40 years all round, what a result!
14,610 days inside minimum, each one being a stamped out clone of the previous and the next. With only the prospect of being stabbed, slashed or covered in boiling water by a patriotic inmate to liven things up. Good.
I can't even begin to imagine spending 40 years inside like that, if I had to , then I would kill myself. Such a long sentence seems much better that the morons who wrote into the Sun praising the death penalty for people like this. The irony of the fact that their plans revolved round them dying in the first place, making death not much of a deterrent, was kind of lost on them, I think.
The longer they sit while their brains rot, the better.
(the buffoon bombers, that is, anyone who proposes the death penalty as a deterrent for suicide bombers has clearly already achieved this)
Saturday 14 July 2007
Friday 13 July 2007
Never mind the Buzzcocks
A few years ago, I went to a local semi-secure psychiatric unit, to see a nurse who was reporting a minor road accident. I got buzzed in the door, and then approached in the lobby by bloke who was sat down, reading a copy of The Times. He asked who I was there for, I said, and he went off to find the nurse. He came back and we chatted while we waited for the nurse to come down.
He was very well informed and rational, and I took him for another nurse. After a few minutes, a raggedy looking guy in a rather threadbare woollen multicoloured jumper and ripped combats with long dreadlocks came down the stairs, saw the first guy talking to me and shouted "Dennis! Get back in your room at once.
I'd been talking to one of the loons.
Thing is, if I'd been face to face with the pair of them, I'd have chosen the loon to be the nurse and vice versa every time. It's like that game on "Never mind the Buzzcocks", where you have to pick the real former celeb out of the lineup of 4 or 5 stooges.
I don't know if it says more about me, psychiatric nurses, or lunatics.
Individuals in the mental health services are as overrun with work as the rest of us. I have no gripe with fellow professionals, but I do have a big gripe with their management. When they go to section a mental patient/soon to be mental patient, and they expect a fight, it is quite usual to call us. Fine, you might think, but it is a purely medical issue.
The NHS is responsible for ensuring mental patients security once they are inside the walls of a mental institution, logically and legally, they are responsible once the doctor/social worker has made the decision to section. Why, therefore, one might ask, do they not employ staff who are trained to restrain patients? Pubs and clubs employ bouncers, businesses employ security guards, rich businessmen employ bodyguards, so why does the NHS not do likewise.
We can and do help out where we can, but the various mental health trusts manifestly refuse to employ, allocate or train staff to restrain violent patients, which is, basically, their job. Because they do not employ sufficient staff to fulfill their responsibilities, they ask us. It's not like we're trained to do it either, we have 2 1/2 days training a year in self-defence, which covers baton, handcuffs, CS spray and various holds, most of which go out the window in a real punch up. We are no better trained for restraining the mentally ill than anyone else.
The same principle does not work the other way, you wouldn't be happy having a psychiatric nurse investigate your aunties burglary through lack of police resources or police abdicating their responsibility, so why accept the fact that the NHS does the same when your auntie goes a bit loco and needs to go away for months to be made better?
There's talk of a Royal Commission to decide what exactly the polices job is and crucially, what it isn't. There's a lot of shit we end up having to do because no-one else answers the phone outside of business hours. Maybe it's time a Royal Commission looked at other major UK institutions as well...?
He was very well informed and rational, and I took him for another nurse. After a few minutes, a raggedy looking guy in a rather threadbare woollen multicoloured jumper and ripped combats with long dreadlocks came down the stairs, saw the first guy talking to me and shouted "Dennis! Get back in your room at once.
I'd been talking to one of the loons.
Thing is, if I'd been face to face with the pair of them, I'd have chosen the loon to be the nurse and vice versa every time. It's like that game on "Never mind the Buzzcocks", where you have to pick the real former celeb out of the lineup of 4 or 5 stooges.
I don't know if it says more about me, psychiatric nurses, or lunatics.
Individuals in the mental health services are as overrun with work as the rest of us. I have no gripe with fellow professionals, but I do have a big gripe with their management. When they go to section a mental patient/soon to be mental patient, and they expect a fight, it is quite usual to call us. Fine, you might think, but it is a purely medical issue.
