Another Constable

The lack of sympathy towards the current police pay deal shown by many commenters across various forums is really starting to wind me up. It’s not because I feel we deserve or expect sympathy, but it’s due to the complete lack of education and understanding shown by so many people.

“Why should you earn more money when your pension is so good?” is a common theme. I pay 11% of my salary into my pension currently, about £265 per month. That is EXPENSIVE. People seem to think the police pension is free. Far from it. When I worked in IT, I was in a very similar “Final Salary” pension scheme with (in some part) better benefits. It cost me NOTHING. It was non-contributory. In comparison, paying for my police pension is agony.

If you (and by “you” I’m pointing at the moaners who go on about police pensions) were to pay £265 a month (rising as your salary rises) into a pension scheme every month, you reap the rewards later in life too! It’s not rocket science. There are no free rides here, we get what we pay for.

“You’re all lazy and spend all day on your arse” is another common theme. We work 10 hour days, and don’t even get the 1 hour break that we are entitled to. We hardly get time to sit and eat. The sitting on our arses is a direct response to Government targets and the requirements put upon us to record in minute detail everything that we do. I have never seen a Bobby sitting on his/her arse playing Minesweeper or Tetris while eating a sandwich. In offices the country over this is commonplace. Our TV room never seems to have Bobbies in any more. The 12 seats are usually entirely taken over with PCSO’s… but that’s another story.

“You never turn up when you are called” - well.. that’s a simple story of logistics. There aren’t enough coppers to deal with all the shit that we get called to every day. Some people need to get over themselves and stop using the Police to sort a dispute over a TV remote control. You see, whilst we might be in your house for 5-10 minutes, we then have a bunch of writing in the form of “domestic incident” forms to complete, computer systems to update and so on. See aforementioned Government targets, and tinkering with policework complaint.

“You don’t solve anything” - our detection rates are about 23% I think, which is about average. We actually would solve a whole lot more if we weren’t faced with comments like “I don’t want to get involved mate” at 90% of the incidents we turn up at. Sometimes I think people are under the impression that the Police can lock anyone up for anything they like just because someone points the finger and says “It’s ‘im what done it”. I’m afraid it’s a whole lot more complicated than that, and even when we do everything right, the CPS stand between us and court. They have their own set of Government imposed targets to meet. So if the job doesn’t fit those targets, it doesn’t get through.

“Soldier’s are worth more than you and face more danger” - Well, I don’t want to demean soldiers. Yes they do a difficult job, and don’t get paid well either. That’s an argument for soldiers to be paid more, not for police to be paid less. Also, a soldier knows and expects that at some point he will have to go to war, kill people, and maybe get killed himself. I go to work to try and catch a burglar or a robber. I don’t expect an irate motorist to try and run me over, or for a drug user to stab me with an infected needle in order to avoid the loss of a £10 bag due to his arrest. I don’t expect to be spat at in the face by people with all sorts of horrible ailments purely because I’m a “black bastard”. I don’t expect to be rammed by car thieves, or face down the barrel of a handgun after walking into the wrong off license at the wrong time. I don’t expect to be told at a moments notice that I’m not allowed to go home to my family for dinner due to a “lawful order” to remain on duty due to staffing levels. I don’t expect to be punched and kicked, or have bricks thrown at my windscreen, or be followed home from work by people that want to find out where I live so that they can exact some sort of “revenge” for me locking up “our Billy”. I don’t expect to be told “I hope your kid dies you fucking horrible c**t. I hope your wife gets raped and your family all fucking die of cancer”. I don’t expect any of it. But it all happens. Unnervingly often.

It also seems to be that too many people watch The Bill on TV and think that it is real. I underwent a random drugs test recently, as did some more of my colleagues this week. The professional standards Sergeant stated that out of the hundreds of random drugs tests that they have completed so far, not a single positive result has come back. The last time I watched the bill, half of them were on coke/crack/smack or some nonsense like that. I think that The Bill watching public expect us all to be on drugs/on the take/on the shag.

To all the people with attitudes like the above, I don’t want your sympathy, I just want you to know what the fuck you’re talking about before you start spo