Is The Tide Slowly Turning?

Ian Johnston has spoken out at the Superintendents Annual Conference about the public's lack of confidence in policing at the moment. He states this needs to be addressed. In the speech presented as "targets have wrecked public confidence in policing" he says:

"Officers who are perceived in this way are sometimes less willing to use their judgement. Genuine mistakes made by officers and the good intentions of managers have resulted in more and more "just in case" measures, policies and procedures – and, heaven forbid, more doctrine. Many front line officers now adopt an approach of "if I don't make decisions I won't get it wrong". It is time that we conceded that adherence to rigid processes has resulted on occasions in officers hitting the target, but missing the point."

He joins some other senior officers who are finally showing some real leadership - in challenging our inept way way of policing in the 21st Century. Don't you just feel slightly encouraged that things might change soon.

Helen Newlove also spoke at the conference. This is the wife of Garry Newlove kicked to death by yobs last year. Our failure to tackle ongoing "low priority" anti social behaviour led to him bravely confronting a group of youths who then set about him. These are the people we should protect and indeed want to protect.

It's about time we all stood together and just got back to common sense policing. Forget the targets, ignore the broken justice system, let the next government sort it out. We have been acting like sheep blindly following the wrong path for too long now.

I've always liked Paul WELLER a modern day poet genius - He sums it up perfectly in this lyric.


You don't have to take this crap

You don't have to sit back and relax

You can actually try changing it

I know we've always been taught to rely

Upon those in authority -But you never know until you try

How things just might be -If we came together so strongly

Are you gonna try to make this work

Or spend your days down in the dirt

You see things can change -

Yes and walls can come tumbling down