police (David Goodall)

David's Views: Police

A good, well motivated and responsive police force is the key to maintaining a civil society.

As an ex-police inspector's son and the brother of a serving police chief inspector I do know a bit about a policeman's lot. Both my father and brother have served in Southampton and have had difficult incidents and problems to cope with.

So my views are:

more police officers - the police provide an excellent service, there are just not enough police officers to perform all the tasks the public requires.
less paperwork - police time is wasted filling in endless paperwork much of which duplicates information.
greater office support - much of the necessary paperwork could be done by trained secretarial support staff instead of trained police officers.
more support police officers - support officers can provide good support to regular officers in patrolling, and providing the high visibility the public want. However they must be under police supervision and not be a cheap substitute for regular officers.
let the police to their job - stop Whitehall meddling with different priorities each month. Every area has it own problems and the local police should determine their own priorities in consultation with the local community.

The bottom line: