What is your views on the Police of Today

My view has changed recently regarding the Police or more precisly certain police officers.

I have spoken to several people who are in a age bracket that have always respected the Police but have had cause to doubt them recently.

never have that many dealings with police to be fair!

I am Intrigued Wayside As Barney says i have had little dealings with them also.

wayside wrote:My view has changed recently regarding the Police or more precisly certain police officers.

I have spoken to several people who are in a age bracket that have always respected the Police but have had cause to doubt them recently.

Examples as to why?

I gotta agree with other members as to why people have changed thier views on the Police, and yours what's caused the change?

My mind was changed because of the following which I am sorry but goes on a bit, the real point is at the end.

Like most people I have not really had cause to have dealings with the Police ever, until a recent speed infringement, I was happy I was speeding and had no problem with that except for the speed reading as I believed and still do that I was not doing that speed.

Hence a hearing to establish if the speed reported was actually acurate,

There was a couple of reasons why I did not agree with the reading

1/ was 172 yards from the point I was clocked I was stopped.

2/ I was not in a hurry to get anywhere so the speed 60mph seemed too high.

I discovered that the police officer did not use the speedgun as per the guernsey guidelines and so the reading was not as definate as it should have been, guidlines are in place so that the speedgun builds up a Tracking History over a short time then calculates the readings to give a speed that should be 100% in my case we prooved that he only got 1 reading and not 4 or more that he should have.

Having said all that, I put that down to poor training by the police and incompetance on the part of the officer as the guildlines are such that a 10 year old could understand.

but this is now my real point the above was just setting the scene.

In his statement he lied by saying that I passed his position by 10 yards, I did in fact stop just before his position talked to him and then he asked me to pull farward and park.

The only reason he would have said that was to exagerate my speed, when questioning I asked if he had written it in his book at the time he thought he had I asked if he had just used his memory (it was 6 weeks or so later that he did the statemnt) he thought his memory and his notes on the day, I asked him to check his notes and of course nothing was in there about this because it did not happen.

He also said that he had shown me the speed gun which he had not and I was not concerned about that but now we have 2 lies.

His partner then tried to a degree to back him up which was obviously pre planned, by the words he used he had obviously read the other statement and it sort of contridicted his own statement.

In this case it was just a traffic offence so no big deal but a police officer that is willing to go to a court and lie has no place in the police as far as I am concerned.

Other people have said things like the police have tried to make a case more than it really was and words being put into there mouths in order to make a case more than it was etc.

Other people saying that they know of people who leave the force because they were sort of given targets to reach, I dont know if thats true but if it is it encourages entrapment.

Hope that did not bore you, I had no problem with being done for the offence just the speed, no problem with the final outcome as the judge did a great job and helped me with the case as I defended myself, just the fact that an officer would lie in court angers me.

No Bore Wayside and I can fully now understand your feeling about the police. I have to admit there has been more than once, when I have seen an offence being committed, and then 30 inutes later they turn up, and the offender has long since gone, it has made me think is it worth ringing them?

I used to have much respect for them, back in the days when you could actually have a two way conversation with them. they all seem too interested these days in "doing" you for whatever reason.
Recently, my Mother (who is almost 80) was being freaked out by a lad of 22. We subsequently found out who this lad was, and reported it to the good old boys in blue (giving name, address etc) well what do you think they told dear Mumsy..........Don't sit in your lounge in the daytime with your curtains open!! ffs, what is going on here, btw, turns out this lad is the son of an ex boy in blue. so with this sort of caper going on, how on earth are we supposed to respect them.
Footnote; soon after i had installed a security camera, i noticed the little git had been put away for some other offence.

That's disgusting Steve.

I was told by another person that she was on call last week a Nurse she needed to get to a lane and when she got nearby there was a no entry (road works) the lane was just inside the no entry and the way was clear.

She saw a police car by the lane and slowly drove up to him to ask if it was OK to proceed, she was immedietly booked and the officer would not let her explain why she had to get through he just ignored her trying to talk and gave her a ticket.

What ever happened to police using common sence and discretion.

