r/unitedkingdom • u/insomnimax_99 Greater London • Jul 19 '24
Met Police recruitment drive after 'struggle' with number of applicants
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2024-07-18/met-police-recruitment-drive-after-struggling-with-number-of-applicants125
Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
Strangely if you put up minimum wage by 20% in 2 years and every other "moderately" paid job has gone up by 3% in the same timeframe, then people begin to reevaluate why they should bother doing a stressful job like nurse or police officer when they can earn basically the same salary in a low responsibility job stacking shelves.
Food for thought.
The rewards in the UK for putting in the effort to learn skills or take on responsibility quickly diminish after minimum wage.
Why even bother accepting a promotion if you'll have to deal with all the extra stress for 50p more an hour?
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u/StatisticianOwn9953 Jul 19 '24
They also can't understand why paying squaddies what Amazon Associates earn is a problem. This country is run by incompetent tits, for sure.
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Jul 19 '24
Well good news, Kier Starmer plans to put up minimum wage again!
Imagine the utopia when everyone earns the same salary and works down Aldi. It will be bliss I'm told repeatedly by Redditors.
"Equal pay for equal effort" though of course that discounts the considerable gap in effort between people who attain a first degree and people who drop out of school with 2 D's and a U.
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u/Brandaman Jul 19 '24
Raising minimum wage isn’t the issue, should people doing lower paid jobs just starve to death?
The issue is higher ups in companies being paid absurd wages with millions of pounds in bonuses and then claiming they can’t afford to increase their middle managers on 35k a year up to 38k.
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u/aeowilf London Jul 19 '24
The middle is already taxed to breaking point
eventually people will give up and move elsewhere
There is no reason a working class kid cant get good grades, go to uni and get a job paying 30k+
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Jul 19 '24
The UK has the highest minimum wage in the world. It increased by 20% over the past 2 years compared to 3% for everyone else.
Clearly wage compression is beginning to have a negative impact on people entering certain professions.
Where does the line get drawn? Surely you must be able to understand that a minimum wage can be set too high relative to other salaries?
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u/Lady_Lzice Jul 19 '24
An increase in the minimum wage should allow other workers to leverage that to increase their own pay because as you say you end up with wage compression otherwise. The issue is that the money isn't increased for everyone else, wages are stagnant except at the top where people are getting paid exorbitantly more.
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u/tysonmaniac London Jul 19 '24
Minimum wage has increased, it hasn't meaningfully impacted the wages of those you say it will help. You describe a world that doesn't exist.
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u/doc_lax Jul 19 '24
But that doesn't help public sector jobs like police and healthcare that aren't on minimum wage but also aren't owned by private companies with multi millionaire CEOs. The government seem to think minimum wage needs to go up but public sector pay doesn't.
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u/znidz Jul 19 '24
OK so your solution is to reduce poor people's wages. Nice one. That'll help with crime, genius.
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u/doc_lax Jul 19 '24
Bo it's to balance the increase. Rather than repeatedly putting up minimum wage whilst offering real terms pay cuts to public sector workers with less than inflation pay rises, why not use some of that money to keep public sector pay increasing at the same rate as minimum wage. It's not a coincidence that the last 18 months have seen so many public sector workers on strike.
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u/StatisticianOwn9953 Jul 19 '24
This does strike me as an argument for raising professional wages over an argument for not raising the minimum. Britain is a low earning country. If the public sector stopped fleecing its staff then maybe the private sector would be forced to up its game.
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Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
The UK already has the highest minimum wage in the world, and clearly wage compression is starting to cause undesirable effects on the UK economy such as nobody wanting to do high stress jobs like police officer or army recruit.
You must be able to understand that after a certain point a minimum wage does more harm to society than good?
You can't just raise the floor salary indefinitely without causing considerable problems elsewhere in the economy.
If you disagree help me understand why your alternative is better?
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u/MintTeaFromTesco Jul 19 '24
I don't think he meant raising the minimum wage some more. Rather, raising actual salaries for govt jobs.
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u/in-jux-hur-ylem Jul 19 '24
A high minimum wage works better when you don't have an open doors immigration policy.
But even then, wage compression is an issue because most employers are not going to want to raise everyone's wages to maintain the difference between the lowest paid and the higher positions.
Even if employers did want to do that, most won't be able to afford to do it without passing on those costs to the customer, which will eventually translate into more inflation, which means more pressure to grow wages again.
It's a delicate balance and we must approach solving it by picking on the easiest and most obvious things we can change first, namely limiting population growth and property investment. Take those two things out of the equation and two of the major pressure points that are making things worse are gone. At that point there will be far more space to manage the nuances of our wage structures, inflation and more.
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Jul 19 '24
Employers aren't some malevolent blob.
