| Met Police on 09:03 - Mar 21 with 4510 views | TheChef |
Meanwhile, in other news:
Pope found to be Catholic.
Bear caught defecating in woods. |  |
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| Met Police on 09:19 - Mar 21 with 4428 views | Rs_Holy |
'institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic'... this is a horrible read for the vast majority of Met police. I know a couple of Met coppers and they are incredibly honest and hard working. A total lack of resources and poor support mean they are stretched to breaking point. Morale is at an all time low and many are taking early retirement because they haven't had a decent pay rise in years. They cannot go on strike so this is a story that never gets told.
Yes there are real scum bags in the Met (as in any big institution) but they are a very small percentage and and it seems the whole of the workforce get tarred with the same brush. |  | | |
| Met Police on 09:24 - Mar 21 with 4409 views | TheChef |
They need decent support and funding.
You look at the US where certain cities or states have had their police forces defunded, you soon see how bad things can get. Portland is very much a case in point for this and other cities are going the same way. Very sad. | |
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| Met Police on 09:27 - Mar 21 with 4394 views | hubble |
I had three very young police officers round last week to discuss the antics of the mad former tenant of the flat below me. They were all very sweet, perhaps not ideally suited to policing this area, but when I asked them how they dealth with everything that goes on around here they just laughed. One black lad, a young black woman and young white woman. Over the years I've had plenty of dealings with police (many to do with said former tenant) and all of them have been decent, intelligent people, men and women from all races. |  |
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| Met Police on 09:47 - Mar 21 with 4343 views | PlanetHonneywood |
We seem to forget that we've been here before!
Late 90s, then Chief Con, Paul Condon, admitted to, and very much christened the term, 'institutionally racist' after investigation into the Lawrence affair. 25 years on, and we're merely adding institutionally misogynist and homophobic to the mix.
I don't doubt the job of policing is as necessary as it is difficult. However, when I started out lawyering mid-90s, my then firm were the Police Federation's lawyers and after two years I left with the distinct view: thank God we have them; but they do make it bloody difficult for themselves!
The problem then, as it appears now, is a white boys' culture, underpinned by 'we protect our own' come what may. Hillsborough being a case in point; that was a disgrace!
All this does is undermine the integral bond required between the police and the public of mutual trust and confidence, and when that goes, we have a problem.
The police need to go right back to basics and look at what they're recruiting; how they train officers from the day they join until they leave; and, more importantly, how they manage themselves.
Get that right, get the respect of the public back and they'll find their job becomes a bit easier.
That said, I also don't doubt they need more resources and if I were the government, I'd provide the resources in line with delivery of the necessary improvements. |  |
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| Met Police on 10:10 - Mar 21 with 4271 views | Boston |
They did manage to get a draw away at Weston-super~Mare over the weekend. [Post edited 21 Mar 2023 10:12]
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| Met Police on 13:32 - Mar 21 with 3978 views | Rs_Holy |
| Met Police on 09:47 - Mar 21 by PlanetHonneywood |
We seem to forget that we've been here before!
Late 90s, then Chief Con, Paul Condon, admitted to, and very much christened the term, 'institutionally racist' after investigation into the Lawrence affair. 25 years on, and we're merely adding institutionally misogynist and homophobic to the mix.
I don't doubt the job of policing is as necessary as it is difficult. However, when I started out lawyering mid-90s, my then firm were the Police Federation's lawyers and after two years I left with the distinct view: thank God we have them; but they do make it bloody difficult for themselves!
The problem then, as it appears now, is a white boys' culture, underpinned by 'we protect our own' come what may. Hillsborough being a case in point; that was a disgrace!
All this does is undermine the integral bond required between the police and the public of mutual trust and confidence, and when that goes, we have a problem.
The police need to go right back to basics and look at what they're recruiting; how they train officers from the day they join until they leave; and, more importantly, how they manage themselves.
Get that right, get the respect of the public back and they'll find their job becomes a bit easier.
