General Policing Discussions

Hello all, This is a little bit of a rant but I'm also interested in why people think it's acceptable to blatantly, and often dangerously, exceed the posted speed limit. I have a one hour commute to work which takes me, mostly, through nice country back roads; the speed limit varies from 30 to 60 mph in parts. Routinely I will be pootling along at 30 mph and will see a car rocketing towards me in my rear view mirror. Nearly every truck I see on the way to work does 40 in the 30 zones. A car last night was driving at at least 50 mph in a 30 and seemed to be bemused that I honked my horn at him to slow down as he overtook me. I know that there are always going to be a…

So I've been a Special for about 3 years now. Out of curiosity I looked up how many hours I had put in over that time, which came to around 1500, which obviously is way above the minimum. So I thought, if I was just doing the minimum, how many years service would I equate to? Assuming 200 as minimum, that comes out as 7.5 years. So how many hours have you done over your career, how long have you served and what would that equate to as if you were just doing the minimum?

Can anyone explain why the Irish Garda have a power to inspect Sellafield Nuclear Site? I was reading something today that mentioned this power and was thoroughly confused.

Recently in the last couple of days, on a couple of local selling pages on Facebook, there has been a single user sharing information regarding a local paedophile who has been relocated to a hostel in the town using information from ukpaedos-exposed.com. There's a picture of him, and links to news reports, but no incitement to do anything apart from share the information. I don't think any offences have been committed by posting the information (unless you can point me in the right direction), but what are your thoughts on this? It's sort of an unregulated 'Sarah's law' but could potentially become a problem. It's not a scenario as such (although what would you do?)…

PCSO starts at £18795 a month, after NI and tax e.t.c how much do people actually take home? if any one has the TAX CODES it could be a real help as their is an online salary calculator.

While no formal qualifications are needed for most police forces to recruit an individual, can an argument be made that higher education is beneficial to those wishing to join the police? As someone who is contemplating whether to spend several years at uni and rack up tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt or not, can anyone share their history, experiences and general thought? If you think university is beneficial to policing, are there any courses in particular that are most suitable?

Daily Mail "motorists risk a fatal accident by texting, tweeting or using Facebook at the wheel – more distracting than being over the drink-drive limit." IMO if the offence is comparible, then the Penalty should be too. People using a Mobile phone while Driving on the road should be banned.

Does anyone know what classification Khat is? Saw a guy today chewing what looked like Khat. Never dealt with this before, just wondered if anyone had dealt with this before. I can remember seeing a piece on BBC London News saying Khat use has been swept under the carpet by authorities.

Does hate crime sit as it own crime or is it only an aggravating factor for other crimes? I.e Racially aggregated criminal damage, homophobic public order section 4a.

Evening all, Wanted to start a topic regarding assaults on duty. Intrested to hear your experiences of being assaulted on duty, the type of care you got from your force and direct supervisors, the way the case was handled by your processing team and ultimateatly what the courts decided to do with it. I was assaulted on duty not too long ago where I was single crewed on patrol went to arrest a well known nominal for ABH when I approached him and went for my cuffs I was hit in the face several times resulting in a black eye, spat on by him and then kicked in the legs causing brusing. He was then sprayed and we ended up in a big roll around on the floor where I then cuff…

Howdy, So a question I suppose. When I started looking at joining 5 years ago there was some interest in regular recruitment and whilst Policing was one of those childhood aspirational careers there didn't seem to be the sort of intense fascination with policing of all descriptions and "getting in". Is this just a new thing? If so what's it driven by? I had a brief look at a TV guide and found that there were over a dozen cop shows, that's certainly gone up since I was a lad and even since I've been in. It's a well understood phenomena that the armed forces recruitment does well when the economy is down and poorly when the economy is up, is that something to do with…

We all know we have discretion and we use it on a daily basis else we would literally not be able to walk 5 metres down the road without dealing with some issue or another. However which things can we use complete discretion for and which can't we? For the things we can't use discretion for, why can't we and in any of the circumstances could it be acceptabel to use discretion? I see most of our more serious crimes as being obviosuly exempt from use fo absolute discretion: murder/manslaughter, rape, robbery, wounding and the like. However there are many offences where we do use discretion: common assault, assault police, road traffic offences, littering, drunkenness of…

Who has applied?

Much is made of us being the "best police in the world". Another phrase which is banded about is that we "police by consent" and are unarmed which some people herald as evidence of us being the "best police in the world". However, are we really the best police in the world? Does the old notion that we 'police by consent' actually mean anything or have any benefit over policing in other countries? ************************************** I would say we are not the best police in the world. I would say that we have an inescapable reputation as having a faux-nostalgia inducing constabulary which everyone …

I was assaulted by an ex-boyfriend on the 11 april 2013. I received 16 staples on my head, 24 stitches on my left hand. The person was charged with GBH with intent. He used items of furniture as weapons, ie table lamp, a dining room table and ornaments. Will the GBH with intent charge stay or be reduced. I am fully co-perating with the prosecution and have made a statement.