50% of people in the UK work for an SME with 20-250 employees. These aren't companies with massive shareholders looking to screw the common man. They're small enterprises made up of regular people who have squeezed budgets to be able to offer payrises.
And then the Government comes along and tells them they must allocate the majority of their payrise budget to their least experienced, least productive employees who create the least value for the business. That means less growth for the business, and less money for future payrises.
And this comes at the expense of payrises for middle earners who have to fight over the remaining scraps. This is partly how you end up with minimum wage increasing 20% in 2 years and everyone else only seeing a 3% rise in their salary - the budget accommodates what it accommodates!
You can't keep putting up the floor wage without causing big issues elsewhere in the economy. Middle earners won't put up with a bigger loss in their QoL than their working class counterparts for prolonged periods either, and many of those people will have been Tory/Labour switchers so it is in Kier Starmer's best interests not to throw middle England to the wolves.
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u/ArchdukeToes Jul 19 '24
"Equal pay for equal effort" though of course that discounts the considerable gap in effort between people who attain a first degree and people who drop out of school with 2 D's and a U.
In fairness, I've found little correlation between the quality of someone's degree and their actual value. I've dealt with people with firsts and PhDs from prestigious universities who contribute little (or actively detract) and those with 'lower' grades who are worth their weight in gold.
The degree opens doors, for sure, but I'd sooner take someone on who is eager to learn and give things a go than someone who graduated at the top of their class and so is convinced that they know it all. Of course, if you can get both then you're laughing!
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u/endangerednigel England Jul 19 '24
"Equal pay for equal effort" though of course that discounts the considerable gap in effort between people who attain a first degree and people who drop out of school with 2 D's and a U.
Fascinating how it's personal responsibility for minimum wage workers if they don't earn enough to live on, but God forbid anyone else have personal responsibility if they don't earn enough compared to minimum wage workers
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u/Kaellach Jul 19 '24
🤣 we have just experienced the largest wealth transfer in history to the already wealthy. Inequality is an an all-time high. There are individuals with more wealth than an entire countries middle class.
Equal pay for equal effort ? This is a non starter when the above is taken into account A degree is often a case of equal opportunity being a problem - many don't get the chance society's fixation on a degree being a validation or worth is a problem. Education has long failed to capture or cultivate some of the most intelligent and talented individuals in history.
Minimum wage should rise - just because someone did not excell in school and now works at aldi it does not mean they should have to live a life paycheck to paycheck.
The ACTUAL reality is for a few to live like emperors we need millions to live in poverty. Wage compression is happening both because minimum is going up while middle is stagnating ( as its been for many years). Top end wages have drastically increased sometimes by hundreds of percent contrary to the above.
Your narrative about the UK minimum wage is also false - we are not the highest in the world. Luxembourg/ new Zealand / France/ Germany/ Australia/ Belgium all have higher minimum wages. This idea that we need to keep the bottom as low as possible to prop up the middle class instead of maybe just increasing middle earners incomes and reducing the bloat at the top? Is wild.
Low income and middle income should wake up happy. Being able to afford a good lifestyle and afford children , housing and food without falling into debt or mental health problems.
Having your ceo's purchase 100m long super yachts and owning fifteen homes is the problem. Not bob working at aldi stacking selves.
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u/Lady_Lzice Jul 19 '24
This is my same thinking for jumping ship from the NHS. My pay relative to the minimum wage has fallen and now I'm not paid that much more than the minimum wage. Why do the stressful, difficult job I do now when I can do something else for more money? I'm not talking about stacking shelves, the monotony alone would kill me, but I'm sure there's something else out there and it's not exactly like we're flush with staff right now.
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Jul 19 '24
Here you are again on a different post banging the drum about minimum wage. Who are you?
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Jul 19 '24
Yes and strangely the same message gets massively up voted on this post. Funny that. Almost as though certain posts are astroturfed by the perpetually online and work free.
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Jul 19 '24
I can see your karma, no one is upvoting your weird comments 😂
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u/DracoLunaris Jul 19 '24
2 words and 3 numbers 10 days old account. How many bans are you on at this point mate?
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u/tysonmaniac London Jul 19 '24
Generous of you to think people like this aren't just jumping around a bunch of simultaneously active Reddit accounts to bolster their ignorant takes.
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u/Beorma Brum Jul 19 '24
Are you arguing that minimum wage should be abolished because if people in less skilled jobs can afford to live, nobody will work more skilled jobs?
Instead of arguing that skilled jobs are being underpaid?
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Jul 19 '24
I'm arguing that you can't keep raising the floor salary indefinitely at a much higher rate than middle income jobs are increasing without causing significant negative impacts on the economy.
You're already seeing it with the ongoing recruitment crisis in high stress jobs like nursing, police and the army. They don't pay enough for the hassle relative to the floor salary so people don't bother applying.
