Thanks To Police Patrol:

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by SV650rules

some forces do have quotas though, they admit it

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ist-fines.html

Small point of order, I believe that article was originally written some thirteen or fourteen years ago and the figures they are referring to are older than that....

The hypothecation scheme it refers to, where forces were allowed to keep a percentage of the face value of tickets issued, was introduced by the government in order to encourage development in certain areas of policing, however senior officers realised they could also use it to make easy money leading to exactly the kind of behaviour the article highlights.... and it was soon taken away from them.
This was also the era of "performance indicators" where they believed they could measure what a police officer did in terms of figures, and that was equally subject to abuse.

The truth is that as soon as you start to treat policing as a business you will expose yourself to all the corruption that attracts, and yet they persist.....

[yorkie_chris]

And it is the mail, and they do talk out of their ****...

[TamSV]

Originally Posted by Red Herring

The truth is that as soon as you start to treat policing as a business you will expose yourself to all the corruption that attracts, and yet they persist.....

Policing lends itself to corruption like no business possibly could.

I come from a community where charges won't be pursued if the only evidence is the word of a police officer. A random selection of 14 of his peers will assume he's a liar. No more than a hired strike breaker at arms.

I also recall "you'll do, home for 2" and the subsequent art of lying in court. Many of the ridiculous rules the police have to live by are a result of the abuses of their predecessors.

All of this predates Tony Blair's targets.

The real truth is power and humans don't mix well.

[Red Herring]

There are some that believe that the attitudes of a police officer often reflect those of the community they serve, they are after all supposed to be representative of them....

I take the alternate view that you get out what you put in. If you treat your police officers with mistrust and a lack of respect then before long you end up with a police force that can be neither trusted or respected.....

[SV650rules]

Maggie Thatcher set an uncomfortable precedent when she decided to use the Police as her private army to break the miners union (as TamSV alludes to in his post). She recruited more police, gave them all a nice wage rise and set them onto the miners, nobody really trusted the Police after that they have been used shamelessly as servants of the government ever since. They have been caught too many times falsifying statement and colluding to have public trust, this goes right to the top - and everyone now understands that an internal police inquiry = whitewash. Most inquiries into police corruption and stuff-ups are delayed on purpose so that anyone implicated can retire on a fat pension long before the inquiry even starts, let alone finishes (and the difference in time between start and finish can be decades). The police must be the only people where retiring means that you are no longer guilty, for example, if you steal from a company you work for then retire, you are still liable for criminal charges, if you murder someone, retirement won't get you off (unless you are a member of the police force).

Some police often forget that they are the servants of the public and are not in any way above the law. By and large the Police are not set a good example by their masters (especially Ian Blair, who was first and foremost a political animal, and no more trustworthy than his mate and namesake Tony B liar.

[Blapper]

This forum needs +1 and -1 buttons.

[Red Herring]

Why? If you agree with someone just say so, if you have an alternative view then express it, hopefully with an explanation.

[madcockney]

I think what one poster is trying to say is that the police are the servants of the law and not the law, which is different to what they indicated.

I am one of those that criticise the police when required but also support them when they deserve it. (In every walk of life there are those that treat others with respect and others that are out for their own ends.) Whatever we say about the police we need them. When we get cover ups that we see, but actually go back several years or decades, that should be taken into account as to not consider every copper in the same ilk. (We complain about the public often regarding all bikers as being bad, based on the few bad ones that we would also criticise.( However these cover ups, etc. do colour the public's perception of the police and that is why it is important to unravel those and find the culprits.

Don't think that all police agree with what they are asked to enforce. For instance, looking at us as bikers, I know of at least one traffic officer that derides the local CC for reducing speed limits where they are not required. It also leads to disrespect of lower speed limits where they are required. When you see statements that speed limits are there for a reason, and the only reason is that the local CC thinks reducing all speed limits is a good idea with no rhyme or reason, well scientific reason, it brings the whole concept that "speed limits are there for a reason" into disrespect, yet the police are still expected to enforce them.

[SV650rules]

I think being a copper who deals with public on daily basis (as opposed to a desk copper) is probably one of the hardest jobs anyone could have in these days of political correctness and walking on eggs when dealing with the many 'minorities' we have in UK, some of whom think they have their own laws and that they don't have to obey the laws that are made by our parliament.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Red Herring

Most speed camera vans are operated by partnerships, and they tend to have slightly different priorities and objectives to most front line police officers. It might be considered a mistake to assume there is any degree of love between the two organisations......

I dunno how the scamera partnerships manage to get staff, what must they say when someone asks them in the pub? Rather admit to working for the tax man.

No doubt outsourced to some contractor who are probably earning off the speed awareness courses too, hence the desire to catch lots of people rather than actually reduce the incidence of speeding.