Police in the UK?

Question

Why are Police in the UK so so lazy?... a 999 call goes out for their assistance, for example, ' i've got a CHAV brigade acting suspiciously in my street..'..the police turn up like 5 hours later and ask...'where they gone?, or can you give a description....' are the police on a coffee break or something...As for the Fire Service they can turn UP like 5 minutes after a call.
Does the Police care any more?

Ok , thanks for the responses so far..message to those DEFENDING the cops....You losers say that an offence needs to be 'COMMITTED' before it takes a priority callout, WELL isn't it just pure SHITE, coz i thought policing was to PREVENT crime!
Also, i raised this question coz, a few years ago i did call the police at 3am to say that 'I see some teenagers acting suspiciously in the residents car park, send some officers as it looks like they will break into a car soon.'....
I received a call back asking why the HECK I WASN'T SLEEPING, and describe the teenagers........OMG, wot the hell??!!!!!
The cops turn up next morning, to gather information, DUE TO THE FACT SOME POOR BUGGER HAD HIS CAR BROKEN INTO!!!
Surely this could have been prevented! as it wasn't a BUSY weekend evening callout!!

Answer 1

NO
They to busy drinking tea, reading mags and setting up SPEED TRAPS to make money for their christmas do

Answer 2

Simply because the Police have to deal with almost EVERY 999 call out, if someone is hurt in a road aciident, the police come, and the ambulance. If theres a fire, police and fire comes. If someoen has witnessed a robbery, only the police come out though. (unless theres been additional injuries)

If chav's have been acting suspiciously, then it's not a priority case, and a street fight takes presidence. If you see someone breakign into a car, the police will be down there like a shot though en mass, it's when you report a crime that HAS happened that the dealys begin to show. This is because if the crime has already happened, then it's just a load of paperwork to them. And I understand how this can be felt like a waste of time.

With the new workload the police are facing from doing more of the bureaucratic CPS work, is it any wonder they can't rush out to every reported incident? i think this is teh reason why (in the Uk at least) there is a new number, 101 to call for non emergency calls.

Answer 3

Because half the time there's not many about because most forces operate specialist squad structures which take large numbers of uniformed officers away from normal front line duties. Obviously it varies from city to city, town to town and village to village. Sometimes in certain towns you would be surprised at how few officers they were on duty.
The police have never been as busy or arrest as many people as they do at present. They are called to absolutely anything these days including a lot of stuff which aren't police matters wasting Poilce officers time.
The amount of time spent doing paperwork and updating computers has never been more time consuming than at any time since the formation of the police service.
I'm afraid the Police can't do everything and be everywhere at the same time. Sometimes jobs don't even get done properly but that's human nature and the job is very complicated with constant changes in legislation and procedures

Like any other job there are good officers and bad officers.The police are human beings and sometimes have the same failings as the rest of us.
If it was all so easy you could always join yourself and perhaps you could show them how to do it properly, after all the law and all the procedures that go with the legal system are very easy to understand. Perhaps you might like being out their on a Friday night when all the pubs and clubs are turning out dealing with all the nice abusive scum. Perhaps you might like to go from one call about nuisance kids to the next with the kids knowing that even if the get arrested they'll be there again tomorrow, It's all a bit of a game really to them.
Basically you don't know what your talking about

As for the Firemen I think they're excellent, but you can't compare a fireman to a Police officer it's a totally different job.
A minor point, but Firemen on nights can sleep on duty until called Police officers can't.

Answer 4

Simple answer to all the people who aren't armed with the correct information to give an intelligent answer. And I'm not entering into a debate about this.
The Police don't always respond simply because there aren't enough officers to go round. A UK Police officer often has to spend hours on a case that he/she knows is going nowhere, just going through the motions because policy says you have to or responding to drunken idiots fighting or collapsing on the street because they can't hold their drink. Or maybe out looking for a missing person in order to prevent the loss of their life etc etc etc...I could go on about the countless other things that go on in the background that no one sees the Police deal with.
Maybe some of the people who made negative comments about the UK Police service in response to the negative question should get out there and see what they have to do and put up with from some of the people out there that they have to deal with. Maybe then an intelligent answer may be given. Probably not though because experience tells me that the modern UK Police officer can't do right for doing wrong!

Answer 5

Chavs hanging around on the street not actually doing anything isn't a police matter. It isn't against the law to associate in groups unless a Section 30 dispersal order is in effect.
And define "suspicious". Were they holding knives, or following a lone woman, or just stood there talking? And why do you think a group of kids hanging around on the streets warrants a 999 call?

In my area we'll only respond if they're doing something or if we have some staff available, because I hate to break it to you, so much of our time is spent responding to stupid calls like "my son has just shouted at me" or "someone is parked illegally" we don't have time to do anything else.
Instead of blaming an overstretched, over worked force, howabout thinking about what it is you're calling about, BEFORE you call?
And the fire service turn up so fast, because unlike a chav sticking his fingers up at you, a fire has a tendency to cause real damage and kill people.

Answer 6

One of the problems is that people use the 999 system to make calls thinking that gets them a quick response when it is for emergencies.In my force a 999 caller of this nature would have been told to ring on a normal line and no incident recorded leaving the line open for real emergencys.The fire service do not even recieve a small percentage of calls compared to police and basically wait around doing other things including sleeping.
The public say they want the bobby back on the beat and out of cars,my force did this then we got continous complaints re slow response to low priority calls.Thats because only a few units were deployed on fast response.If you dont increase police numbers you cant have it both ways.

Answer 7

Before you suggest that the police forces that regularly put themselves into high risk situations to protect us all are lazy, could you explain to me exactly what OFFENCES these 'chavs' had committed? Because unless you have anything to add to your account of what happened it appeares they haven't actually done anything. I would imagine, if that is the case, therefore, that the police had probably prioritised their workload, putting jobs such as assaults, thefts, buglaries, criminal damage, missing people and all other various offences before your report of some chavs 'acting suspiciously' (i'd be interested to know exactly what they were doing to be suspicious).

As a small seperate point - I hope nobody was trying to make a life treatening 999 call whilst you were keeping an operator occupied with these suspicious chavs that weren't actually doing anything.

Please try and understand that out police forces are very much underfunded, understaffed and overworked, don't expect them to be able to drop everything for minor incidents and be grateful that they made the effort to give attention to the report at all.

Answer 8

I think the term lazy is wrong - as I believe it seems that the Police are told to go after the traffic issues before anything else, or so it seems. We need to get policing on the beat as lots of people have been asking for many years and it should be on a regular basis. The only police sirens I hear these days are attending RTA or pulling somebody over for checks of cars. I appreciate our Police force actually but we so need to go back to basics yet have patrol cars also for obvious reasons.

Answer 9

Police are given duties on different levels, as the chavs have not done anything yet it is at a lower level than something already happening such as chavs smashing up a shop.

Answer 10

by chav brigade acting suspiciously i assume you mean a few people in hoods standing around. Im in the police and we get loads of calls like these everyday, and they turn out to be just that. hoods hanging around. Not the end of the world. Report a real crime and generally there be there in a minute or so, unless you live in the outback in which case i sympathise.

Answer 11

You really wonder why they take so long to respond to a call about some chavs loitering in your street? Probably because they are too busy responding to calls like 'i am a pensioner and there's a burglar in my house', 'I've just been raped" or "I just witnessed a murder'. I'm guessing chavs don't top their priority list.