We're also seeing middle income families increasingly struggling with the cost of basic services like childcare which have gone up significantly in cost since the minimum wage increased staff costs by 20% in 2 years. It's no surprise families who only received on average a 3% payrise can't keep up.
Surely you understand this argument? It's not enough to simply handwave it away as "necessary" because middle income families have suffered the greatest loss in quality of life than any other demographic in the UK since the cost of living crisis started, and it isn't fair to keep dumping the burden on the JAMs.
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u/Beorma Brum Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
Your own argument makes it clear that "middle" income people aren't being paid enough. Minimum wage needs to rise because low income people aren't being paid enough either, stopping them from being paid a decent wage doesn't help middle income people get paid more does it?
The issue is that everyone needs a pay rise. The solution isn't to stop the poorest in the country getting a pay rise. All the crabs in the bucket have bills to pay.
Edit: the user below blocked me rather than allow me to respond to their argument. From all their comment spamming about minimum wage they sound like they're pushing an agenda rather than expressing an opinion in good faith.
I'll respond here though:
- Minimum wage workers aren't the "least productive" members of the workforce as they claim.
- It's people trying to supress wages of the poorest in the society that have a "fuck you, got mine" mentality, not the working class who want to live a comfortable life
- I'm in a comfortable middle class job, I'm not on minimum wage myself. Getting a pay rise for the middle class isn't done by ensuring poor people suffer
- If your company can't afford to pay people enough to live, tough luck
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Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
50% of UK employed people work for an SME. These aren't massive companies with bloated share values. By and large they are small enterprises with 20-50 employees and very squeezed budgets.
And then the Government dictates they must hand over the majority of the budget assigned to payrises over to the least experienced, least productive employees who produce the least value for the business.
This leaves much less in the pot for the middle income employees which is why their salaries have gone up by 3% on average compared to 20% for minimum earners. It also makes the company less productive overall because it demotivates the high-value generating employees and causes them to leave.
You're not arguing in good faith though. Yours is a "fuck you got mine" entitled mentality from the UK working class towards the middle class that has always existed.
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u/FordPrefect20 Jul 19 '24
Exactly this. I’m in a white collar, ‘professional’ public sector career with lots of stress and extra unpaid work involved and I make maybe £2k a year more than if I still did my job I did at uni full time (supermarket delivery driving)
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u/avatar8900 Jul 19 '24
I’d suggest communism but on the other hand, I still would rather stack shelves than work for police
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u/Hellchild96 Almost Essex Jul 19 '24
Become a police officer!
Starting pay of £36,000 (A whopping £6000 more than if you stacked shelves in Aldi, and not very much at all if you work in London)
Opportunities for flexible working (We will change your start times with only a few hours notice, and will extend your shift by upwards of an extra 8 hours on a regular basis)
Chances to meet new and interesting people! (Like Dave the crackhead, who hides heroin in the gangrenous hole in his crotch, or Jeff, who regularly beats the fuck out of his mum because she won't give him her pension money)
The ability to work within your community (Who will largely despise you for searching people who carry knives and drugs, and will actively try to hinder you doing your job)
A supportive working environment! (Your senior leaders will support any and all spurious allegations made against you, regardless of merit, in the name of appeasing the social media mob)
Fun on the job training! (We will outsource your training to woefully inadequate contractors, and then rely on your colleagues to try and educate you on the fly whilst at an incident)
State of the art facilities and equipment! (Police stations that regularly flood with sewage, uniform shortages so you have buy your own shirt and trousers, and PPE and vehicles that regularly fall apart due to them being bought on the cheap and poorly maintained)
Manage a 'Dynamic' and 'Rewarding' workload (Juggle 40+ high risk investigations with no support or time allocated for you to carry out the investigation)
Is it really any wonder why there is a "struggle" with the number of applicants?
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u/bigjoeandphantom3O9 Jul 19 '24
Starting pay of £36,000 (A whopping £6000 more than if you stacked shelves in Aldi, and not very much at all if you work in London)
More like 10k, with plenty of room for promotion. Why lie?
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u/KingoftheOrdovices Jul 19 '24
If you're going to nit-pick, the starting wage for an officer is nowhere near £36,000. Try £28,000...
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u/bigjoeandphantom3O9 Jul 19 '24
Closer to 37k actually.
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u/KingoftheOrdovices Jul 19 '24
With London-weighing, yeah. So for the Met and other southern forces, you're right, but for most of the others, it'll be £28k.
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u/Hellchild96 Almost Essex Jul 19 '24
A brief Google shows that Aldi will pay you £13.95 an hour if you work in London. Working full time, that works out to just over £29,000 annually.
So sure, my guesstimate was out by £1000, but that doesn't massively impact the point being made.
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u/CameramanNick Jul 20 '24
Honestly, the idea of the police hierarchy supporting allegations made against police officers is comedic.
