans and say "look lads, you're annoying us, can you please stop it". (Can you imagine what it would be like if I did!) There is no law and order any more - the police are scared of the hooligans now-a-days, unfortunately.
The second time we called the police, one of the policemen told me that he had caught one of the hooligans and as he did he had ripped the hooligan's shirt - that particular policeman is now being taken to court by the hooligan!!- what sort of a world are we living in? (I was also told that if a burglar came into the house and slipped on our wooden floor, breaking his leg, he could sue us for injury.) The law is a complete a*s. Police should be able to carry out their duties as in the USA.

Answer 9

The government has cut down on the qualifications of entering the police force so as to enable the entry of all races, queers etc. to join up more easily. In the past the applicants had to pass a stringent test get into the force. The old adage is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys! The copper used to work his way up through the ranks and so became experienced in the job. Now they put a university graduate in charge straight away without the necessary experience in the job. Yes the force do make mistakes, but most people think that they do a difficult job reasonably well within the constraints they are shackled to. I would rather our police force, than the ones that many other countries have.

Answer 10

The way I see it is that Blair has so politicised the police to such an extent they no longer know what their role is in life anymore added to the mountains of paperwork now imposed on them. Do n't forget the old bill can only do what the politicians allow them to do.Mainly there bidding

Answer 11

THIS WEEK... I've got every faith in the Police.
LAST WEEK... urmmm, didnt have a good word to say about them.
NEXT WEEK.. Who knows!

I guess it just depends on the Officer you deal with.
Just to add, we cant blame the police for everything. The CPS have alot to answer for too!