Reading this got me thinking.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29053978

Surely this will only lead to both an increase in these types of crimes and increase in false insurance claims.

Do you think insurance companies will start to investigate such low level crimes and take civil action against the perpetrators?

Will this accelerate the privitisation of Police services?

I see no problem with this. We’ve all watched CSI.

I got knocked off my motorbike by a driver who drove off, and GMP told me I had to hunt round for CCTV for them. They also sent me a 23 page form to fill out as my statement, this has proved somewhat difficult with a broken collarbone on my pen holding side and hand numbness due to nerve damage…

As long as i can can act as judge jury and executioner too I’m all for it.

and they wonder why this happens

Happened to me this week. I’ve been the victim of a minor theft (natural stone coping stones nicked off my garden wall, causing damage to the brickwork underneath that I’m either going to have to spend half a day fixing or pay someone else to do). I have no expectation of anyone being apprehended, let’s be honest, but I think it important to report even petty stuff otherwise the police don’t get a full picture of crime in the area.

I reported to the police online, got a call back asking me if it was actually in progress (!) – like – yeah, ‘cos if someone was outside prising my wall apart right now then yes, of course I’d be reporting it online as it happended!! – who then said that they’ll get one of the PCSOs to come round in the next few days. But in the meantime, could i ask round friends and neighbours and see if anyone saw anything / has any hidden CCTV recording, etc.

Should I do some fake fingerprint dusting with flour while I’m at it? Maybe i’ll go the whole hog and get a rain mac?

Oh, just one more thing……

Police do an excellent job; I reported Barack Obama for war crimes and now NATO conference is teeming with forces from all over country!!

It’s hardly surprising that the ‘lower priority’ crimes don’t get the attention that they perhaps deserve with all the cuts going on in the police force.
Unfortunately something has to give at some point.

I’d rather that my Wife was concentrating on cases like this:

http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2014-08-12/peterborough-man-jailed-for-7-years-for-plotting-to-kill-unborn-child/

than cases of stolen paving slabs…..

Although I can understand that I wouldn’t perhaps be feeling like this if I had a minor crime committed agains me and nothing was done about it.

If the public knew the number of police officers on duty at any one time in their area they would be amazed. An indvidual copper can only deal with a certain volume of crime, once all 4 or 5 officers are saturated, where do u turn?

iirc the CPS only consider prosecuting <2% of reported crime.

If the public knew the number of police officers on duty at any one time in their area they would be amazed.

Probably for the best they don’t otherwise the crims would have a field day.

who then said that they’ll get one of the PCSOs to come round in the next few days. But in the meantime, could i ask round friends and neighbours and see if anyone saw anything / has any hidden CCTV recording, etc.

Is it just me that would have done that already ?

I certainly did when my garage door was damaged in an unsuccessful attempt to get in.
First thing I did was have a walk round the neighbours and see if anyone heard or saw anything.

Then I rang and reported it.

Don’t see why a Police Officer should waste their time coming down to my house, talking to people who I already know, who live next door to me.

As cyclist and the usual response from the police when your bike is stolen why is this news to you. I thought the police officers job was just to issue a crime number so you claim off your insurance.
The real news will be when you’re allowed to give out your own punishment 👿

Does this mean I get to say “you’re nicked you slag” .

When I had my van window smashed at the gym the police came round to see me to get details. They said it was worth reporting as they will patrol if there are a number of incidents in an area, they also tried to talk the gym into CCTV.

and to be fair, they caught someone in the act breaking into a car in at the gym a few weeks later.

All round I’m happy with that, would not expect any more

I, for one, am ready.

Do you recall the upset recently over PO’s being seen carrying guns? It seemed to just happen, with no warning?

I recall senior figures in the Police being asked about it, and making some offhand pronouncements about the future of policing in the UK, or other such guff.

Well……I have a friend who’s a reasonably new recruit to the TBL, in that she tells me just about everything they get up to 🙂

She tells me that, in fact, its because of the restrictions in front-line officers due to budget cuts. The Firearms officers are basically having to take a shift doing regular PO work- but still have to carry in case they get called away to a firearms incident. She says this is the case up and down the land- and the firearms cops dont like it.

Why this hasn’t made the papers I dont know.

We investigated a number of stolen bikes in the area and it led to a guy getting 5 years and 25 bikes being recovered.
coppers can no way investigate everything.

no problem with it, just prefer longer sentencing

They should build big concentration camps to put low level offenders in, this should instill a sense of fear as the only way of getting out is waiting till the police have had time to get round to the less important crimes. I bet you wouldn’t go nicking flags if you knew you were going to a nazi type shithole, as for human rights violated that’s a pretty low down on the list priority so should sit well with uk govt.

