I note that the Times is trying to be a proper newspaper again.
Maybe its time for a more French style system. One the one hand you have the nice Gendarme and on the other you have the CRS who you know if you F***K about will just kick the s***t out of you.
I do think that there is something more provocative about todays uniform. It is becoming increasingly para-military in its style ( all in the name of comfort, practicallity and durability) but is it really something that should be worn by neighbourhood policing teams?
Mrs Rozzer's force has just been given its new uiform and she bemoans its lack of smartness and overtones that she is now the new Lara Croft.
But i do love the fact that our local PCSO's are joing in by tucking their combat pants into their boots to ensure they look like a detachment of 3 Para... has anybody told them they have zero in the way of power so dont bloody attract attention to yourselves by making yourself look more capable than you are. I would be less than impressed if Mr or Mrs Tacklebery turned up looking like this at a local community event.
Getting back to the point a little. TRAINING.... dont make me laugh PSU training like all other training in my local force goes a little something like this.
Arrive 9am ... time allotted to tell you what you will be trained on. More importantly get told that if you forego the afternoon break you can all have an "early dart"
10am Time for tea
10:30 Resume... reflect on the last hour what has been learnt. Do a bit of training.
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Resume.... reflect on what has been learnt (just enough to cover every ones back so the Force can say in the event of Litigation that their officers were trained)
14:30 Leg stretch ... no tea as it had bee previously agreed that this break would be forefeited so all could have an early dart"
15:30 Would you believe it yep you guessed it AN EARLY DART. Training done.
And by the way.
@ ED my Jedi Master.
You came round a bit quick " The Knight-Jack is dead long live the Times" x
@smuggler
Not sure I follow what you mean.
I would have thought the way the authorities in Iran deal with their civil unrest would make people a little more appreciative of our police in the UK.
When you compare what our bobbies do to what others do abroad (for example the cited example of the French), ours look compartivaely restrained and tolerant.
@smuggler:
Agreed. there is altogether too much nonsense (in every walk of life, not just the police) talked about the need for 'training' when all that is really needed is to tell people what to do and make sure they do it.
If after that they don't do it, you have a big problem with how you manage your organisation, and you can't make that go away by blaming it on lack of training.
Same goes for the perennial government line of 'lessons must be learnt'. If the lessons that should be learnt were blindingly obvious in the first place the it is not about learning lessons it is about doing now what should have been done to start with.
Have a look at the actual report:
http://news.parliament.uk/2009/0...f-g20-protests/
I tend to go along with @smuggler and agree that the uniforms are ridiculous nowadays. What is the need for a PC to attend court on a trial dressed like he was policing G20? Time was when they attended in no 1 uniform all spic and smart - don't suppose they have anymore.
Lack of training is one of the main problems due to cutbacks and also the pc culture where, instead of learning laws like they used to, they sit around a discuss things. This is why you get people being arrested for "non laws" because the officer thinks it's an offence. The other main problem is the emasculating of the discipline service it used to be, where sergeants and Inspectors kept discipline and if you were told to do something you did it - not now where you have to justify it to every officer.
At the end of the day the old adage "we get the police we deserve" seems appropriate.
@mcmrjp:
Getting off topic, but we certainly have tunics, etc in our lockers at my force. For several years, however, we have been instructed not to wear them when attending Mags/Youth and Crown Court as we are further instructed to patrol the public areas of the court, in beat-duty uniform, presumably to assist the HMCS-employed security staff.
Mrs Rozzer informs me. Number one uniform for crown. And Lara Croft for Mags. For her force at least.
@Smuggler
Sorry - but as a "MOP" then I'm afraid "best of the rest" ain't good enough.
I expect the police to be a disciplined service operating within the law. I also expect them to want the same thing.
Why the argument?
Martin.
Last April, when I blogged about G20, we had over 200 comments, many from police officers.
Now we have a considered report from parliament that is less than ecstatic about police management (not individual PCs) there is a deafening silence.
