Safe Speed Forums

The Police sometimes, treat the public like they are targets, to satisfy their bosses all just to please a later Gov statement !

Last week, I spent most of a whole morning with the fifteen-year-old son of a man who had just taken his own life. It was an awful business, with the son being the last person to see his father alive, just before he went off to school. The man left a suicide note, but there was no mention of the son, and no real explanation. I was acutely aware that the boy would probably suffer from the implications of this for the rest of his life.

I managed to get an uncle to come down; he initially refused because there was no one to look after his dogs. His mother was still living on the same estate with another man and a new set of children. For some reason, the boy did not want to go there. As we sat waiting for the uncle, the Landlord for the house arrived having heard about the incident from a neighbour, and started berating me about who was going to pay the last months rent. This was in front of the boy.

Before “Citizen Focus” I would have given him a right bollocking and sent him on his miserable way. I would also have remonstrated with the uncle and reminded him of his responsibilities to his orphaned nephew. I can’t do that now because I need both men to mark me down as “polite and tolerant” on the Customer Satisfaction Survey Form I have to leave behind.

I must inform the Control Room on the radio (before I leave the scene) of the name and Collar Number of the officer who left the forms, in this case, my own details. In this way, a member of the “Citizen Focus Working Group” can audit the service I provided to everyone at the scene, contact them later and find out what lessons I might learn, and then pass this on to me in front of my colleagues as part of a Customer Service Workshop.

Needless to say, none of these individuals is available or willing to attend the incident itself, let alone deal with the unfortunate boy or his indifferent family. Also, at fifteen years old, he is too young for his data to be captured and analysed by the team i.e he does not get a form.

In the afternoon, I spent a few hours taking a formal complaint from a serial shoplifter and drug dealer, who had suffered some kind of unspecified burglary at her address. The whole time I was there, various petty thieves, wife beaters and street robbers came and went. It was obvious that they treated the place like home and were in debt to her in some way. Small children played amongst the chip wrappers and dog mess. She said that the police were not taking her burglary seriously.

A while ago, I would have told her that if she chooses to live as a criminal, invite known local robbers to her house and adopt a life as a serial liar and thief, she should not be surprised at the consequences, or a lack of concern on our part.

But now she is a customer, and she has to be placated. In the end, I adopted Plan A, suggested she stop wasting our time and tried to impress upon her the irony of her calling us in the first place. The irony was lost among the threats of cancer to my children, I tossed the form on her chair and wiped my feet on the way out.

One day, I might actually meet a decent, law abiding member of the public. I’m not entirely sure, after a few decades of dealing with the underclass, that I would entirely know what to say! I wonder if the hideous “Citizen Focus Working Group” would be interested in what they have to say.

I think we know the answer to that one.