I was reading Jane's Police Review when I found this article. It's intermixed with some of my own thoughts on this subject.
Officers in the south of England are facing backlogs of up to 40 owed rest days because they are so under-resourced and are exhausted from working 12 days in a row, according to their federations.
Other officers on night shifts are so tired they are sleeping through their time off at home with their families.
John Miskelly, chairman of Surrey Police Federation, said he is worried about the stress and effect of the long hours, particularly when officers are driving home from a shift.
He added that incidents such as the climate change protests, the recent foot and mouth outbreak, the Derby and anti-terrorism operations have meant it is not unusual for operational officers to be working 12 days in a row.
This reminds me of the extremely long hours after 7/7. We all understand the need for exigences of service and the need to provide reassurance for the public in times of terror but when we get major events on top of all of this, for example the Tour-de-France, Notting Hill and DSEI etc. plus sickness and officers on restricted duties, those of us left to police the "front line" are having to do the work of not just one officer but maybe two or three.
A colleague of mine yesterday, logged onto a computer to find that next weekend, which he was on rest for, was cancelled. He was extremely annoyed and quite right so. He had booked a weekend break which he had already had to move the booking due to a family illness and now there he was finding out that without even a buy-your-leave (no pun intended) his rest days were cancelled. Once again the front line officers are being used without thought or care. There are plenty of other squads that have uniforms tucked away in a locker somewhere, why not use them?
New Years day, Notting Hill, DSEI etc all days off are cancelled and reallocated but you try and get them back! I gather a mixture of toil and pay from my o/t but when I attempt to obtain that time off in lieu back it's nigh on impossible and dare you ask for it off during a shift!
We are being asked to work harder and longer each time. I work a five week roster which is so archaic, Noah himself voted against it! Part of the roster is that I work seven nights then get three days off but invariably one of those days is cancelled for an event eg. football policing. Since the new Wembley has opened rest day cancellations have gone through the roof. The public want to see us on the streets fighting crime not gathered around a football stadium and my wife wants to see me at home on rest days, especially when the baby arrives! Then you have the problem with who's left behind to police the area you would normally walk the beat on. During the play off cup finals we were all at Wembley for the entire weekend. I missed two rest days off of nights which meant that after sleeping part of the Friday, I had half a day off so pretty much worked the best part of fifteen days straight. The area I normally covered was left with just two police officers to respond to calls. They worked either twelve hours day and the night turn worked twelve hours night. Needless to say they were shattered and the night turn still had another three nights left to go before they had time off (assuming it wasn't cancelled!).
Up to 1,800 Met officers at a time were called to the camp near Heathrow to police the protest and officers from Surrey, Thames Valley and the British Transport Police helped with the operation in the surrounding areas.
One mounted officer was knocked off his horse during the confrontations with the demonstrators, who carried shields and threw missiles at police lines. He is not thought to have been seriously injured.
Surrey Police provided officers to carry out night shifts and routine patrols in sites around the county. But officers are now having a backlog of up to 40 days owed to them because they are so under-resourced.
Officers then have to travel for up to an hour and a half away which is stressful and can cause implications for the officers and their families.
Our former Commander said "We don't choose where officers live" Well that's all very well and good for him considering he is on thousands a year and can afford to live relatively close to the office but for the front line officers it's a little different. Coupled up with the pay disputes it's becoming harder and harder for officers to be able to afford or upkeep homes. So when a Commander comes out with that sort of ludicrous clap-trap you wonder if all the officers who are leaving to become plumbers and electricians are not quite so mad after all!
2 comments:
Sod being a plumber or electrician!
Go be a fire officer!! ;)
>> One mounted officer was knocked off his horse during the confrontations with the demonstrators <<
Might I respectfully suggest that this anecdote has become a little exaggerated in the telling (possibly, and quite understandably, to save embarrasment to the officer concerned)?
Perhaps the incident you refer to was where an officer fell off his horse, said by some to be due to his lack of sleep catching up with him?
My son, who took part in the climate camp protest, tells me there is more than a fair chance that this particular incident was captured on one of the police videos in use at the time.
As there seems to be mounting disinformation (sorry about the pun) about what actually happened, perhaps some enterprising officer could smuggle the footage out of CO* and post it on the Internet so we can know the truth of the matter :-)
* Only joking, I meant 'obtain the footage under the Freedom of Information Act'
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