Why do you never see any police patrolling the Streats / Motorways?

Question

Apparently there are more police officers now than ever in the UK and yet I never see any. Either, patrolling the streats or the Motorways. Where are they all ??

Answer 1

Motorway patroling is gradually being taken over by the Highways Agency - orange lights with a black & yellow livery. Elsewhere, road patrolling is being cut back - cameras etc are used instead - though their value as opposed to Police Officers is debateable. All the extra officers employed to get the numbers up to the'highest ever' are being whittled away - in the 1970s there was a huge increase in numbers also, but the career structure is a 30 year one - they're all retiring in droves. Uniformed patrol work is the Cinderella - hihighest workload, & most conflict. Most officers look to escape after their 1st couple of years. Aggravating all of this is an increase in beaurocracy, keeping them in the stations, and Chief Constables are ploughing all their resources into plain clothes squads - anti drugs / burglary / travelling criminals / sex offenders - you name it, theres a squad for it. An average Police Force only has a third of its officer strength on uniformed 24 hour patrol. Sooo..... If there are 2400 officers in the Force ( a mid sized Force ), 800 do the donkey work. There are 5 shifts (usually) to cover 24 hours - 160 available. 25% on leave or sick or training = 120 left. Lets estimate the Force has 10 main stations = 12 officers per station....... and now you start to see why Uniformed Officers seem to be a rare breed.This is compounded by the need to increase numbers at times, eg kicking out time on a Saturday night. These extra officers are robbed from day to day shifts - now you only have 10 on duty. Uniformed work is also the only area of Policing which covers all remits. If a prisoner is brought in, CID/ squads etc may say, 'it isnt GBH /Fraud etc its not our remit' & refuse to deal- so the uniform has to.... an average prisoner takes 4-6 hours to deal with / push paper for (for a simple job) - whoops, there's another one you wont see for the rest of the day. Uniformed work is also the only one which supplies staff to everyone else - firearms / Special Branch etc etc. don't carry vacancies - they rob staff from uniform, who struggle on carrying the vacancy, which may eventually be filled by a newly trained person leaving training school. The Police Federation have recently completed a survey into just this problem - the collapse of 24/7 response Policing ~ check their website, its worrying reading

Answer 2

All English and Welsh Police Forces are divided into geographical sectors, usually they follow the same boundaries as local councils. Each of these Police Areas has a Minimum Staffing Requirement for each shift. Therefore, you are more likely to see the Police on a Friday and Saturday night than you are on a Sunday or Monday morning. Police Forces cannot go below the Minimum Staffing Requirement because it is a breach of health and safety rules and can threaten the safety of the public and other Police Officers on duty. From the moment Officers come on duty until the time they clock off they are out and about dealing with jobs called into the Control Room or Police Station with few opportunities to take a break. "The Bill" would have you believe that there are canteen loads of Coppers just sitting around drinking tea and eating pie all day but the reality is far different. You would be surprised how few Coppers are actually on duty at any one time. Oh and as for the motorway patrols - most UK forces have had their budgets for Roads Policing (Traffic to you) slashed in recent years by the Home Office and Local Police Authorities (civilians who think they know about policing). So that is why you see so few Coppers on the motorway.

Superb answer by Skipper 409. Give him the ten points because that is exactely how it is on the job.

Answer 3

Where I live the Police are seen about 3 times a week on foot patrol and in their Police cars.
The reason we hardly see them is simple, I live in a peaceful quiet little town - which is next-door to a big city - we have the usual rowdiness on a Friday & Sat` night but nothing that the Police have to be concerned about.
Lucky me huh :-)

Answer 4

There are more police officers than ever but the increase in numbers is insignificant compared to the increase in commitments.30 years ago there were CID and uniform and a handful of special departments now there are numerous special units demanded by the public things like child protection units,terrorist squad,domestic violence unit,the list goes on but the amount of increase in police figures or totally out of proportion therefore in real terms the amount of uniforms on the street decreases contrary to government propaganda

Answer 5

they all gone home early

i have a police station 100 yards from where i live but they are only on duty at the station from 8am till 5pm after that its closed for the night all we ever see on patrol are the new community officers maybe twice a week .
i saw a car beeing broke into(at 2.30am) phoned them as was told it would be about 3 hours before anyone could attend!
eventully some one came at 9.30 am in the morning.
the sgt was going mad because no one came out after they failled to pinch the car they broke into 3 others till they stole one and used it to empty the local pub

Answer 6

Apparently they follow me around cos I see police patrolling all the time, especially on friday/saturday nights.

Answer 7

If the Senior Management Team(SMT) looked after the officers on response teams and cut the paper work and other crap, experienced officers would remain, I loved working on team, but for stated reasons I was off ASAP.

Answer 8

I live out in the sticks, and I word in most of the cities in the country across the year - I see loads of cops everywhere. Where the heck do you live ?

Answer 9

They have reduced Police patrols on motorways because they rely on cameras to monitor them. I suppose its the same on the streets, they rely on cameras too much. The best deterrent to crime is to have police on the streets.

Answer 10

Strange isn't it. last Saturday my wife and I saw one walking up and down our local cycle path, funny thing is the miscreants usually ride off road motorbikes, (don't think he'd catch many) Then on the Sunday morning about 10.00 am we saw 2 strolling through Town (possibly doing a spot of window shopping). On Friday & Saturday night's you don't see any when the hoodlums are rioting.