Being on restricted duties is dull. I mean REALLY dull. My workload includes taking statements (at the nick) obtaining CPS advice for stressed colleagues (by phone) dealing with incidents by phone (advice jobs), misper enquiries (by phone), out of force enquiries (by phone). Etc. You get the picture.
It's actually surprising how much work you can get done, if left alone and to your own devices, with no distractions. Looking at my colleagues they are run ragged. They make appointments to follow up on their enquiries, but these invariably get cancelled when they are turned out from briefing to attend a domestic / other prompt crime. Despite working a six day shift, (2 earlies, 2 lates, 2 nights) in reality they only get 2 half days to carry out their enquiries. Early turns are spent dealing with prisoners from the night shift or carrying out constants or getting allocated to crap car duties. No chance of getting their own work done then.
Late turn is a 2pm start, invariably there will be overflow from the early turn prisoners, or further misper enquiries need to be done for the inspector to be happy. Cut off time for CPS is 4pm. Little chance of getting that urgent charging advice for your prisoner coming back on bail next week.
Night turn, 10pm start, is spent charging around on blues, to domestics, fights, nuisance youths, RTC's, etc. There is zero chance of CPS, victims & witnesses don't want to get a call after 10pm and out of force enquiries are met with requests to send it by fax, so the skipper on E/T can look at it (or not) in the morning.
This is without considering court attendance, training days, abstractions and, of course, sickness.
It's not hard to figure out why the police are run so ragged. Too much work, not enough officers, not enough time. Centralizing CPS might have saved the criminal justice system money, but all it's done is create an extra burden to the average Bobby. Charging advice is done via the phone, so all statements, evidence, precons, photos, MG3 & 5 have to be scanned in & emailed. We only have one very temperamental scanner in the nick. It can take an hour just to collate, scan & email the documents, then there's the actual call to the prosecutor, another hour gone...back in the day we could take our case file to the resident CPS lawyer, he would look through it, have a chat and then get a decision, all within 45 minutes. How times change.
I feel for my shift. I can see how hard pressed they are. I see that empty look of despair they get when looking through their trays. The stress is always building, the work load ever increasing. I see all this from the comfort of my desk and try to help wherever I can. However very soon I will be joining them once I'm fully fit. All of a sudden, my desire to return to full duties is flagging a little! I'm not scared of hard work, I love a challenge, but equally I'm happiest when I get the time to actually get the work done. Nothing wrong with living with my head in the clouds is there?
-- Post From My iPhone
Wasting More Police Time
2 days ago
There is a big difference between hard work for a reason and hard work because a bunch of middle managers need to meet a paperwork quota. You also know that a good amount of the paperwork and other rubbish you have to do will go nowhere.
ReplyDeleteI don't blame you for enjoying restricted duties.
After my first few visits to the police station as an (in those days when it was allowed) non-accredited solicitors rep I formed the view that maybe the police should have officers who charge about doing things, others who take over the investigation once an arrest has been made and civilians to manage custody under the direction of a police sgt.
ReplyDeleteSome of those things were briefly implimented, we now have civilian detention officers and for a time there were teams of Case Progression Officers who seemed to do most of the interviewing and statement gathering.
I always thought that if done properly it would free up officers for visible policing. I never thought that they went far enough with the CPUs and civilian detention officers.
I worked on a case that was being led, in practice if not on paper, by a retired inspector who had come back as a civilian investigator. He did a good old fashioned job - was interesting to come across verbals again after so long and amazing how he was the only one out of 3 police officers/staff in a small car to hear the suspects comments!