That said, I also don't doubt they need more resources and if I were the government, I'd provide the resources in line with delivery of the necessary improvements. |
'The police need to go right back to basics and look at what they're recruiting; how they train officers from the day they join until they leave; and, more importantly, how they manage themselves'.
Spot on! I have had this discussion a few times with said friends... Officer training used to be a 5 month intensive residential course at Hendon... then they sold most of Hendon for flats...
Now training is 3 weeks at Hendon (non-residential) ... "Nowhere near good enough" is what I have been told. | | | |
| Met Police on 14:13 - Mar 21 with 3859 views | PlanetHonneywood |
| Met Police on 13:32 - Mar 21 by Rs_Holy |
'The police need to go right back to basics and look at what they're recruiting; how they train officers from the day they join until they leave; and, more importantly, how they manage themselves'.
Spot on! I have had this discussion a few times with said friends... Officer training used to be a 5 month intensive residential course at Hendon... then they sold most of Hendon for flats...
Now training is 3 weeks at Hendon (non-residential) ... "Nowhere near good enough" is what I have been told. |
That’s my understanding of the training too: a few weeks at the training college, followed by a period ‘shadowing’ an officer on the beat.
Now I’m sure all the officers being shadowed are stellar examples of policing and trained to the highest standards to be in such a role. But if not, that’s a poor way for a new recruit to start their career.
The global race to the bottom at its finest. | |
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| Met Police on 14:28 - Mar 21 with 3818 views | colinallcars |
While our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duty's to be done
Taking one consideration with another
A policeman's lot is not, a happy one.
(Thank you Gilbert & Sullivan)
Given what they have to do and ratbags they have to deal with, I'm surprised anyone wants to do the job at all. Perhaps not surprising the job attracts some wrong 'uns. |  | | |
| Met Police on 14:38 - Mar 21 with 3765 views | Boston |
| Met Police on 09:24 - Mar 21 by TheChef |
They need decent support and funding.
You look at the US where certain cities or states have had their police forces defunded, you soon see how bad things can get. Portland is very much a case in point for this and other cities are going the same way. Very sad. |
Most municipalities have not only (quietly), backtracked on that policy, they have added to the policing budget.
Too late though, officers are resigning, retiring or relocating at unprecedented rates. | |
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| Met Police on 14:42 - Mar 21 with 3744 views | The_Beast1976 |
| Met Police on 09:47 - Mar 21 by PlanetHonneywood |
We seem to forget that we've been here before!
Late 90s, then Chief Con, Paul Condon, admitted to, and very much christened the term, 'institutionally racist' after investigation into the Lawrence affair. 25 years on, and we're merely adding institutionally misogynist and homophobic to the mix.
I don't doubt the job of policing is as necessary as it is difficult. However, when I started out lawyering mid-90s, my then firm were the Police Federation's lawyers and after two years I left with the distinct view: thank God we have them; but they do make it bloody difficult for themselves!
The problem then, as it appears now, is a white boys' culture, underpinned by 'we protect our own' come what may. Hillsborough being a case in point; that was a disgrace!
All this does is undermine the integral bond required between the police and the public of mutual trust and confidence, and when that goes, we have a problem.
The police need to go right back to basics and look at what they're recruiting; how they train officers from the day they join until they leave; and, more importantly, how they manage themselves.
Get that right, get the respect of the public back and they'll find their job becomes a bit easier.
That said, I also don't doubt they need more resources and if I were the government, I'd provide the resources in line with delivery of the necessary improvements. |
"The problem then, as it appears now, is a white boys' culture....."
What on earth is a "white boys' cuiture"? That statement in itself is potentially as deeply racist and offensive as anything that the Met has been accused of. [Post edited 21 Mar 2023 14:43]
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| Met Police on 14:52 - Mar 21 with 3701 views | LazyFan |
"institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic" you say?
"institutionally" does not mean the majority, but it means way more than a small minority. It really means, in tangible terms a large minority at all levels of the operational hierarchy.
