Ops for Ops Sake! (Targets For Gods Sake)

One thing that always gets my goat is the never ending badgering from SMTs and their increasingly annoying ways of trying to find reasons for me having to justify my existence.

Stick me in a uniform where the public can see me, feel reassured (hopefully) and when necessary ask me loads of SFQs, then I am doing my job.

However Sir/Ma'am, making me stop and account people for the sake of it to make you and your figures look good just for you to obtain that third pip, crown or fried egg is quite frankly insulting.

I don't see you out there with us on yet another pointless anti social behaviour operation purely designed so the nick/area can meet it's detection targets and you call it "ASB" so it can meet yet another force target.

I don't see you stopping someone in order for you to reach the teams targets and have that person give you a mouthful of abuse because it's the fifth time that week they have been stopped and missed their train, bus or appointment.

I don't see you on a freezing cold night having had your nights extended yet again in order to achieve some crazy goal set out by you earlier in the year.

I don't see you stood in the witness box before a Magistrate having to explain why you arrested someone for a minor offence when there was a better option like a good old fashioned "ticking off" which was not given because of the force's "Positive Arrest Policy" and that Constables are pursued hungrily for arrest figures and given bollockings by down trodden Sergeants or by a power hungry Inspector eager for their next promotion because they haven't met "Performance Targets"

What I do see are members of the public getting annoyed at being stopped regularly, their car being stopped again and again in road checks.

What I do see are members of the public coming up to us and asking if everything is alright and why there are so many police about. It panics them as it's out of the ordinary and they fear something bad is going on.

What I do hear are the comments from passers by when on these operations along the lines of "Haven't they got better things to do?"

What we seem to be doing in this target driven business and that's what it's become, a business, is alienating the very people we are out to protect.

By arresting someone purely to enable a box to be ticked, stopping someone to meet a target for another pointless operation it drives a wedge between the public and us.

How can the public trust or understand us if we are constantly abusing that trust?