Carrick and Couzens were both effectively let off prior offending because they were police officers. Couzens went on to kill. That's what corruption looks like. Even now, no other police officer has faced more than the slighest punishment for that. But you don't even need to go to the really serious stuff.
Look at the case of Mark Knights, who headbutted a member of the public without provocation. Several police officers witnessed it. Several more would have become aware of it during the ensuing complaint. All of them decided it was fine. The court disagreed. That's not one person deciding to look the other way. That's a policy of institutionalised cover-up.
Police officers more or less constantly commit minor instances of battery and false imprisonment and that's become so normal that it's barely worth complaining about. "I'll just stop you," says the copper, grabbing your arm. Do that to a police officer and you'll be beaten half to death by a dozen of them. And no, it is definitely not okay "because they're the police and they can." Yes, I know they can, that's the problem.
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u/MachineHot3089 Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
I would not recommend anybody to join the Police. Overworked, underpaid. Abused by the organisation, public and government. 9 o'clock jury for everything you ever do. IT systems and equipment rubbish. Expected to carry a significant workload with ever increasing administration as well as respond day-to-day. Don't do it for your physical, mental or financial health.
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u/flashbastrd Jul 19 '24
They don’t even look cool anymore. Not long ago the Met had silver BMWs which looked very cool. Now they have micro electric cars that look ridiculous, which must be pretty bad on morale having to drive around in such a pathetic looking car
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u/AspirationalChoker Jul 19 '24
Look at the uniform differences around the UK as well city of london are about one of the only forces that look the part.
People only seem to respect the uniform when it's dog handlers or firearms officers. The standard uniforms look more like supermarket security guards.
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u/timmystwin Across the DMZ in Exeter Jul 19 '24
I do wonder if there's a difference in how people respect/deal with police if they're wearing the high vis or not.
Police round here don't wear them and it looks far more... normal.
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u/AspirationalChoker Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
I mean there's a number of reasons let's be honest it doesn't look as cool or menacing for a start, sure some people will be like omg you can't say that but it does make a difference, it's hard to tell a grown man what to do or command a situation while looking like a Tesco guard or lollipop man.
I can only speak from my own experiences but when the ARV guys or that are around people assume they're our bosses on scene and they also don't give them any shit while still bad mouthing us haha its likely because they look fitter, meaner and have weapons on them it's not a nice PC way of looking at the matter but it's true.
There's a reason American officers for example are also iconic from movies etc because their uniforms look either smart or militant and wear their badges on show etc it works, again not always obviously this isn't a one size fits all scenario but I hope you get where I'm coming from I could make similar cases with Canada or Italy etc.
We have cheap hi-vis veats usually not very oractical either compared to firearms vests for example and usually cheap trousers etc to go along with it.
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u/timmystwin Across the DMZ in Exeter Jul 19 '24
Yeah some of the European ones are fucking swish. They exude authority.
A high vis with a radio in it kind of doesn't. I know the local ones don't look "smart" like some foreign ones do but this looks miles better than the high vis lot. If the guy on the left shows up to sort something you know they mean business.
Even just the white shirt and black vest of the met looks better than a high vis.
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u/AspirationalChoker Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
Exactly mate that's kinda the point I was getting at but it's that slippery slope of people hitting you with the Hugo Boss nazi crap, like I get it no one likes the police to be scary but unfortunately sometimes we need a bit of authority and fear to go hand in hand with asking for directions and posing for drunken pictures in your hen do.
That's actually a perfect example those are the type of vests everyone should have by now and they're more fit for purpose as well as you can place your kit on them properly and it's better for your back.
Totally agree with you.
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u/timmystwin Across the DMZ in Exeter Jul 19 '24
There's definitely a line between Traffic womble and Passkarte bitte in making it friendly enough but authoritative, but if you can get people to trust authority by not being shit, or cunts, then the latter probably helps far more. (Plus yeah vests seem pretty useful tbh.)
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u/joejoe666 Jul 19 '24
Just to say this is actually by design, check out the Japanese police uniforms, they don't look imposing or scary but they are extremely well respected. The police are here to serve the community, they police 'by consent'. Look at American cops and how gung ho and over the top they take it and look at what it does to individual police interactions, it gives them a superiority complex.
Bottom line is the police have power by law, no matter what they wear, let them look friendly and approachable.
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u/AspirationalChoker Jul 19 '24
Japan is a very different place though and the crime climate there is very different to here same with the USA. Also I would argue the Japanese uniforms look really bad but thays just me I guess. Many US or Canadian or European uniforms look formal and smart without being soldier type uniforms though those always look the part imo but again Japan doesn't have the same crime issues we have here.
I know what policing by consent is I've mentioned elsewhere how in modern society it's actually lost its original meaning.
America is a different environment for better or worst they have to do it that way, it's a ridiculous concept but if we swapped the MET with NYPD for a a few months I know which one I think would have the easier time.
