Another Day Another Bashing at the Met Police-Isn’t It time We Started Supporting Our Officers.

Once again the Metropolitan Police is making the headlines and I write this ad nauseum. Truly there is not a day that goes by that they are not in the headlines. There have been many occasions of late where they have indeed deserved to be, however, there are many occasions where they don’t and the headlines have been nothing but sheer sensationalism

The latest story has been the force’s plan to spend £440,000 on having certificates mounted. Critics have complained that as the force is asking for more funding, why then spend nearly half a million having certificates framed?

It really seems that nothing the Met does will ever be correct. Officers don’t respond to a call due to police shortage, they are criticised, officers respond to a call and they are criticised for being too many all at once. Officers attend an event to support the community, they are criticised and told ‘you should be walking the beat’. Officers don’t attend the event and they are criticised for not supporting the community when needed. There seems to be an ongoing issue that regardless of their actions they know they are going to be criticised.

Imagine being a Met police officer and actually reading a good news story about their force? Chances are they would fall of their chair, or certainly have to re-read it in utter shock and dismay.

We all know retention has been an issue across many police forces, there are many reasons why this is the case, but certainly a very large contributing factor is the fact that these officers face daily abuse from many sections of society. The majority of the public still do support our police officers despite being told otherwise. Their incredibly high daily call out rate shows that in spite of being told that the public have no trust and confidence in them, people do have trust and call them when needed, even if on many occasions it is not their job.

These officers face the most horrendous incidents everyday, the level of trauma they not only deal with, but experience themselves is second to none. They have very little respite and the working conditions are often very poor. To receive a certificate for an act of bravery they have committed, is really not much compared the risk they have put themselves in to deal with a particular event. There is no price on saving a life and let’s remember that this is exactly what our police officers do on a regular basis.

It is sad to see that they are de-valued, under respected and repeatedly verbally abused on a daily basis.

It really is time that officers are valued and that their morale is improved. I would advise the Met to spend more on improving its wellbeing services, focus on the trauma officers suffer and how to support them is the key.

However, it is also high time we start funding our police services as they should be and improving their working conditions so that officers actually are supported as they should.

Police officers are a necessity in our community and as such should be correctly funded.

For all those Met officers out there reading this, you are respected and appreciated by many in our communities.

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