Police Statistics

Just wanted to comment on a TV programme which was on STV on Monday night relating to the use of statistics by the Police.
An ex met PC has been doing an expose of how the numbers game is seriously effecting policing.

This is not a new problem, when I joined the Police in 1966 it was a problem also. My boss used to complain if I put in a crime report for something which we might not be able to solve.
There was one Sunday morning, very early, a milkman said that there was a car in Mayburn, Loanhead, with the door open. When I went to check it out I ended up with 15 cars in the area all broken into , and several hours later I was sitting in the office writing out all these Crime Report Forms ( No 17) when the Sergeant arrived. He went ballistic, ranting and raving, etc, and told me that I could just stay on and phone them all down to the DHQ which took ages.

HOWEVER, totally different ball game about a week later when the two culprits were caught, The Sergeant sat and did all the cancellations ( 17 A) and put his name on the bottom as the reporting officer.

In the early 80's when I was in Crime Intelligence I used to go though the Annual reports with a fine tooth comb and work out the "real" solvency rates, and more recently I did the same with the 2005/2006 Report and the problem still persists.

In the 60's / 70's there were always either three or four officers on duty in Penicuik on all shifts, nowadys you are lucky to have two on at a time and they sometimes have to cover more than one Station.

Current problem here is that the former Divisional Commander for Mid and East Lothian overspent his budget by so much that they cannot afford to pay ovetime to cover shifts. He managed to get himself a plumb job in London but has been recalled at the insistence of his peers who have been suffering as a result of his incompetence.