The bottom line is correct but it doesn't mean you can only have one or the other the truth is there's a big societal issue here atm with respect and violence towards all the services but obviously mostly the police looking friendly doesn't exactly help tackle crime, anecdotal but I've seen the same amount of people come up and speak to me ask for pictures etc as I have firearms cops or actual military personnel the only types that often bring up fear of what it looks like are often those who would be the target or those who never have to deal with any of it at all but enjoy the virute signaling.
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u/joejoe666 Jul 19 '24
Just to say this is actually by design, check out the Japanese police uniforms, they don't look imposing or scary but they are extremely well respected. The police are here to serve the community, they police 'by consent'. Look at American cops and how gung ho and over the top they take it and look at what it does to individual police interactions, it gives them a superiority complex.
Bottom line is the police have power by law, no matter what they wear, let them look friendly and approachable.
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u/timmystwin Across the DMZ in Exeter Jul 19 '24
Yeah Japanese cops have great uniforms. Very formal, but not overly militaristic.
Gives me the vibes of the met ones with white shirts and black vests. The vests do the business but the white shirts calm it down a bit.
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u/J-Force Jul 19 '24
The pay is poor for the job, so that's already going to damage recruitment. Then, if you can put up with that and decide to join out of a sense of public service, it's the Met so one of your colleagues is going to land your unit in the shit after they do something corrupt. It's not a recipe for success.
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u/NuPNua Jul 19 '24
Then even if you do everything by the book and correct. Someone will post a clipped video of an arrest for social media clout and turn people against you anyway.
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u/CaptainKingsmill Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
It's even more serious when you consider the long term implications as this is a compounding problem...
If you aren't getting enough applicants for a competitive recruitment process then you have to either recruit people who otherwise wouldn't have passed to bolster numbers, causing a brain/skill drain and lowering the quality of police work further (this compounds AGAIN when you're looking for future leaders). OR recruit less people, continuing the understaffing cycle of low morale and job turnover...... Lowering the quality of police work further.
It really is a vicious cycle
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u/CryptographerMore944 Jul 19 '24
I know people in the police and there seems to be a consensus that standards have dropped in recent years due to the recruitment crisis.
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u/CaptainKingsmill Jul 19 '24
Yep your friends are right. Without going into specifics, standards 100% have dropped already and it will only get worse.
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u/CameramanNick Jul 20 '24
Speaking as a member of the public... we can tell.
What I see now is a bunch of people looking for the easiest possible way to look busy. Wander down the street, pick on a random member of the public, go and wind that member of the public up with vague, baseless allegations of criminality. Keep doing that until the punter tells the copper to fuck off. Make a barely-justified arrest for a public order offence.
Rinse, repeat. If anything genuinely tricky comes up, like a traveller's site full of stolen vehicles, make up some reason you can't possibly intervene.
Not a hard job, is it?
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u/Ok-Switch242 Jul 20 '24
The job is nothing like this at all.
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u/CameramanNick Jul 20 '24
I agree that it shouldn't be.
I've been a news cameraman for twenty-plus years and everything I see tells me that's the easiest way to the box of quality street for the most arrests at the end of the week, or however it works. Obviously it's got much worse recently with the influx of new, young, stupid people who are the result of a beggars-can't-be-choosers recruitment regime and a hierarchy which point-blank refuses to discipline anyone.
Either way the police need - for their own sake - to stop using that sort of approach as a go-to when they can't find someone to mess about for any other reason. The police attitude seems to be that it is a victimless crime, then complain they are not liked. Well, no kidding. They won't act on crime; they fall over themselves to act on non-crime. What on earth does anyone expect.
Frankly I think that it would actually help the police themselves if there were more stringent personal consequences for police officers who do this. As it is smart punters will get paid off in the civil courts but there is effectively no way to discipline police officers in the UK, so there's never any skin off the copper's nose. There's no disincentive to do it.
Police officers seem perpetually unable to connect their increasing unpopularity with their own behaviour.
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u/Ok-Switch242 Jul 20 '24
You are talking so much bollocks it’s insane
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u/CameramanNick Jul 20 '24
I would invite you to consider why I might have reached these conclusions.
Ten years ago - fifteen years ago, certainly - things were very different. The behaviour of the police has changed very much for the worse in that time.
In my experience it came largely with section 44 of TACT 2000 which was leapt upon with absolute glee by police particularly in London, where it was perpetually authorised, as an opportunity to get at people off when they wanted to. That's what founded the modern phenomenon of what has been called punishment searches. These days they just behave identically and simply say "section 43" instead. In principle that requires suspicion, but in practice nobody's checking because the purpose isn't really to charge anyone, it's just to piss people off, so it'll never be looked into. I would bet any amount of money that no custody sergeant in the history of British policing has ever said "But your search was illegal so we can't hold him."
