We must be approaching an election. Our Home Secretary, Alan Johnson has announced that he believes all victims of crime should be seen by the police no matter how trivial. I have some sympathy with this view but in practice this is unworkable.
Any crimes that the public would regard as serious deserve a visit and if you have your home broken into or if you are assaulted you will be visited. Many people who have their car broken into will get visited by a Scenes of Crime Officer to see if there are any fingerprints or DNA left by the offender.
What about the chap that rang the Utopian Police Force to report two dust caps stolen from his car wheels? Have they really been stolen or did he leave them at the garage when he checked his tyre pressures? Will a visit achieve any more than the phone call and the 30 minutes we have already spent recording, analysing and filing his crime? At least we have fulfilled our obligations to the Home Office by recording it and ensuring we don't feel the wrath of the National Audit Office for not having done so. What about the scratched car? Was that someone with a key vandalising it or a careless shopper in the car park with a shopping trolley? A visit might help decide. For now it is just recorded over the phone as criminal damage.
If we start visiting all these people we won’t have time to visit real victims of crime. Victims like Tracy who rings us to say that her boyfriends ex, Sharon is threatening to kill her. That certainly deserves a visit. Look she’s sent me a text saying ‘You’re a f**king slag and I’m going to f**king do you.’ After we have visited Tracy and spent hours taking statements etc we visit Sharon. Sharon then shows us the text Tracy sent her. ‘He’s mine now you slut. Just f**k off or I’m going to slice you up you f**king bitch.’ So now Sharon wants to allege that Tracy has threatened to kill her. Tracy gets another visit and after we have spent 6 hours time on their allegations they decide to call it quits rather than both risk ending up in court.
If we didn’t have to visit all these real victims of crime we could visit most of the victims of crime that are currently perceived as too trivial to warrant it. What would you rather we did?
Any crimes that the public would regard as serious deserve a visit and if you have your home broken into or if you are assaulted you will be visited. Many people who have their car broken into will get visited by a Scenes of Crime Officer to see if there are any fingerprints or DNA left by the offender.
What about the chap that rang the Utopian Police Force to report two dust caps stolen from his car wheels? Have they really been stolen or did he leave them at the garage when he checked his tyre pressures? Will a visit achieve any more than the phone call and the 30 minutes we have already spent recording, analysing and filing his crime? At least we have fulfilled our obligations to the Home Office by recording it and ensuring we don't feel the wrath of the National Audit Office for not having done so. What about the scratched car? Was that someone with a key vandalising it or a careless shopper in the car park with a shopping trolley? A visit might help decide. For now it is just recorded over the phone as criminal damage.
If we start visiting all these people we won’t have time to visit real victims of crime. Victims like Tracy who rings us to say that her boyfriends ex, Sharon is threatening to kill her. That certainly deserves a visit. Look she’s sent me a text saying ‘You’re a f**king slag and I’m going to f**king do you.’ After we have visited Tracy and spent hours taking statements etc we visit Sharon. Sharon then shows us the text Tracy sent her. ‘He’s mine now you slut. Just f**k off or I’m going to slice you up you f**king bitch.’ So now Sharon wants to allege that Tracy has threatened to kill her. Tracy gets another visit and after we have spent 6 hours time on their allegations they decide to call it quits rather than both risk ending up in court.
If we didn’t have to visit all these real victims of crime we could visit most of the victims of crime that are currently perceived as too trivial to warrant it. What would you rather we did?