UK Response Policing is in Crisis

    

We have just had a national week to acknowledge Response Policing with a catchy Hashtag #responsepolicingweek on social media to highlight that aspect of Police work. For the uninitiated, response policing essentially means the uniform officers who answer 999 calls and 101 calls. They respond to emergency calls for Police to attend and deal with reports of crime and/or disorder plus it seems, a myriad of other reasons requiring Police in the modern world. I have seen numerous comments from senior officers in the last week recognising and acknowledging the work and risks faced by response officers. It was good to see their work being recognised and appreciated, but it was only for one week, and for many on the front line it does not come close to recognising and dealing with the real crisis in response policing.

Experience – the lack of operational experience in response policing has been reducing over the last few years. Most of my information is from contacts that cover the largest force in the UK, the Metropolitan Police, but I know from sources across the UK that the problem is replicated across the country, but on a slightly smaller scale. The average length of policing service on many response teams is now close to less than 4 years – when you consider that they spend on average, 4 months in initial training before they get on the streets and then two or three years doing their probation, then that is a frightening figure. Critical Incidents are being responded to by officers with minimal experience and front- line supervision is not blessed with significant levels of knowledge and capability. Many officers with years of response policing work are actively looking for alternative roles within or outside policing.

Resources – The main complaint from officers on response is the lack of numbers on their teams to answer the calls that come in. Response has always been the first place that any officers for public order aid are taken from or to create a squad or unit to deal with a specific problem. In my time in policing, we had various squads formed, vehicle crime squads, robbery squads, drug squads and many many more. Those officers are always taken from response teams, and it is usually the most experienced officers, meaning the teams are left short with less vehicles able to be properly resourced. That leads to another problem when managers decide it `looks better` to have more vehicles out and single crew response vehicles. Experience has taught me that on most calls for Police, you need two officers to effectively deal with the incident. That means two vehicles will have to attend each call and, on many occasions, the first unit is waiting for the second to attend, especially in more rural areas. A hashtag & supportive comment from senior managers does not help response teams trying to manage crime scenes, hospital guards and an incident list with thirty odd outstanding calls when they start their shift. The oncoming shift is often fully occupied at incidents within an hour or so of starting their tour of duty and there are no units to deal with any call that comes in. I suspect that most communities would be completely shocked to discover how many officers they have on duty in their local area, see what calls they must deal with and how long some incidents can take.

Demand – The demands on police time and resources has increased beyond comprehension and significantly more than officers of my policing era experienced. I worked in an area that had several mental health hospitals and facilities, and the most frequent call was usually to report a missing person when a patient just walked out the door. We occasionally dealt with mental health related calls in the street and even more occasionally we had to assist with mental health professionals as they took someone into a secure unit from a private address. These types of calls have increased massively as support services in mental health have faced significant cuts in recent years. Policing is often the service of last resort and often the only service available to respond to mental health crisis type calls, and often there is a distinct lack of professional help to attend and support the officers. This means the officers will spend much longer in providing help and care to those suffering from mental health type episodes and often hours waiting for an available bed in a suitable unit. Crime reporting has also changed in recent years after directives from police chiefs and politicians with more `priorities` being identified. Any suggestion of a domestic dispute now requires a crime report to be completed, any hint of a hate crime attracts the same time consuming and bureaucratic response, and these are just two examples where the demand has increased. Reporting these incidents takes time and officers will have to spend longer at each call.

Solutions/Support – Sounds easy but more officers on response teams and a review of the demands on policing. A return to the basics of preventing and detecting crime where Police officers focus on their primary objectives of being responsible for reporting and investigating crime. Senior managers could start this process by reviewing their non- operational units and teams in respect of numbers and make them available for response work on one day a week or a few days each month. Align them to response teams so they can be called upon to support those teams when demand requires or calls increase. Most police officers are capable to assist response teams with crime scenes, cordons or answer non-urgent calls yet they remain in their administrative roles whilst the calls pile up. Align some detectives to response teams so they can attend and take responsibility for investigating crimes reported by that team. There has always been an issue with the types of crimes CID units will take responsibility for and that situation has not changed in modern policing. The `value` of the offence would often be the deciding factor with little or no regard to the degree or extent of investigation required. Response officers have very little time to effectively investigate reported crimes, they may attend and take the initial report, but further investigations will inevitably take longer as the officers work through their shifts and the demands on their working time.

Summary – There is no easy fix to the crisis facing response policing, but it is the very foundation of policing. Most incidents start with a call to police to report an incident and it will be response officers who attend first and deal. Retention of experienced officers in front line policing is also key and can only be achieved by addressing the demand & role they face. For too long, being on a response team has been seen as the `punishment posting` in policing, officers on any specialised units are often told if they do not like their particular role then they can go back to team. The current mind set in policing seems to be to get through the minimum amount of time in response and then move onto a specialised unit as soon as you can.

Senior officers need to address this and do far more than spend one week using a hashtag to highlight the work officers across the country are doing every day of every week. It is often far from glamorous and would be unlikely to make an interesting TV show or recruiting advert, aside from the Bill! It is the very basis of policing and in my view, every police recruit should spend a significant period working in response to understand shift work and the demands in that policing role. Wherever possible, many officers should be mandated to spend some time each year of their service with a response team. The role & demands can change, and the exchange of knowledge and experience would benefit both the officers and the organisation.

A hashtag and one week will do very little to address the crisis facing the very core of British policing. It is arguably one of the toughest of roles in policing and can be one of the most demanding – those officers on response teams need and deserve more support and recognition from within policing and outside.