The NHS is responsible for ensuring mental patients security once they are inside the walls of a mental institution, logically and legally, they are responsible once the doctor/social worker has made the decision to section. Why, therefore, one might ask, do they not employ staff who are trained to restrain patients? Pubs and clubs employ bouncers, businesses employ security guards, rich businessmen employ bodyguards, so why does the NHS not do likewise.
We can and do help out where we can, but the various mental health trusts manifestly refuse to employ, allocate or train staff to restrain violent patients, which is, basically, their job. Because they do not employ sufficient staff to fulfill their responsibilities, they ask us. It's not like we're trained to do it either, we have 2 1/2 days training a year in self-defence, which covers baton, handcuffs, CS spray and various holds, most of which go out the window in a real punch up. We are no better trained for restraining the mentally ill than anyone else.
The same principle does not work the other way, you wouldn't be happy having a psychiatric nurse investigate your aunties burglary through lack of police resources or police abdicating their responsibility, so why accept the fact that the NHS does the same when your auntie goes a bit loco and needs to go away for months to be made better?
There's talk of a Royal Commission to decide what exactly the polices job is and crucially, what it isn't. There's a lot of shit we end up having to do because no-one else answers the phone outside of business hours. Maybe it's time a Royal Commission looked at other major UK institutions as well...?
Thursday 5 July 2007
Numbers game
There was one of many emails to plough through yesterday that I found particularly amusing. It was from the chief supt, which is not normally an indication of humour.
So far, the funniest email I've ever seen was from a friend of mine, who is not particularly IT Aware, and is forever leaving his email logged in. Foolish boy.
Last time he did that, an email was mysteriously sent to our inspector saying ' Dear Sir, please could I sit and work in a corner of your office, as I think you're really good at the job, and I want to learn from you and be more and more like you every day. I will iron your shirts and shine your shoes into the bargain' or words to that effect. Chuckle chuckle, especially when a second comedian forwarded this email to their sergeant, saying 'Please can I have your support in this application?'. Boy, did we chuckle when the inspector said the next day that he was quite happy to continue ironing his own shirts thank you very much.
Anyway, I digress. This email from the C/supt stated that we do not manage logs professionally, we must be more proactive in dealing with them. His was of helping us to achieve this? By telling us that by 6 o'clock that evening (the email being 3 days old at most at this point) we had to get the number of logs down to 30 (running at 78 when I read it), and that no log should be more than 8 hours old.
Which is really helpful when people ring you up for help and then don't stay in one place long enough to be seen and don't answer the phone to make alternative arrangements, and then break the arrangements they do make.
The duty inspector, as presumably did the ones before him, give us blanket authority to use and abuse the neighbourhood teams as we see fit, regardless of their objections. Forget about the paperwork that has build up, the routine enquiries that have been put on hold while we parade about proving the reassuring power of fluourescent yellow and the suicide bomber deflecting powers of an orange traffic cone. "Use them, f*ck what they say." were his exact words. He hates it as much as we do.
The only way this will work is if I am allowed to dynamite the local telephone exchange and cause a fake anthrax scare in the front office, so no fresh work will come in, but I fear somehow this is contrary to the ethos of modern policing.
Needless to say, we handed over to lates with the same number of logs, give or take a few, that we walked into at 7am. I almost regret that I wasn't working lates, as I'd have loved to see the big mans face when the holy grail of 30 logs fell from his grasp. His deputy recently admitted to the troops that he has no idea how an operations centre works, and was shortly going to spend some time sitting in to familiarise himself with it. I shall gently suggest that he get the C/supt to do the same.
The irony of the fact that he's effectively admitted that we cannot provide both neighbourhood policing and a decent response service is clearly lost on him. The troops have worked like mad, but quite simply people will ring us faster than we can deal with them.
The remarkable similiarity of the description of British troops in World War One being 'Lions led by Donkeys' to the current situation is almost unbearable. One hopes that when he realises that his figure plucked out of the air has not been achieved, he might sit down and ask himself why. If his approach is to start talking discipline, it's probably a good job he joined the Police and not the army, as the practice of troops shooting lunatic or deeply unpopular officers did not die out in the days of Sharpe.
