Accompanying today’s postal delivery was an expensive looking glossy magazine from the local police force. Having been stung for an above inflation increase in their share of the council tax this year, I decided to have a read instead of just binning it.
Whilst losing count of the number of times “anti-social behaviour” and “vulnerable” were used in articles, as well as being distracted by images of police in their new all black SS style uniforms* I did come across three rather interesting little snippets.
Firstly, in a table detailing the 2009-10 performance against selected targets, there were the folowing statistics on detection rates :
- Serious aquisitive crime detections : 28%
- Criminal damage crime detections : 12%
- Racially and religiously aggravated crimes detections : 46%
I am not even going to comment on that for the sake of my blood pressure!
The second bit was a small paragraph on the cost of deploying police horses :
The total cost of putting a mounted officer on the streets of South Yorkshire is £34.70 an hour. The force currently has 16 horses. They and their mounted officers provide a number of specialist roles including :
- suport at the county’s five football stadiums
- high-visibility patrols
- searches for vulnerable missing persons
- assistance with roads policing
The second item there, was amply demonstrated on multiple occasions this summer when the police rampaged around the local playing fields and parks each Friday and Saturday evening harassing the bored local youth. I can say it is somewhat alarming to see and hear four large police horses moving at a fast trot along your road whilst you are being eyeballed in your front room by the officers looking in over your garden hedge.
The last bit was a PCSO’s weekly diary showing us what a wonderful use of our taxes they are :
Monday
5:30pm – 8pm Attended the Miss Unique course for Yemeni girls in Upperthorpe which helps them with issues like low self-esteem and self-image.…
Thursday
8:30pm to 9:15pm Went to a meeting to discuss plans for Stannington Carnival for which I had arranged for mounted police and the mobile police bus to attend.
Now remember there that the horses cost us £34.70 per hour and our wonderful little PCSO has arranged for them to romp around at a local carnival.
* I am not sure about other areas but the new uniforms here are more suited to a paramilitary organisation than the police. As an aside. I only recently found out that none other than Hugo Boss designed the original SS uniforms which probably goes some way to explain why they looked somewhat more stylish than the rest of the combatants. And no, I am not a Nazi!
If they wanted better stats they should have included fines for not wearing a seatbelt or dropping fagash, and beatings of the general public.