Why?
A very disingenious comment Bystander. There are a total of 12 comments so far, hardly a deafening clamour from any section of your readership.
The article you have linked to is, as you have said, thoughtful and considered. It manages to aknowledge the unique challenges of police work while being critical, and does so without thinly veiled suggestions that officers are stuppid thugs, or offering short sighted advice on how to police. You would do well to learn from this.
I can find nothing to strongly disagree with, and hence did not feel the need to comment before your revealing comment.
Above comment from Martin
@Bystander
I can supply the one word answer 'Nightjack' in answer to your rhetorical question above.
I am impressed that the Times journalist can so "clearly" see the problems of the police based on one late shift shadowing officers and one deployment with the TSG.
She flies her flag early in the article "damning phone videos", "200 allegations", "numerous claims of protestors who say they offered no provocation", "harsh treatment of journalists", the evidence of the police "sounded smug".
The Times is a rag. And I can't believe I read it again following Nightjacks outing.
@Tang0
It's not easy being a journalist. The news doesn't just make itself up, you know.
I found the article interally inconsistent.
On one hand we have *premediated* violence; the use of police agent provocateurs. On the other hand we have "untrained bobbies". Lack of training does not make you cross the line where you go from reacting badly (it happened to me) to deliberately attacking people (I chose to beat them up) and this isn't in the heat of the moment; you don't leave your numbers behind so you're not identified *in the heat of the moment*.
AFAICT from what I've read, the police knowingly and deliberately set out to beat the living hell out of the protestors; and part of that was of course to cover it up. To wait until the press had gone and to ensure they were not present and *then* to attack.
And that is why kettling was used. To keep the protestors until the attack could be conducted unobserved.
What was done was profoundly evil. That is one issue. But even more now the issue is the utter failure of the Government and the Press to acknowledge what occurred; what happened has been covered up. The Government has not faced it and the press has been complicit in its reporting.
Seeing reports of "this lady was punched" and "Ian died" - where are the reports about the kettled protestors, having the living hell beaten out of them by the police, then the police bringing their attack dogs in to savage them as well?
It became clear to me from all of this that the Government is the enemy.
AFAICT from what I've read, the police knowingly and deliberately set out to beat the living hell out of the protestors; and part of that was of course to cover it up. To wait until the press had gone and to ensure they were not present and *then* to attack.
Perhaps you should exercise some editorial control and objective analysis about what you are reading then.
@Blank Xavier
You should join the police to change the system from within, maybe as a special constable.
@Bystander
Off-topic, the BBC reported this: Report calls for jail number cut (a report from the Howard League for Penal Reform).
@Tang0: http://g20police.wordpress.com
Read the eye-witness accounts.
@Ed: internally originated reform does not occur. Organisations cannot change by themselves. Externally imposed reform can occur. Unfortunately, externally imposed reform is always harmful; outsiders cannot understand how things really are or how they ought to be.
The other mechanism relating to reform is evolution; the external environment can change and those organisations which cannot survive in the new environment die, those which can survive still do so and perhaps even prosper. The organisations do not actually change, but some die and some do better.
@Blank Xavier
Unfortunately, your position looks a lot like you being afraid to put your money where your mouth is. Of course, I don't think that, but that's how it looks.
Hmm, the article says the TV footage showed two things, individual officers acting badly and groups of police penned in by a large crowd.
It also showed police, en masse, methodically using violence against unarmed people. At the Climate Camp protest police waded in to people who were not charging or throwing anything, and who responded by holding their empty hands in the air chanting 'this is not a riot'.
The style of policing used at the G20 has long been deployed against certain protests, not in proportion to their volatility but their politics.
On the venening of April 1st the police and media were reporting it as a quiet day with, if anything, restrained policing. It was only after news of Ian Tomlinson's death came out that the media became interested in the police violence.
Blank Xavier,
If that is your unbiased and objective source on which you are basing your views then clearly there is absolutely no point in discussing this.
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