But that's not the problem, the real problem for the Met is Racism, as this a crime on the statute books (as it should be) and saying that there is a large number of criminals at all levels in the Met, means the Met would be deemed as a criminal organisation.
As it's also the police, this means that the Met would and should probably have to arrest around 30% of their own coppers, to break up this criminal organisation, as they would do this with any other criminal organisation even if the majority was not of criminal intent.
This is why you will always hear the head copper say something like, "well when you say institutionally, I am not sure it's meant in the same way as you think". There is always some lame excuse to avoid this word as; otherwise, they will indeed be required to start arresting each other!!!
So, it's not a wokey, snowflaky type thingy, it's avoiding arresting each other is what the head copper is often trying weasel out of. But actually, that may well be what's needed. We have tried all the lamo management-style ways of fobbing off this off.
To end the cycle of no change, it may well require coppers to arrest coppers and lots of them.
To help here, one approach they could do is link this to the stop & search policy, which often targets a higher percentage of non-white people to the number of random stop & searchers of police officers. Yes, that's right, they get stopped and searched at the same level. Fairs fair, no excuess!
So, it could go down like "I am sorry sir but you are known to be part of the same criminal organisation as me. Therefore I am required to stop & search you sir", with the victim's usual reply of "you cannot do that I know my rights ... errr as I am a copper too", resulting in the usually scripted comeback of "I am afraid we have to treat everyone equally and I have got stats to hit so, your being searched, ensure you don't resist as you know what will happen" <<< added threat for the last part as that's standard Met policing.
Now, if we do this, the public will see its fair, bent coppers will more likely get caught (no guarantees but it ups the chances) and the innocent coppers of course, "have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" as we are so often told. Remember no excuses!
The only problem here will be whinging woke right whingers, with their snowflake ways crying that the police should not be subject to the same laws of the land with their lamo cry baby excuses.
But if you really want to protect the innocent coppers, who will ARE the majority (which I can prove if you need it), then iff the police are forced to do this (legally required), I think you will find a higher backing for them and we should all be backing the good police over the bad. This would show results by ensuring the good police are empowered to arrest the bad ones. And prove this by doing so relentlessly.
After all, my message to the right is "if you cannot do the police time, then don't do the police crime!" |  |
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| Met Police on 14:57 - Mar 21 with 3684 views | gazza1 |
When I retired back in the naughties I worked part time at the local Police Station as an VSRO.....I found the PC's, etc that I met, and there was a few, to be decent people and, imho, highly unlikely to do some of the things that we have been reading about very recently......BUT, as in all big organisations, their are going to be some really lazy sods (& there were plenty of them), some looking for an 'easy ride' and a very minimal amount of 'proper' horrid PC's - sadly these very few 'proper' horrid PC's give the Met Police a bad name. | | | |
| Met Police on 15:03 - Mar 21 with 3650 views | ed_83 |
| Met Police on 09:19 - Mar 21 by Rs_Holy |
'institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic'... this is a horrible read for the vast majority of Met police. I know a couple of Met coppers and they are incredibly honest and hard working. A total lack of resources and poor support mean they are stretched to breaking point. Morale is at an all time low and many are taking early retirement because they haven't had a decent pay rise in years. They cannot go on strike so this is a story that never gets told.
Yes there are real scum bags in the Met (as in any big institution) but they are a very small percentage and and it seems the whole of the workforce get tarred with the same brush. |
Agree with lots of this - plenty of people within the Met are hardworking and ethically sound - but past a certain point you have to look beyond the "bad apples" and ask why the surrounding structure and culture allows stuff like this to keep happening.
The Met have lost the trust of huge numbers of Londoners not just because individual officers have done terrible things, but because so many of their colleagues keep letting them get away with it.
