Sometimes.....

I really hate being on my shift.

Our skipper has gone on leave and we have a stand in (in the loosest sense of the word). A police officer on shift who thinks they can bark orders as they are the most experienced member on shift (time wise not actual experience).

This i think will be there downfall as day 1 managed to piss off at least 2 members of the shift, this seems to happen quite regularly and needs to be addressed as we cant have the infighting we had before because of overbearing skippers.

I have actually considered moving to another shift at another nick as its turning into a state where i really don't want to come to work. I mean i love my job its just this person making life very hard by their attitude.

I usually go with the flow and don't let things bother me, life's to short to get stressed in reality and there is a lot worse that can happen to people out there.

We will see how the next week goes as I'm not overly sure how much longer i can keep my frustration in check and things will need to be said.

This job its quite easy to leave the job before you get home. But its annoying when you are pissed off at home because of the few on shift. Hopefully it will all sort itself out and I'll have some happy news for you all.

By the way I'm still top on shift for detections / arrests and jobs handled! Which pisses this person off even more as they have been in the job for longer!

Keep Smiling....

JS

Full circle

Well, things in the police have now come a full circle for me. There is a routine in our numbers and policies and it seems to have come about again.

Right now we are quite flush on shift, we have had 3 or so new officers join our shift recently. This is a big difference compared to the numbers we usually ran with namely max 5 officers including a skipper.

I think we may actually be at full strength.

Having these new 3 officers reminded me of when i joined up, wet behind the ears and not sure what I'm really doing for the first few months at least. Now i have these "new kids" actually looking to me for advice which in itself is quite scary. One of them i hate to say is damned near useless and to be honest its not all his fault, hes had 2 bad tutors and just cant seem to get on with the job, quite how he will fair when he finished tutorship i don't know, hopefully actually being with some proactive officers and not being made to look a fool by his tutor may help.

One was an ex special who is doing very well who i have tutored for a few shifts while his main tutor is away this lads got potential just needs the practice.

The third is actually quite good, a bit like me when i started really, loves going out looking for proactive stuff but is having a bit of a mare with the paperwork side of things, I'm trying not to treat him like a tutee but its quite hard seeing people make mistakes which can be easily sorted and not say anything (we all learn by our mistakes).

I reckon in 6 - 10 months our numbers will be depleted again i may even not be on this shift and may have moved to new places. Im sure the people above me will be moving on or thinking about moving on shortly.

I am now going to be a tutor so i will get my own tutee to teach how to police, this in itself is interesting as i am not the most "by the book" officer out there i use common sense in my policing which the majority of times works but sometimes it fails me and i fall flat on my arse. But all part of the learning curve in reality.

So i have been at this nick for almost 2 years, i dont feel that experiance but being with the new kids has shown me how much i do know and i feel more confident in speaking up especially with other members of shift.

Will be interesting times to come.

JS

Help me!!

I found this while checking out other blogs.

"Help me Neil...help me!"

I found it amusing mainly for the half arsed attempt to escape and requesting the help of his friend, who it seemed was in 2 minds weather to help his mate out or not.

Seems these 2 were more than up for the job, and it may surprise some of you how strong people can be when they are desperate to escape.

I have had many a fight with someone smaller than me who has nearly won due to the need for him to escape.

I haven't CS'd a crew mate though... YET! But we will wait and see on that one!

I have just come off some crappy shifts recently hence the lack of updates but will hopefully update this blog as soon as i can.

JS

Police Force Mergers

It has been well reported about the Home Office Review on merging Police Forces from 43 to about 12 forces because of "Operational Resilience".

A number of forces have already rejected the proposals and some are welcoming them this seems to be a step away from community policing that was on the agenda a while ago and a move towards national policing.

I wish they would make up their minds what they want us to do. Of course terrorism is a big thing on the agenda and affects us all and that is the key to the national policing idea, sharing intel and acting on information as well as responding to the incident. It seems to have worked well so far for us but we are a big force, its just a shame the government haven't a clue what really happens, we need to be able to share more intelligence to combat serious and organised crime but we also need to deal with Johnny Chav who wants to steal your car. Bigger forces will help Serious and organised crime but will it help stop the TWOCCER?

The answer is NO.

What would you prefer we deal with stop the things that stop you going about your business like anti social behaviour, theft of your car etc or say sorry but all our officers are dealing with high level crime.

I agree that we need to deal with high level crime but lets not loose focus here we are meant to serve and protect the public from drug dealers, little shits that want to smash your windows and burgle your house.

I'm sure that's what you would want us to do rather than not be there to prevent or detect the offence.

Comments please!

It's The New Year

Happy new year everyone, although a week or so too late!

Its been the first week of the new PACE powers and everyone is still a tad confused but it doesn't seem to have made a great deal of difference to the way we operate so far that is, no doubt it will all change as the days roll on, i'm still sceptical about the use of the new powers though but we shall see.

I have been trawling the news recently trying to catch up and found a few stories worth of comment.

One from a short time ago was about arming the police and the full story is here.

BBC News Story on Arming the Police

My views on arming the police have been posted before and we shall see how this pans out!