Every action has an equal and opposite reaction

The seemingly unstoppable tide of youth crime has taken another turn with the sad and unfortunate death of an innocent 11 year old in Liverpool.

Because the victim was so young the slide into a so called new abyss of bad behaviour has been identified and hit mega headline news. This is becoming a now constant stream of bad news on an almost daily basis and definately sad reading or listening.

The renewed call for yet more police officers on the beat is answered by the statements that police numbers have increased year on year under whatever government is in power.

All this seems to forget that following a report by the audit commision some years ago police officers on the street were not deemed an effective use of such a resource, presumably because they performed a service in such a way so as not to have anything to measure. Funny that, as we provide exactly that, a service. To compare and judge along the lines of business is stupid and irrelevant and is only done to follow a trend in trying to appear more efficient and productive. We don't sell stuff, although we probably will soon, we give a service. It seems that the community either tolerate us because they have to or hate us because we are the only thing between civil obedience and anarchy of a lawless society that they want. Funny how some of them still complain when stuff happens to them.

Take away service to the community and replace with all sorts of targets to copy industry standards at the same time as saving as much money as you can. Add to this the ball park figures that the mouth-pieces state that this or that government has spent (in real terms, I nearly forgot that bit) and you reach the position where ever increasing numbers of officers have been taken away from walking their beats and reallocated to other trendy targets by a hoard of teams, squads and other groups.

The normal everyday response goes on relentlessly.

The normal everyday association with a regular officer in an area is almost lost.
A sudden return to this would still miss out on several years of local knowledge that the current organisation of resources has lost in all but small pockets. Very few officers spend all or most of their career on the same beat or area. The close relationship with the community is lost.

All this is because of saving money and an ideology of someone with a business brain and little or no regards for the style and quality of policing that was in place at one stage. This was deemed to be old fashioned and outdated. In my view just excuses for saving money and changing what service was provided for something more manageable, more statistically accountable and less of a service than it used to be.

Modernisation, better use of equipment and resources, able to better react to our changing society etc etc etc.

Society has changed, there is no doubt. More cars, more availability of cars, more people who have no social conscience, more people who care nothing about anyone but themselves and more people who condone and support lawless and antisocial behaviour.
Less and less people who stand up or challenge the unacceptible.

Yet the one consistent thing is that itis always somehow someone elses fault. Mostly, it seems, the police but if not then always someone elses fault.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. With action comes responsibility.

Breach that responsibility and nothing will happen to you, again and again and again.

This is the message we seem to be giving as a society.

I guarantee that the bad and disturbing news will continue because within the trends of generational growth the standards always get worse. The boundaries always get pushed lower and lower. What shocks gets ever worse. The ones who suffer most are the victims, the real victims, not those who claim or are given a variety of victim status but at the same time shelve all personal responsibility for their actions.
Again the actions of the minority have such a profound and negative effect on the lives of the majority.

I listened to a liverpool MP talking on the radio and what he said made a lot of sense. Even then the reported disagreed just for the sake of taking an opposite view.
There is a breakdown in families that is some part responsible for our declining standards of behaviour, along with the violence and filth and mindless trash that is available to watch by way of TV or computer games. Of course there will be 'no real & conclusive evidence' to support this but then again there never will be.

We've got too much opposition in this country and something needs to change.

But, then again, we got everyone's human rights to consider and people in jobs to justify their existance. Perhaps lets just stick to targets, everyone is happier about that.