Look at something like the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes - Cressida Dick presides over an absolute clusterfck that ends up with the death of an innocent man, and she ends up running the whole force a few years later. Or the murder of Daniel Morgan, where the police took 8 years to provide all the relevant documents to the victim's family and the inquiry into his killing. Or all the in-jokes about "Bstard Dave" - loads of banter, nobody willing or able to actually pull the alarm. 1,000+ Met officers and staff have been accused of domestic violence or sexual crimes, but haven't been suspended.
That's not a problem of a few individual people being scumbags, it's a fundamentally broken system: an entire institution which protects the bad people within it, and prevents the good ones from changing things, or even just doing their jobs properly.
The new commissioner's out doing media rounds today asking for more powers to fire dodgy coppers, which misses the point. Until they recognise this is an institutional problem, and commit to a properly fundamental rethinking of how things work, nothing is going to change. | | | |
| Met Police on 15:05 - Mar 21 with 3644 views | francisbowles |
| Met Police on 13:32 - Mar 21 by Rs_Holy |
'The police need to go right back to basics and look at what they're recruiting; how they train officers from the day they join until they leave; and, more importantly, how they manage themselves'.
Spot on! I have had this discussion a few times with said friends... Officer training used to be a 5 month intensive residential course at Hendon... then they sold most of Hendon for flats...
Now training is 3 weeks at Hendon (non-residential) ... "Nowhere near good enough" is what I have been told. |
Not the Met but a relation of mine has recently joined Thames Valley. I can't remember how many weeks the induction course was but it was considerably more than three. I'll try and find out later and post.
However, that course is not the end of it. Yes you are being mentored but it is a three year degree in policing course, two if you already have a degree. | | | |
| Met Police on 15:42 - Mar 21 with 3549 views | Rs_Holy |
| Met Police on 15:05 - Mar 21 by francisbowles |
Not the Met but a relation of mine has recently joined Thames Valley. I can't remember how many weeks the induction course was but it was considerably more than three. I'll try and find out later and post.
However, that course is not the end of it. Yes you are being mentored but it is a three year degree in policing course, two if you already have a degree. |
Its good if they have scrapped the 3 week approach.
It certainly was 3 weeks for a while in the Met as one of the people i know said that was their training and they felt totally underprepared when they passed. | | | |
| Met Police on 15:49 - Mar 21 with 3525 views | Boston |
Most police in the Greater Boston area have a degree in what they call 'Criminal Justice', that or they've served in the Marines. They then have to attend the Police Acadamy. Very few young coppers around my way. | |
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| Met Police on 15:55 - Mar 21 with 3499 views | kensalriser |
The Met needs to be disbanded. Review all the operations and start again with something fit for purpose. |  |
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| Met Police on 16:04 - Mar 21 with 3463 views | Esox_Lucius |
Tangentially; some of you may know PC John Gerrard, I was told at the Brum game that he is very sick and we may not see him again. He is definitely one of the good guys in uniform and this is sad news. Get well soon John. |  |
| The grass is always greener. |
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| Met Police on 16:34 - Mar 21 with 3391 views | francisbowles |
| Met Police on 15:05 - Mar 21 by francisbowles |
Not the Met but a relation of mine has recently joined Thames Valley. I can't remember how many weeks the induction course was but it was considerably more than three. I'll try and find out later and post.
However, that course is not the end of it. Yes you are being mentored but it is a three year degree in policing course, two if you already have a degree. |
Replying to my own earlier post. I've checked and the induction course ran for about 20 weeks. | | | |
| Met Police on 16:37 - Mar 21 with 3383 views | francisbowles |
| Met Police on 15:55 - Mar 21 by kensalriser |
The Met needs to be disbanded. Review all the operations and start again with something fit for purpose. |
I think you need to give the new commissioner time to see if he can make a real difference.
He was retired for about four years with a different police force and has returned to policing, specifically to sort this mess out. | | | |
| Met Police on 16:46 - Mar 21 with 3346 views | LimehouseR |
It is quite simple in my opinion.
Here are just a few solutions...