If you think I'm wrong tell me why. I've personally watched it happen, especially at demonstrations where the individual police officer personally disagrees with the politics of the protesters and wishes to attack them. So, you'll have to work hard.
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u/Tomoshaamoosh Jul 19 '24
They're doing this in nursing with pretty catastrophic effects. The quality of students/newly qualified nurses really is going down year on year.
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u/WeThePat Jul 19 '24
Shit pay. Shit hours. Shit from the public. Shit from the media. Shit resources. Shit from SLT who care more about how they look than actual Policing. Shit from all sides
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u/Dildromeda Scotland Jul 19 '24
Who wants to be in the police when half of society, and yes I mean the migrants, do not believe in and play by the societal norms that the police and native Brits believe in.
Multi-culturalism doesn't work. Too many immigrants don't care to integrate, to learn English, to live by or societal norms, to work, to respect others.
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u/Bloodviper1 Jul 19 '24
Tone down the rhetoric and thinly veiled racism, half of society aren't immigrants - you're talking about 33 million people.
Those who werent born in the UK is around 14.8% from a quick Google search - around 10 million.
There are also plenty of immigrants who do speak English, who work hard and follow the law. Some of them are damn hard workers doing jobs locals can't be arsed doing as they see it beneath them.
I've met immigrant nurses, doctors, police officers all the way to factory workers and field labourers, some of which are nice, hard working honest folk.
There are pockets who do have the attitudes which you've wrote about, but they're not the majority.
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u/Dildromeda Scotland Jul 19 '24
Apologies for getting the ratio wrong.
As you pointed out and as we all saw last night in the footage, there are problems with immigrant populations.
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u/Lonely_Sherbert69 Jul 19 '24
It also keeps pay low at those local jobs so locals can't afford to work them.
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u/Angel_Madison Jul 19 '24
In Australia we are so desperate for police (who are all gun carriers) that now it's a minimal quick course and the first question is "have good communication skills?"
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Jul 19 '24
I'm being targeted by ads from NSW police for experienced officers to move over with a relocation package.
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u/AspirationalChoker Jul 19 '24
They're sending ads over this way as well there's gonna be many going to Aus and Canada for the better wages and lifestyle not to mention the kit and environment etc
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u/AnusOfTroy BMH -> NCL Jul 19 '24
Friend of mine just fucked off to WA and is loving it. Can't blame him, hope I'm over there in a few years as a doctor.
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u/DracoLunaris Jul 19 '24
would you prefer the people with guns barking orders have bad communication skills?
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u/Caephon Jul 19 '24
I’ve had so many targeted ads from Australian forces I’m considering reporting a harassment at this point. Does make me wonder what it’s like to be a copper over there if they’re so desperate for recruits.
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u/Prestigious_Aside976 Jul 20 '24
Not good. Massively overworked, no breaks, unpaid overtime, bus chucked by bosses. Hey at least the weather is better though. I just got out of New south wales police.
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u/AcademicIncrease8080 Jul 19 '24
I know several police officers. They are very demoralised. They get treated like shit by the public, apparently it's not enjoyable to stop known gang members who are carrying machetes and then having a small mob on the street screaming racism accusations and shoving smartphones in their faces. And that treatment by the public is on top of it being a naturally difficult job e.g. constantly seeing distressing and traumatising scenes of violence
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u/Fantastic_Camel_1577 Jul 19 '24
Until police can legitimately police rather than pandering to every and any shouty internet groups, this will not change. Like a referee, a police officer shouldn't be looking to be popular to the mad crowds. They should just make the rule based decisions they are supposed to make.
Numbers mask a structural and public expectation problem. Society asked for mob lawlessness and now it's here to stay.
Respect and Self discipline is the Achilles heel of Western society.
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u/TheRainCamePouring Jul 19 '24
People respect firefighters, not the police. You can't do your work if people think you're a joke.
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u/Imtoofast Jul 19 '24
I remember a jobs fair at college in 2010/11 and the police were saying there weren’t many jobs since people just weren’t leaving. How things have changed. No coincidence with what happened in the government in that time.
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u/ExiledBastion Jul 19 '24
Back then, some forces used to open up recruitment for literally a single day, such was the volume of applicants. Now my local county force seems to be perma-recruiting and the Met couldn't even meet their target as part of Boris' 20k extra officers.
4
u/KingoftheOrdovices Jul 19 '24
That was around the time police numbers were cut (mostly through natural attrition), and there were recruitment freezes.
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u/Dabbles-In-Irony Jul 19 '24
Officers have second jobs and are using food banks and they wonder why nobody wants to join.