So far, the funniest email I've ever seen was from a friend of mine, who is not particularly IT Aware, and is forever leaving his email logged in. Foolish boy.
Last time he did that, an email was mysteriously sent to our inspector saying ' Dear Sir, please could I sit and work in a corner of your office, as I think you're really good at the job, and I want to learn from you and be more and more like you every day. I will iron your shirts and shine your shoes into the bargain' or words to that effect. Chuckle chuckle, especially when a second comedian forwarded this email to their sergeant, saying 'Please can I have your support in this application?'. Boy, did we chuckle when the inspector said the next day that he was quite happy to continue ironing his own shirts thank you very much.
Anyway, I digress. This email from the C/supt stated that we do not manage logs professionally, we must be more proactive in dealing with them. His was of helping us to achieve this? By telling us that by 6 o'clock that evening (the email being 3 days old at most at this point) we had to get the number of logs down to 30 (running at 78 when I read it), and that no log should be more than 8 hours old.
Which is really helpful when people ring you up for help and then don't stay in one place long enough to be seen and don't answer the phone to make alternative arrangements, and then break the arrangements they do make.
The duty inspector, as presumably did the ones before him, give us blanket authority to use and abuse the neighbourhood teams as we see fit, regardless of their objections. Forget about the paperwork that has build up, the routine enquiries that have been put on hold while we parade about proving the reassuring power of fluourescent yellow and the suicide bomber deflecting powers of an orange traffic cone. "Use them, f*ck what they say." were his exact words. He hates it as much as we do.
The only way this will work is if I am allowed to dynamite the local telephone exchange and cause a fake anthrax scare in the front office, so no fresh work will come in, but I fear somehow this is contrary to the ethos of modern policing.
Needless to say, we handed over to lates with the same number of logs, give or take a few, that we walked into at 7am. I almost regret that I wasn't working lates, as I'd have loved to see the big mans face when the holy grail of 30 logs fell from his grasp. His deputy recently admitted to the troops that he has no idea how an operations centre works, and was shortly going to spend some time sitting in to familiarise himself with it. I shall gently suggest that he get the C/supt to do the same.
The irony of the fact that he's effectively admitted that we cannot provide both neighbourhood policing and a decent response service is clearly lost on him. The troops have worked like mad, but quite simply people will ring us faster than we can deal with them.
The remarkable similiarity of the description of British troops in World War One being 'Lions led by Donkeys' to the current situation is almost unbearable. One hopes that when he realises that his figure plucked out of the air has not been achieved, he might sit down and ask himself why. If his approach is to start talking discipline, it's probably a good job he joined the Police and not the army, as the practice of troops shooting lunatic or deeply unpopular officers did not die out in the days of Sharpe.
Wednesday 4 July 2007
Stereotyping
My daughter recently had to complete ten facts about the police for school, as did everyone else in her class, for discussion. The word doughnuts did not appear anywhere in her list, bless her, and I can absolutely guarantee that she will be the best informed in her class this time, rather than it just being quite likely.
They also had to do a drawing of a criminal, and she drew an ordinary person. Much to the amusement and derision of her classmates, until she pointed out that criminals do indeed look like ordinary people, because physically they are.
.
As proof, I offer you three photographs. One should be recognisable to everyone in the UK, the second will only be recognisable to his friends, family and colleagues if he has a job (sorry buddy, you're probably a really nice guy!), and the last will be recognisable to some students of 20th century history. For those that are not, it is the Nazi Dr Josef Mengele, whose enthusiasm for sending people to the gas chambers or the medical labs knew no bounds, and did not require frequent large amounts of alcohol to make it bearable.
Two of the above are known to have been pleasant people to know socially, otherwise law abiding, decent people. The third I can't comment on, but I have to be honest, to look at them contestant number two would look most like a criminal to me and I imagine most coppers. Which just goes to show how wrong you can be sometimes.