More neighbourhood policing with officers who actually care about the neighbourhood they are policing and are not just forced in to it.
That is the key to building trust and working partnerships with the communities of London. It was always going to be bad news when they started dismantling it.
Less 'specialist' squads that just pool all resources into taking out low or mid level drug dealers and don't then actually engage with the community in the aftermath. The drugs trade is bad but will never change without a fundamental societal shift and a decriminalisation of drug users who are often in need of help and support not an arrest and a jail cell. A lot of these specialist units end up doing the same thing just under a different department, yet get priority for funding and overtime.
Stop and search should be intelligence led and not just cruising around looking for a likely candidate who 'may' have something on them. Good intelligence largely comes from, yep, neighbourhood policing and trust within the community, the people who actually see what's going on day to day.
London and policing nationwide also needs to be removed from being the first point of call for mental health crisis. It takes a huge amount of time and resource away from actual policing. Yes, train the officers to know how to be empathetic and to deal with it but don't send uniformed officers to treat some one with mental health issues as first responders. There needs to be a huge drive to create a dedicated response unit within the NHS that are trained to deal with mental health. The police can then assist if necessary or appropriate. But as we all know the NHS is completely under funded so this will never happen, especially with this current government.
Anyway, that was just a few ideas.Good luck to anyone trying to implement them. I wouldn't want to be a part of the Met right now, it seems doomed for some sort of privatisation. |  | | |
| Met Police on 16:50 - Mar 21 with 3324 views | francisbowles |
| Met Police on 16:46 - Mar 21 by LimehouseR |
It is quite simple in my opinion.
Here are just a few solutions...
More neighbourhood policing with officers who actually care about the neighbourhood they are policing and are not just forced in to it.
That is the key to building trust and working partnerships with the communities of London. It was always going to be bad news when they started dismantling it.
Less 'specialist' squads that just pool all resources into taking out low or mid level drug dealers and don't then actually engage with the community in the aftermath. The drugs trade is bad but will never change without a fundamental societal shift and a decriminalisation of drug users who are often in need of help and support not an arrest and a jail cell. A lot of these specialist units end up doing the same thing just under a different department, yet get priority for funding and overtime.
Stop and search should be intelligence led and not just cruising around looking for a likely candidate who 'may' have something on them. Good intelligence largely comes from, yep, neighbourhood policing and trust within the community, the people who actually see what's going on day to day.
London and policing nationwide also needs to be removed from being the first point of call for mental health crisis. It takes a huge amount of time and resource away from actual policing. Yes, train the officers to know how to be empathetic and to deal with it but don't send uniformed officers to treat some one with mental health issues as first responders. There needs to be a huge drive to create a dedicated response unit within the NHS that are trained to deal with mental health. The police can then assist if necessary or appropriate. But as we all know the NHS is completely under funded so this will never happen, especially with this current government.
Anyway, that was just a few ideas.Good luck to anyone trying to implement them. I wouldn't want to be a part of the Met right now, it seems doomed for some sort of privatisation. |
Very good post, especially the point about mental health. It shouldn't be the job of the police. | | | |
| Met Police on 21:41 - Mar 21 with 3094 views | BushRanger82 |
I lost all respect for the police a few years back, when a young 20-something stroppy wally, at least a foot shorter than myself, started talking down to me.
Yep, the midget, talked down to me.
I was as polite, as he was sarcastic.
Now have no time for them, or their problems. |  | | |
| Met Police on 22:11 - Mar 21 with 3027 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Met Police on 09:24 - Mar 21 by TheChef |
They need decent support and funding.
You look at the US where certain cities or states have had their police forces defunded, you soon see how bad things can get. Portland is very much a case in point for this and other cities are going the same way. Very sad. |
Maybe so, but what does funding have to do with racism, misogyny and corruption? If the Tories gave the Met a spiffing new grant and coppers a 50% pay rise, would they all turn into sweethearts? Give me a break! [Post edited 22 Mar 2023 19:42]
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