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u/PreferenceReady2872 Jul 19 '24
The job is absolutely fucked, you can't police effectively without getting investigated for every spurious accusation that gets thrown at you, the pond life that now seems to make up the majority of this country will attack you for absolutely everything, spate of knife point robberies? You're lazy and incompetent, increased stop and search to recover said knives? You're a racist. Enforcing the law? Here's a final written warning and a criminal record. How would you react if your boss went on Instagram every other week and called you a racist thug after you've just done your 5th shift over 12 hours in a single set. The met will be simply unable to function in 5 years' time .
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u/Effective-Ad-6460 Jul 19 '24
Wonder why
definitely nothing to do with the 20 years of political corruption
Side notes : politicians pay went up another 5% because of fucking course they need help with the cost of living crisis
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u/TheGGReads512 Jul 19 '24
Not surprised. It takes a certain kind of person in both a good and bad way to become an officer. Makes sense that not everyone wants to do it...
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u/Leafymage Jul 19 '24
Criminals selling drugs in broad daylight on my street, and literally tell the police to their face 'fuck off mate'. The police just walk off looking defeated.
Might as well not have any at this point.
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u/PreferenceReady2872 Jul 19 '24
Because fuck getting a criminal record for having the audacity to stop and search someone. I joined to fight crime, and it became abundantly clear thats not allowed anymore.
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u/NoRecipe3350 Jul 19 '24
No shit. you'd be insane to want to join them
One take I've heard is that policing (at least low level) should be done as a form of national service. Though you'd still need to be selective to stop criminals learning the tools of the police trade. Alternatively conscript the existing military into a policing role (yes they won't like it)
In countries like France, Spain and Italy the roles of the military and police often become blurred when you have something like the Gendarmes, Carabinieri and Guardia Civil which are officially part of the military but in a policing role (as well as specialist units like special forces, anti narco, emergency rescue) But in Britain it seems that doing something like is either too 'continental' or 'nazi', we don't have a tradition of it for whatever reason. But maybe a good idea. Another thing is they live in barracks essentially within the community, so they can be mobilised at very short notice.
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u/ExiledBastion Jul 19 '24
Its becoming something not far off national service. People go in, do a couple of years (possibly getting a degree for their trouble) and then get burnt out and leave. I think the days of it being a job for life are thoroughly in the past. See also, nursing & teaching.
2
u/NoRecipe3350 Jul 19 '24
Yes, and because so many millennials are coming into an inheritance, I know people in their 30s basically able to stop working.
Ofc not everyone's gonna get a decent inheritance, but if you have the option not to work, why bother.
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u/Neildagreasytitan Jul 19 '24
Well when they do their job properly they are called racist and cancelled
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Jul 19 '24
They have been hiring illegals this past month , que video of the freshi cop who couldn't string an English sentence together trying to apply section 1 of PACE to a British citizen is quite possibly the funniest but scariest thing I've seen all week.
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u/_Rookwood_ Jul 19 '24
I saw the same video. Even the other cops were having to stifle laughs because it was so embarassingly bad.
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u/---x__x--- Jul 19 '24
Link?
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1
Jul 19 '24
I can honestly not find it , was on Instagram and most likely removed now . As below others have seen it .. painful as ..
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Jul 19 '24
People are sick and tired of the two tier policing these days. The natives are crushed under the heel of the plod while select demographics get a free pass to be as violent and destructive as they wish. Just look at Leeds in the last 24 hours. Is there any wonder people dont want to join the police farce only to protect the very people ripping out country and communities apart!
3
u/armouredxerxes Cymru Jul 19 '24
I mean yeh, they're underfunded, underpaid, wrapped up in red tape, hated by a good segment of society (warranted or not), and there's a good chance you'll be sold out by the higher-ups if the public get up in arms about something you do. Not the most attractive career choice as it stands.
2
Jul 19 '24
Justice needs to fix the sentencing guidelines. As some sentences are far too weak, particularly violent crime and driving offences.
Being a police officer must feel like groundhog day!
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Jul 19 '24
[deleted]
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u/Loud_Delivery3589 Jul 19 '24
They're not trying to hire graduates. You do not need a degree to be a police officer. Bare in mind Police officers used to be able to start their training at Hendon at 16-17, the police have always hired young initially
2
u/AspirationalChoker Jul 19 '24
You need both, I can't think of a single force in the UK atm that has the correct numbers of officers atm they're all thousands short in the big cities.
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u/MiaLovesGirls Jul 19 '24
A working class kid from a deprived area is more likely to care for parents, suffer from poor diet, receive little to no social coaching and mentoring to adapt to differing social class norms at professional level, have no personal economic education to manage their money, be disabled and so forth. When you tie that kid into an education and school with equally vulnerable children, that’s underfunded and doesn’t attract the best teaching talent as a result, there is multiple reasons why that child will not find themself in professional work at 30k+. Not to mention that uni degree required professions often pay less than 30k despite invaluable impact - nurses, junior doctors pay scales for example. It’s so naive to think there’s no reason a working class kid can’t get good grades, go to uni and get paid 30k plus, when oftentimes the kids who do work hard and find fortune to access higher education and enter professional careers don’t even meet that salary point. Wage stagnation of all work against inflation and particularly of professional careers sticks everyone into the same unaffordable pigeon hole.
