oh and lets not forget the house searches linked to 'terrorists'..that never culminated in any evidence being found..oh and the stop searches carried out by british transport police which mainly targeted muslims because they are believed to be the only terrorists..hello we have white terrorists as well people...

Why do you have to give this presentation? It's a bit strange unless you wish to join!!!! :-S

Presentation to the police - after reading the response - i am just wondering about your presentation. The messages clearly tell that the police are not doing their job - to protect and maintain a good relationship with the public. This is sad but true - so would u please tell us how ur presentation went ??

The media here makes them look bad - atleast to me. Have you ever seen the show "cops"? They show cops beating up people and getting over aggressive over some freaking weed or something, you think they'd have more important things to be doing than busting people on small amounts of marijuana.

I don't think it's the occupation itself. It's people in general, you have people who are honest and hard working. Then you have those who are dishonest and slack at work. I will say that police here in the U.S. tend to think they are above the law because they hold a badge. I have known some to be very dedicated to their job and those that abuse their priviledges. I think for the most part they are underpaid and work long hours. However, if you ever have been to the U.S., you will see them eating their donuts and drinking their coffee at the local coffee shop.

...I am from Sweden and I would say that in general the swedish police has a good reputation among swedish people. Compared to many other countries Sweden has a relative low grade of corruption which is a guarantee for the trust that people put into the police force. But it is also known that the majority of polices in Sweden are from the majority group, that is that few polices are from minority groups...also women are under representated in the police force. Sometimes we have seen that polices has discriminated people...and there for there has been many steps taken in order to change such a culture that permits discrimination within the police force...and they actively try to get more women and persons from minority groups to become policemen.
...only if we accept and enhance the multiple realities there will be a non discriminating police force...

I am from the UK and am, on the whole, impressed with our police force.

My property has been subject to 4 crimes over the last year (Scooter was vandalised, scooter was stolen, garage broken into, flatmates car was broken into) and each one was dealt with in a timely and courtious manner.

The introduction of the Community Wardens has also been of great benefit because it means there is an additional force you can call upon for slighter matters that officers can't attend to if they are busy (example youth antisocial behaviour).

I think the downfall of our police force is greatly due to the obsessive compulsive so-called "political correctness" of this coutry. In the area where I used to live, white people were a minority with the majority being black people (I would estimate a ratio of 75:25). Figures show that xx% of crime was committed by black 15-25 year old boys. However, the police stop and search policy was not allowed to reflect these statistics so despite there being statistical data to evidence a certain crime pattern, the police had to spend time stopping and searching 50 year old middle class Chinese men just to show that they are NOT racially discriminating. I don't believe this has anything to do with being politically correct but is just plain blooming stupid.

The searching at tube stations is more of a touchy subject. The terrorists attacking this coutry in the past year called themselves Muslims (although their behaviour said otherwise). However, your religion doesn't dictate your skin colour and by searching only those who wear headscarfs/have beards leaves a door wide open to the non-steriotypical terrorists. This might sound somewhat contradictory to my last paragraph but we are talking about completely differnt levels of crime. Ironically and contradictory to what someone else has said - I have been searched twice at different tube stations, I am a 23 year old white female who was in a suit going to work. Being searched gave me a feeling of reassurance and the same also for friends, white, asian, catholic, muslim or otherwise. I wonder sometimes whether people kick up a stink about these things for attention - would it not make a safer place if everyone just abided???

I have found these views very interesting. I have worked within the UK police force for 21yrs now and boy have i seen some changes. I cannot comment on police forces out of the UK but Unfortunately the UK police forces around the country are stretched to beyond limits and there is no way now that the police can offer a good , fair service to the public anymore (MY opinion only) which they are employed to do.
What some people forget or is totally unaware of is that the police have laws and legislations written for them by the government and then the police have to uphold those written laws, if they could write their own laws there would be many many changes in order for the police to carry out their role of preservation and protection more efficently, many of these laws that are still valid today were written 300 yrs ago and they are not adequate to deal with the worlds changes but these are the laws that are written and so these are the laws that the police still have to go by.
Police officers are human and there is so much sympathy for the genuine cases but are sometimes unable to help due to the inadequaces in the law, over the past 10 yrs i have seen many officers leave the force where as when i joined you stayed in the force until you retired but with the dispondancy,stress and sheer frustration they are leaving to seek other employment.
Until you have worked within this enviroment, which i see some members have done no one and i mean no one has any idea just how difficult this job is simply because there is no power to deal with certain cirumstances .
I could write a epic here but will refrain from doing so, i could give examples that could reduce you to tears on how some people are not helped as we would like, this has to be one of the most,stressful, dangerous and sometimes unrewarding jobs there is now.
One more thing is that people say that police are more worried about catching speeders than criminals but the most common cause of death in the UK is with a vehicle and speed does kill, a motor vehicle has to be one of the most dangerous weapons in the wrong hands.
There are specialist units that ONLY deal with traffic offences and ones that deal with burglaries et etc so when you see an officer dealing with a speeder and not dealing with "real" crime then he /she is carrying out his/her role within the force this is their job within their force leaving other officers to deal with other crimes but if only you i could show you the devistation that leaves famillies torn apart by people behind the wheel who have been drinking,speeding or just sheer stupidism then you would hopefully understand.some of the time the job is rewarding but now its more common to see the worst in people and how bad human behaviour has been allowed to develop and there is very little that can be done to change it.

sorry folks i got onto my soap box again



Kind Regards
Jackie

xx

ps.....i am also one who is dispondant although my post appears to be sticking up for the police im just trying to make some people understand that its not always the fault of the officer on the street who the public come into contact who's at fault.xxx