They also had to do a drawing of a criminal, and she drew an ordinary person. Much to the amusement and derision of her classmates, until she pointed out that criminals do indeed look like ordinary people, because physically they are.
.
As proof, I offer you three photographs. One should be recognisable to everyone in the UK, the second will only be recognisable to his friends, family and colleagues if he has a job (sorry buddy, you're probably a really nice guy!), and the last will be recognisable to some students of 20th century history. For those that are not, it is the Nazi Dr Josef Mengele, whose enthusiasm for sending people to the gas chambers or the medical labs knew no bounds, and did not require frequent large amounts of alcohol to make it bearable.
Two of the above are known to have been pleasant people to know socially, otherwise law abiding, decent people. The third I can't comment on, but I have to be honest, to look at them contestant number two would look most like a criminal to me and I imagine most coppers. Which just goes to show how wrong you can be sometimes.
Monday 2 July 2007
No smoke without fire...
Seriously guys, did no-one tell them that smoking has been banned in public? This is kind of an extreme way to protest...
On a more serious note for a second, yet again we seem to have escaped a serious loss of life due to the total incompetence of the other side. Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses to those who think religious fervour beats competence. Long may they continue. They could learn a thing or two from the IRA's past history, but that would require a knowledge and understanding of other cultures, which is clearly beneath them.
Discuss.
Friday 29 June 2007
Another one unto the fold
Firstly, let us welcome another one to the blogging community.
Area Search No Trace.
Welcome to this new world, my friend,
Secondly, a change of Government, well cabinet at least. Let us hope that large scale change does not fall from on high as those new in post see the need to make their mark.
Although I don't see why not, it happens in the police service all the time. Sergeants and Inspectors tend not to have too many retarded ideas, although with some new inspectors who have their eyes on higher things, some daftness does tend to creep in. The real potential, however, flares up when you reach chief inspector and above.
My new management team has decided to change our shift pattern, which to be fair, does probably need changing, as there's no capacity in it for training days, and most of the things we're terrible at doing, is stuff we have to have training days for. Fair enough. However, there's just been a purge of various posts to put people back in the front line, hey ho', everyone got their hopes up, and now that's been put back at least 3 months.
We will be moving from a 4 shift system to a 5 shift, which gives more coverage at certain times in terms of numbers, but this larger number of officers must compete for the same number of cars, leaving a significant number of us on foot. Not that I object to walking from A to B in itself, but as a means of getting from A to B to get things done, it's pretty damn inefficient. Seeing us zoom past in a car may make us seem less aproachable, but we very rarely get flagged down and told about stuff. Everyone has access to a mobile these days, if you ring us, we will come out to you, and a damn sight quicker if we're behind the wheel of a car.
Anyway, I digress. 5 shifts from four means a repeat of the 3 shift to 4 shift problem, whereby the newest unit becomes a dumping ground for the retards and rejects from the others. Those who move from D unit to E unit must feel like the skinny kid at school who is chosen last for football every time, if they have the perception to realise what is going on, that is.
Another suggestion is that minimum staffing in the control room be cut to two. Which is really helpful when the same policymakers have also arranged for the live jobs to be run on one terminal, the deferred list on a second and the neighbourhood team logs on a third. 2 into 3 doesn't appear to go, but what would I know? I only work there.
The workload on the response teams is the same as ever. In the last month or so, we have had serious flooding, a fatal RTC where a motorcyclist was decapitated in full view of the general public, several murders, an arson which is expected to go fatal any day now, a couple of kidnappings, a serial arsonist, a cannabis factory located with over 300 plants found in a live, i.e. not preplanned, firearms incident which nearly ended up in several people being shot as they didn't seem to understand the word 'stop'. Plus the usual robberies, burglaries, assaults, criminal damage, lots of suspicious incidents we don't even bother to go to because we can't, 6 cars into 105 jobs at a time just doesn't go. 2 controllers and 6 cars can apparently run response fine. Which is why we're currently on the aforementioned 105 jobs, yeah right.
Whinge over, I don't whinge because it upsets me personally, I still get to go home on time and our boss knows we're a good team and do our best, but our best just doesn't stretch far enough.
