Police under pressure

BBC 2 screened the first part of a documentatry series last night called "Police under pressure". It looked at what it is like to police Sheffield in South Yorkshire today when police budgets have been drastically cut by the current government.

The episode centred on neighbourhood policing in the Page Hall and Parsons Cross areas of the city. Both areas have high levels of unemployment and in Page Hall this is a potentially volatile mix of "communities" - White British, British Asian and, the most recent, 700 Roma families from Slovakia. (In one slight glimmer of hope in a dark picture the White British and British Asians seemed united - albeit over their condemnation of the Roma immigrants.)

The police were shown as constantly being pulled from pillar to post to deal with calls from people claiming there was crime taking place whereas in reality it was anti social behaviour. Interestingly, the gangs of youths didn't appear to be doing anything illegal as such. There were few arrests. In fact there was some discussion over what would constitute a crime. But to the Whites and Asians, gangs of Roma youth standing on street corners talking until the small hours was deemed anti social. And, in some instances, intimidating.

In an effort to get some control over the Page Hall area (the home of the Whites, Asians and Roma) the police applied a Section 30 order in order to disperse the gangs of youths hanging round.

(Under section 30 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 it allows the police or local authority to impose a Local Child Curfew. A local authority or local police force can ban children under 16 from being in a public place during specified hours - between 9pm and 6am - unless under the control of a responsible adult. http://www.justice.gov.uk/youth-justice/courts-and-orders/disposals/local-child-curfew)

In order to make the Section 30 work, the local inspector had to deploy a very heavy police presence all the time. This included officers mounted on horseback but also meant he had to move officers from Parsons Cross to Page Hall. Parsons Cross had been the subject of a Section 30 and it had worked with the reports of anti social behaviour greatly reduced. But of course as soon as the Parsons Cross officers were moved, youths in that area started to cause trouble again.

Put simply, there just weren't enough officers to go round.

What saddened me watching the programme was how demoralised the officers were. They looked fed up and exasperated.

Last week, I attended the National Association of Chaplains to the Police conference. The theme of the conference was "The challenges of modern policing" and the speakers (all serving police officers of different ranks) told similar stories to that shown on the programme. It is clearly part of the role of police chaplains at present to listen to officers (and police staff) as they go through this time of feeling undervalued and despondent.

My experience in Wiltshire as a volunteer chaplain suggests the issues aren't as extreme here. Nevertheless there is a continuing sense among officers (and staff) that it wouldn't take much for things to get out of control. Meanwhile "efficiencies" such as changes to shift patterns and closure of local stations meaning officers now have further to travel to start shift, will take their toll. (All officers I've spoken to find the new shift patterns disruptive to their own sleep patterns but also disruptive to their family life.)

As we watched the programme last night my wife commented "This isn't what the police should be doing" and she had a point. What Page Hall and Parsons Cross needed was input from social workers, family workers, youth workers and so on to try and fix some of the problem families. And, of course the levels of policiing that will deal with crime. But in the absence of these (and facilities such as youth clubs) the police are left picking up the pieces and sticking plasters over the wounds. Meanwhile the causes such as high levels of unemployment go untreated.

I was reminded of something one of the officers at the conference said. He'd spoken of how the police now have to pick up things that previously would have been dealt with elsewhere. But "elsewhere" has been cut too. The officer remarked "Surely there must come a time when someone gives us the authority to say 'No! We're not dealing with that.'"

I'd like to think so but the way things are I can't see it happening soon.

PS

I emailed a fellow chaplain about the programme last night. And in her reply to me this morning she said this:

"I thought the issues came over really well and I hope people and ministers start to listen. Let those who have ears hear!"