I do not think you are right when you say ‘the simple fact is that Joe Public has little faith in, or respect for, the police as a whole ‘. From what I see the larger part of public supports the police and sympathises with the circumstances they have to try and do their job in. A sizeable minority have zero respect and I would suggest the majority of this minority are involved in criminality or living outside the system in one form or another.Settle down or you'll give yourself another nosebleed.
If you reread my posts you'll notice that I'm not having a go at the average beat plod... we all know they're caught between a rock and a hard place. The real problem is the upper management, which is rapidly becoming the exclusive domain of fast tracked graduates with sod all experience of actual policing and who run their respective forces with spreadsheets and statistical analysis software.
But....the simple fact is that Joe Public has little faith in, or respect for, the police as a whole and would like to see a return to "proper" policing.... ie, serving the public on the everyday issues that effect us.... in much the same way as we'd like to see the NHS return to and prioritise it's core values.... patient care.
As an example of how policing has lost it's priorities... A while back Hampshire Police (who are constantly complaining about having a lack officers) were recruiting for a Social Media Officer.... not a civvy, a full time police officer.... to handle their social media presence.
Starting salary..? £28k.
That's more than a newly qualified PC/WPC gets paid. ie the "real" coppers who, from day one, would be expected to deal with all the fun and joy that the less desirable members of this fair land inflict on us and them.
Tell me that's a good use of resources.
We are looking at a project down here to try and relieve the ‘first response’ pressure on plod for low priority non-criminality incidents by involving ‘Joe Public’ on a totally voluntary basis and the early response is encouraging. This from people who understand the issues and want to help, even in a small way, rather than heckling from the sidelines in 2022 style.
There are voluntary roles that you can undertake where you can engage with ‘management’ and it is possible your views will change; they have to daily make compromised decisions driven by funding and resources and, in my personal experience, care deeply about society and the force they represent.
As for your comments about social media officer…this is an absolutely necessary ‘moving with the times’ role in any public service, and I would be very surprised if your local force doesn’t have probably half a dozen similar roles to do what is a 24/7 job. Take a look at your local force’s social media and you will see why - whether it is liked or not the reality is that this is how people communicate and opinions are formed in 2022. For what it’s worth that salary is not out of line for that sort of role in 2022 and is set by the market.
Do I realistically expect plod to turn up if say I had a bike stolen? ** Sadly no, but that does not diminish respect, it highlights resource issues. Do I expect plod to be there doing amazing things if I am involved in a serious car crash or someone is waving a gun around - absolutely, and I do not think I will be disappointed. Do I know that the majority of officers will be in the local town centre on Friday and Saturday nights dealing with the drunken idiots while leaving the rest of the community relatively uncovered - absolutely, but that does not lead to lack of respect; the opposite in fact when you see them deal with situations that most would shy away from, often at the cost of personal injury.
** actually they did at my last place, sent a CSI officer out as they knew who the culprit was likely to be ame were trying to catch him to stop his one man local crime wave that was fuelling his drug habit