Area Search No Trace.
Welcome to this new world, my friend,
Secondly, a change of Government, well cabinet at least. Let us hope that large scale change does not fall from on high as those new in post see the need to make their mark.
Although I don't see why not, it happens in the police service all the time. Sergeants and Inspectors tend not to have too many retarded ideas, although with some new inspectors who have their eyes on higher things, some daftness does tend to creep in. The real potential, however, flares up when you reach chief inspector and above.
My new management team has decided to change our shift pattern, which to be fair, does probably need changing, as there's no capacity in it for training days, and most of the things we're terrible at doing, is stuff we have to have training days for. Fair enough. However, there's just been a purge of various posts to put people back in the front line, hey ho', everyone got their hopes up, and now that's been put back at least 3 months.
We will be moving from a 4 shift system to a 5 shift, which gives more coverage at certain times in terms of numbers, but this larger number of officers must compete for the same number of cars, leaving a significant number of us on foot. Not that I object to walking from A to B in itself, but as a means of getting from A to B to get things done, it's pretty damn inefficient. Seeing us zoom past in a car may make us seem less aproachable, but we very rarely get flagged down and told about stuff. Everyone has access to a mobile these days, if you ring us, we will come out to you, and a damn sight quicker if we're behind the wheel of a car.
Anyway, I digress. 5 shifts from four means a repeat of the 3 shift to 4 shift problem, whereby the newest unit becomes a dumping ground for the retards and rejects from the others. Those who move from D unit to E unit must feel like the skinny kid at school who is chosen last for football every time, if they have the perception to realise what is going on, that is.
Another suggestion is that minimum staffing in the control room be cut to two. Which is really helpful when the same policymakers have also arranged for the live jobs to be run on one terminal, the deferred list on a second and the neighbourhood team logs on a third. 2 into 3 doesn't appear to go, but what would I know? I only work there.
The workload on the response teams is the same as ever. In the last month or so, we have had serious flooding, a fatal RTC where a motorcyclist was decapitated in full view of the general public, several murders, an arson which is expected to go fatal any day now, a couple of kidnappings, a serial arsonist, a cannabis factory located with over 300 plants found in a live, i.e. not preplanned, firearms incident which nearly ended up in several people being shot as they didn't seem to understand the word 'stop'. Plus the usual robberies, burglaries, assaults, criminal damage, lots of suspicious incidents we don't even bother to go to because we can't, 6 cars into 105 jobs at a time just doesn't go. 2 controllers and 6 cars can apparently run response fine. Which is why we're currently on the aforementioned 105 jobs, yeah right.
Whinge over, I don't whinge because it upsets me personally, I still get to go home on time and our boss knows we're a good team and do our best, but our best just doesn't stretch far enough.
Tuesday 19 June 2007
Under the wire...
At long last I am escaping my current job, 3 1/2 years into a '12 month detachment', as it was sold to me. I don't know why they bothered selling a lawful order, but anyway. It was all right having no paperwork and no F/R's for a while, and not coming home covered in blood and vomit from time to time, Mrs P and the little P's were pleased, but all good-comfortable-but-eventually-mind-numbingly-boring-and-career-death things come to an end.
After finding out who was leaving ahead of me, I was one phone call away from arranging a transfer to another force when my false papers and civilian clothes came through from the camp escape committee, and my place in the tunnel was assured. I don't know exactly when I'm off, or exactly where to. I have put in my preference, but frankly I'll take the porters job wheeling filing cabinets around the building if I have to, at least the scenery changes.
I've seen the Great Escape, I must remember not to answer questions in English until I'm out the door.
After finding out who was leaving ahead of me, I was one phone call away from arranging a transfer to another force when my false papers and civilian clothes came through from the camp escape committee, and my place in the tunnel was assured. I don't know exactly when I'm off, or exactly where to. I have put in my preference, but frankly I'll take the porters job wheeling filing cabinets around the building if I have to, at least the scenery changes.
I've seen the Great Escape, I must remember not to answer questions in English until I'm out the door.
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