Message:
Message: As already discussed, Ruralshire Constabulary has withdrawn the personal issue job mobile phones from everyone on the frontline. Apart from making it nearly impossible to communicate with each other outside the hugely restricted boundaries set by the Airwaves team (apparently we pay per transmission) we now no longer have the facility to phone a recovery service for a stranded motorist, call a refuge for a battered wife or organise a crisis team for some unfortunate, and usually very ill and frightened mental health patient.
We can’t call Probation to discuss licence conditions, we can’t speak to a bail hostel to check curfew times, we can’t speak to the warrants clerk to check the validity of an outstanding arrest request and we are unable to phone CCTV for a description of any offenders running away from a mugging in the town. I could go on.
This has all been done to try to reach our target for budget cuts. I have no issues with this other than the fact that we are still pretending that there will be no cuts to frontline services. When you withdraw mobile phones you effectively force police officers back to the police station where they can use a landline.
Again, I have no issue with this so long as we stop pretending that we are putting more officers on the beat.
Gadget Note: There are still mobile phones in the vehicles. Sadly, the coverage is limited, the batteries are all knackered and most of them don’t work when taken off the cradle, or if you look at them the wrong way.
Coming Soon: My holiday snaps from the summer holiday I didn’t have because Theresa May told the House that all police leave was cancelled, even though it wasn’t.