It is sad, and people wander why the youngsters of today have no respect for the police if the "Older" community have none, then the younsters would never be taught to respect them

may i just add to this thread... for every one bad story or encounter about the police there will be thousands of good stories..peoples lives saved property returned burglars and thieves convicted etc etc etc.... you cant judge the whole judicial system on the actions of one single bad encounter... yes i agree the bad encounter does leave a bad taste in the mouth but to believe that every officer is as useless as that bad encounter is silly..... police officers are human beings....and as such can also get things wrong and make a bad judgement..
yes Police officers do have personal indicators to hit each month.. but these indicators are not convictions for offences so it makes no difference if the officer gets a conviction or not to his standing within the force or his/her role.
government guidlines now insist that police are more approachable to the general public and every target they are now set is community orientated.. police will always try to get it right but that is the buzz to a good officer.... doing good is what motivates people.. and a police officer is just a person..

so when we are speeding.. why argue
when we are doing wrong.... why complain
and when we are caught.... be gracious

remember this......your attitude effects there attitude.. there attitude effects your manner.. and your manner will in turn effect there manner..... its a no win situation so if you remain calm and pleasant you are much less likely to pay the penalty for being wrong.... take care out there folks... i for one think the police in general are a bloody marvel.... it must be hard to get out of bed knowing the public hate you and yet still try to do the best job they can knowing that the prosecution service and government are tieing there hands behind there backs and working constantly against what the public and the police force wish to achieve...

Thanks For that Bobz a view for the other side of the coin so to speak . I think what brings the police into a bad light is that the public do not see what goes on behind the scenes ,all they see is some plod standing on a corner somewhere with a speed gun or the dreaded parking ticket .

What they don't see is cutting badly hurt people out of traffic accidents or bodies , or having to knock on someones door with terrible news . Getting involved in domestics and drunks crawling around the streets.

I agree with the last two posts .the police over here have a thankless job
Too much time is spent on little crimes like traffic offences we need on the spot fines
Even for other little crimes like littering which is getting worse few spot fines and folks would get to know the rules.#

I have been talking to some new recruits and they say the jobs in not worth the hassel
Too much of their time is spend sitting aroung in training rooms just waiting for someone to come and teach you...no wonder our youngsters are not joing up!
Get the signup preperations done right and we will see many more of Guernsey youngsters joining our police force

I agree that time is being spent on little crimes in order to prevent the bigger crimes... if you let the speeding go off day after day without a penalty do you think that would encourage safer driving.. i think not... time is spent doing what the community want and if you go into any community meeting and ask the public what they see as a problem i gaurantee it will be speeding as a number one topic... so speeding is tackled because we would like to hope that we are going to prevent the accident that the public continually brow beat us about... its not nice pulling parts of people from any accident and even less nice to have to go and tell a mother her child has been killed.. its time the public got on side with speeding and if everyone would unite then the need for speeding tickets etc would disappear..
litter is another big issue... but it is not the fault of the police.. did you know that if a police officer saw a person littering he would have to challenge the person... then ask the person to pick it up and he/she refused then warn the offender and ask him to pick it up again and if refused again he would have to report the person for summons and complete a encounter form about two feet long then go back to the station and fill in a 6 page court file and a statement that might take a hour to write depending on its complexity.. then interview and caution the offender under interview to take the offender statement.. then a trip to court to sit waiting until the case comes to hearing... all this takes time... lots of time... i have seen many officers on a friday saturday night on the beat where i live walking past late night fast fod shacks who have picked the litter up to save there time for something more worth while..

there are not many Police where i come from that are living local to there station so i understand why guernsey folk also do not want to live and work on their doorstep.. we have officers who travel 50 miles to work at our local station daily. its a thankless job and in my opinion if every cop was the good old local boy who knew everyone then many crimes would get swept under the carpet and then where would law and order be... up the creek thats where..

police training never ends.... law changes all the time.. practises change even more often... local ideas and issues always change.. and public opinion is different in every newspaper.. so police officers are fire fighters dealing with the issues that people shout loudest about...