I bet you wouldn’t go nicking flags if you knew you were going to a nazi type shithole

my instinct is to say that this is patently stupid nonsense that overlooks an important experiment in English criminal justice a couple of centuries ago, but I’ll withhold judgement until I see the data on vexillological crime in Germany, 1933-1945.

Regarding the OP, it was in the news recently about a bloke who had his entire newly-laid lawn stolen, so he asked around the neighbours, and next door had film of two women casually rolling up the turfs, even stopping for a break part-way through, and driving off with them.
One woman was identified, arrested, and charged.
Seems like a result to me.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/501948/Women-caught-on-CCTV-stealing-entire-LAWN-from-garden

What is happening to our police forces and hospitals is a diabolical liberty.
A James hunt was on the tv talking about closing another a&e this afternoon as the GPs said they got it covered.

Next week they will be replacing the police force with the boy scouts, the fire service with the girl guides and our armed forces with the WI.

People asked to help themselves and they get annoyed shocker.

It’s one of the first things I’d do is ask neighbours if the seen anything or if they had CCTV if it caught anything.

People asked to help themselves and they get annoyed shocker.

1/ I’m not annoyed (OK, I was slightly to be asked was it actually still in progress, give me some credit!), but for me to ask around is no biggie. I was slightly surprised though that this is becoming policy, hence the comment / anecdote.

2/ how far does ‘help yourself’ go? As I posted on another thread about an eBay / pp scam, that seemed pretty easy for the police / pp to trace and snare a fraudster, yet there seems little will to follow it up. So for petty crimes like minor thefts, car break-ins, etc such as referred to in the article – it’s not a long step between doing some investigation yourself, and starting to take action yourself if the perception is that the police are no longer interested in low level crime.

Plod have been doing this in my experience for the last 20 years.

Now they can excuse their laziness by saying ‘budget cuts’ and ‘austerity’ rather than ‘couldn’t be bothered’ and ‘asleep in a layby’

Yeah my OH slept in a lay by once. Mind you she’d just put in a 30hour shift investigating a fatal shooting and was so knackered she couldn’t drive the 20 miles Home. Mind she was back on duty that evening. Bloody lazy copper.

Yeah my OH slept in a lay by once. Mind you she’d just put in a 30hour shift investigating a fatal shooting and was so knackered she couldn’t drive the 20 miles Home. Mind she was back on duty that evening. Bloody lazy copper.

She should be out catching proper criminals like those on Ebay.

Just as well that crime is falling year on year…

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/24/falling-crime-levels-no-one-year-wonder

NB This is a very good read if you have 10 mins:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/31/tough-case-mystery-britains-falling-crime-rate

Yeah my OH slept in a lay by once. Mind you she’d just put in a 30hour shift investigating a fatal shooting and was so knackered she couldn’t drive the 20 miles Home. Mind she was back on duty that evening. Bloody lazy copper.

She should not have even got in the car after a 30 hour shift, she could have killed some one.
Surely her job should have sent her home in a cab or got her a room.

“Call me a cab to take me to the Travelodge” – an uncommon command in police stations, I suspect.

“Plod have been doing this in my experience for the last 20 years.

Now they can excuse their laziness by saying ‘budget cuts’ and ‘austerity’ rather than ‘couldn’t be bothered’ and ‘asleep in a layby'”

+ 1000

This is certainly my experience of regularly reporting crime in the same area for 15+ years. The police have never investigated or responded to anything – even when I got the number plate of the van used to take away the bikes stolen from me, or CCTV footage of people who had vandalised the same row of properties every weekend for months. All you get a is a first class letter saying they have closed the investigation – they can’t even be bothered to save money sending non urgent items second-class.

The “resources” thing is absolutely nonsense too as in my area the number of front line officers is at a record high, yet you never see them and even when reporting things that eventually lead to crime a few weeks later you never hear anything.

My only 2 face to face interactions with the local plods in the last few years has been when they knocked on my front door to warn me the CCTV camera I’d put up in the side alley after a series of thefts at night might lead to a complaint being made against me unless I angled it so it couldn’t film anyone on the pavement… and about 18 months after when they knocked to see if the same CCTV had picked up any pictures of some travellers who had defrauded an elderly ne neighbour down the road. Unfortunately I’d followed their instruction to angle the CCTV camera so it didn’t film the road with the result they couldn’t identify the perps.