Are the police lazy, or have the criminals got better?

Question

In relation with the UK ,but everyone's welcome.

Answer 1

I'll tell you what I think, at least as it pertains to the US.

I think the Iraq war is putting such a squeeze on the nation, that cities & counties are finding it hard to make ends meet. So part of the solution, is to find more administrative-type punishments, that they can fine people more. So guess what? More cops out enforcing the traffic laws in the nice lily-white parts of town, instead of risking it in the ghettos stopping real crime. I mean, we've always had that, to a certain extent. But it seems to have gotten worse the last few years. Just my thoughts.

Answer 2

Let's use the analogy of building a house. Now, as new technologies, materials and other things are invented/discovered, building a house is more complex than building a thatched roof hut--modern building projects take more time, resources and funding.. It takes a lot of workers to get it done. If you are building two identical houses and one crew is made up of 50 persons and the other is made up of 5 which house is going to get built first? So, caseload is a factor.
I will admit that every profession has its slackers. It is just more upsetting when the slacker is a police officer than if it is someone at a grocery store or whatever. So, 99.9% of cops are not lazy, they're just dealing with the unfortunately enormous volume of work created by the criminals. But, more criminal activity doesn't necessarily mean more resources or manpower for the police force. And, like every goal being worked towards, whoever does it better gets the most reward from it. So, the criminal mind has evolved as much as anything else.

Answer 3

Police aren't just sitting in patrol cars writing tickets for those doing just 5mph over the limit.

In reality, police agencies are broken down into "divisions" where some officers are detectives, narcotics, patrol, school resource officers, accident investigation, and the list continues.

The problem is our world is growing yet budgets get tight. There are not enough police to be "johnny on the spot" because they are doing their specific jobs.

Are criminals getting smarter? To a degree yes when you have television reality shows tipping off some of the "tricks of the trade," however, technology in crime fighting is also improving!

One difficult area is that where lawyers find loopholes that make doing the job a bit more tedious but you go with the flow and learn to deal with better ways to do the job!

I think the UK has one of the better law enforcement agency's compared to many other countries...but we ALL have our pitfalls as well.

Best wishes.

Answer 4

It is a why bother attitude the paper work to process someone takes longer than it does for the criminal to post bail. You get tired of still doing paperwork to process someone and they are out before you can finish the report. Then when it goes to trial it is dismissed by a liberal judge. And on the odd chance the person is found guilty now you are being investigated because a claim is made of a civil rights violation, or police brutality, or you planted the evidence etc. go through that enough and I'm sure you'll be tired of trying.

Answer 5

It is the criminals mostly, but there are some police that are kind of lazy. Criminals are getting clever now-a-days, and maybe it's not in most cases that the Police are lazy, but it's that they have their hands tied up on alot of things.

Answer 6

All I can add to this is. The war on drugs as long as it's been ongoing in truthfulness they are no nearer to getting it under control, it's about the same now as to when the program is started. For every arrest say of a major drug dealer, this only leaves a slot open for another to assume the same position.They should make weed legal. Giving that Alcohol is a far more serious offense when you compare the two. People on weed will be less aggressive and more complying with police oppose to someone who is drunk and wants to fight evrything in sight.I understand the harder drugs. But weed alone is no worse than beer

Answer 7

Some of both. But really, police are more and more relying on informants to do their work for them. So, if in your area, there seems to be alot of unsolved crimes, there probably is a lack of snitches...

Answer 8

Here in the US I would prefer the cops actually be driving around trying to catch crime in progress rather than putting up speed traps and ticketing people that are going 5 miles over the speed limit......my two cents

Answer 9

What prompts your question ? Crime rates are going down, apart from violent crimes, which have risen slightly