‘Police officers have been despised, ridiculed and minimised’.

A serving police officer shares her heartfelt views on policing today and the latest HMIC report released a few weeks ago.

It has been a very difficult year in policing. There have been scandals that have rocked communities and police officers themselves. It is widely acknowledged that changes need to be made and are being made.

There are however, thousands of hard working dedicated police officers across the country who despite been ridiculed and despised, perform a vital service in our community. These officers face incredibly difficult and challenging circumstances everyday and every time there is another negative story, these officers once again face further challenges.

The piece below is a very emotive response from a police officer. It highlights the difficulties they face daily and how let down they have felt by their own officers. It also is a plea to understand why officers are so often defensive after years of abuse from all fronts.

It’s hard to read the latest HMIC report into recruitment of officers, failed vetting and internal culture within policing. I plead with you all to read to the end of this blog.

Instantaneous reactions all over social media include the “defence/reasons”. You will see all of the below and more today and over coming weeks as people read and digest the report and see the headlines. 

They include the irrefutable facts that the bankers who caused austerity 10 years ago; the politicians who ensured police officers were despised, ridiculed and minimised; and the subsequent cuts to policing and all of our partners/public services have led to a massive hole in our vetting, HR and recruitment teams as well as the well rehearsed holes in our police officer numbers, and an increased workload for the ones left behind. We have filled in for partners losses and a lack of youth/mental health/adult learning services. The follow up of the “uplift of 20,000 officers” without a thought for the staff who make that happen also having been hugely reduced, and the financial deadlines for forces to hit those targets of course has added to that pressure and to some shocking recruitment practices.
Then add in the facts of the report. 725 officers were referred by police leaders to the HMIC for the exact purpose of this report. They were identified as being of concern to the police leaders who referred them. 1/5 of these were then found to be in a position where they should have failed vetting. So circa 150 officer should not have been allowed to join out of our 130,000 officers. So it feels to many of our colleagues like we are all being condemned again because of the media headlines. It’s a tiny percentage of the vast majority. 

You will see all these defensive comments today on social media. I plead with you to understand where they come from. Pure frustration, hurt and upset in most cases. 

BUT none of them are excuses and none of them excuse the position we are now in. Rightly so the public and the decent cops out there are simply sick to death of hearing the same message. They both deserve our action now, today. 

ONE of these cases is ONE TOO MANY. 

ONE officer entering the service who should not have got through is ONE TOO MANY. 

ONE police officer/recruit affiliation to an organised crime group is ONE TOO MANY. 

ONE sexual predator is ONE TOO MANY. 

They should never have been allowed in to the service. 

ONE colleague feeling like they cannot report someone for their criminal sexual behaviour is ONE TOO MANY. 

ONE member of the public feeling unsafe when they need to speak to a police officer is ONE TOO MANY. 

ONE member of the public simply reading about this today and feeling fearful of contact with a police officer is ONE TOO MANY.

For those of us who are still serving, once in they should have been identified by US as colleagues, reported when identified, managed back out of the service quickly and not allowed to continue being a part of us. 

ONE case is enough to prevent people considering the service as a career is ONE TOO MANY. 

ONE case is enough to destroy the trust of the public in our police service and is ONE TOO MANY. 

ONE case is all it takes for us as colleagues to feel angry, hurt and upset that all the hard work we do is tainted and destroyed in this way, and is ONE TOO MANY.

I want the public to have trust and confidence in the British Police Service. We all need that in our society. We are without doubt the most accountable, assessed scrutinised police service in the world (and best in my personal opinion) but that does not mean we are perfect and these continuous reports simply prove we are far from it. 

I want the public from all walks of life to want to join the police service, to see it as a great career for life. 

I want my colleagues to always get the recognition they deserve every single day for the work they do, the lives they save, the criminals they arrest and the vulnerable people they look after.

To do that, I and all of my colleagues have to take responsibility for the culture of the service. We need to be strong enough to report unwanted or criminal behaviour. We need to challenge it. We need to be role models to each other. We need to BE better. 

We are police officers. We face the worst of society on a daily basis and yet we cannot raise issues within our own teams? 

We owe it to the public to turn this around. We have improved as the report rightly identifies but we have to do better. 

This is not a time for the retired officers to start commenting on the state of the current service…. as they were a part of the historic culture. (And trust me from experience it was NOT better in the good old days) It is not a time for the current officers to bat it off as someone else’s problem and provide reasons why it is not theirs as it is all of ours. It is equally not a time for politicians to wash their hands of responsibility. 

We all want a police service which is the envy of the world. We want the public to be a part of it, to support us, and absolutely to trust us. We want our colleagues to feel safe at work. 

So let’s all simply knuckle down and get this done. We know that culture change is hard. We know it takes a long time. But we simply have to focus our efforts on it now. 

ONE IS ONE TOO MANY. 

Thank you.