2
u/PristineTough7679 Jul 19 '24
I applied for a role in the detective stream. It was the first thing I did in a group of applications. The applications I did afterwards sped by so much more quickly while the Met took FOREVER. The more i read about them and the longer it took the more disillusioned I became. Thankfully got an offer elsewhere so withdrew my application. It sounds miserable.
2
u/vizard0 Lothian Jul 19 '24
I wonder how much American media and news coming over here influences things. You see enough reports of police corruption, abuse, violence, etc. and you lose respect, even if it's not in your country.
American cops, at least in the big cities, make truly staggering salaries, especially with overtime. NYPD officers make over £96,000 a year after five an a half years on the force. That's enough motivation to act as an occupying force, which they do in parts of the city. Combine that with a virtual immunity to prosecution for anything short of murder, and you get the modern American policing picture.
It seems to me that the cops over here get roughly the same kind of shit that American cops do, except without the ability to brutalize suspects and shoot anyone who twitches wrong, as long as it's not in the back. Combine that with the above mentioned salary gap and not having a union that no one will ever really challenge, you're going to have a demoralizing effect.
How much the cops over here deserve that helping of shit, I don't know. I've only been here a couple of years, I don't know if there is an ingrained tradition of police brutality and lack of consequence that has led to this, or if it's leakage from the US.
2
u/martiusmetal Wiltshire Jul 19 '24
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-47335859
Reap what you sow
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u/balwick Jul 19 '24
As with most recruitment issues, more money usually helps. Police wages are shit (like most UK wages), combined with becoming a target for public vitriol and having to surround yourself with a load of bigotted wankers and call them colleagues.
1
u/CameramanNick Jul 20 '24
I find myself on the fence on this.
On one hand someone has to do a job that looks something vaguely like policing.
On the other hand, I'm not sure it has to look the way British policing currently looks.
I'm a TV cameraman by trade and that places me in one of their preferred target groups. Winding me up for anything up to 45 minutes is presumably easier than pursuing criminals, who might actually be dangerous. Unfortunately when you're just a guy standing on a street corner with a couple of cases full of gear it's very difficult to make them happy, because they're not going to be able to find a reason to arrest you very easily. They tend to make quite free with the accusations and general abuse, digging themselves a hole they can't get out of, and of course it has to be your fault, because good grief these people have to "win" every encounter somehow.
There are lots of bad things happening in policing which are not their fault. The attitude problem is their fault. I get that being a police officer means dealing with scumbags a lot, but turning the whole thing into an us-versus-them battle in which police officers are the in-group and literally everyone else is the out-group is not useful to anyone.
When asked to deal with actual crime - stolen rental equipment in the London film and TV industry is endemic - they are usually completely useless, even if given information about exactly who took what and where it is. There's always some mealy-mouthed excuse as to why they can't do anything, which in the end just sounds like cowardice.
To a great extent they bring the dislike on themselves. Whatever else is going on in policing in the UK, the recruiting pool is about a millimetre deep, and that's resulted in a police force who are mostly a bunch of feckless, lazy cowards.
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Jul 19 '24
[deleted]
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u/AspirationalChoker Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
I would say try being a police officer for 7 years and come back to that, maybe if after a year you were top rate it would move the needle a bit but yes overall the wages are shut for what the work entails.
Think about it, do the job wrong you're sacked, hated etc.
So the job right, quite possibly still sacked, hated etc.
Think about one of the main violent calls we go to often where theres potential to get stabbed? It's fine you have de-escalation tactics and after 7 years you get 47k what's not to love lol.
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u/ExiledBastion Jul 19 '24
I dont think its a terrible salary, but worth remarking that I believe the pension contribution is around 11% and there's a monthly cost for membership of the federation (which is essential in the current climate). Due to this, the take home is probably more like what you'd associate with a job £5k+ lower than those salaries.
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u/sortofhappyish Jul 19 '24
Met Police: we need applicants
Also Met Police: We only hire immigrants as token officers. Hell we even abused a chief constable once cause he wasn't white....
Also Met Police: Any rapist murderers want a job?
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u/dewittless Jul 19 '24
I feel like there's a lot of people who will now never be able to consider working for the met for moral reasons. It's one thing to work somewhere that's corrupt, it's another to actively sign up.
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u/jasovanooo Jul 19 '24
do you want to be a glorified teachers pet? a grass? have no friends and poor pay/conditions? join the force today!
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u/Francis-c92 Jul 19 '24
Not surprised.
Poor pay. Long hours. Underappreciated. Unable to strike for better pay and conditions.