COOKING THE BOOKS - CHIEF POLICE OFFICERS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

In the week that the PACT meeting opened the police recorded crime can of worms, exposing the scandal that the numbers have been fiddled, fudged, cooked and manipulated for financial and political gain for years, the first chief constable has admitted police are "manipulating" official crime figures because they are put under pressure to show crime is falling.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10462602/Chief-Constable-police-manipulate-crime-figures-because-of-pressure-from-senior-figures.html

This follows on from Chief Superintendent Irene Curtis, President of the Superintendents Association, showing integrity and courage lacking in her colleagues when she admitted that the service was ridden with the Gaming or Statistical fiddling culture. See the link below that refers.

http://thinbluelineuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/scrap-targets-restore-common-sense.html

How many more Chief Officers will put their heads above the parapet? Not those who received 000's in bonus payments for fiddling the figures we'll wager!

Chairman of the PACT committee Bernard Jenkin should perhaps call all the ACPO officers to future inquiry meetings and answer the following questions under oath:-

1. Did you at any time over the last 20 years accept bonus payments for showing a reduction in crime on your area?
2. How much did those bonuses amount to?
3. Exactly what strategies did you employ to guarantee crime went down?
4. Presumably, you have worked for more than one force. Did you take your crime reduction strategies with you, thereby spreading the corruptive disease?
5. How many officers who set out to blow the whistle and expose your tactics, had their careers obstructed or even terminated to defend your activities?
6. How does it sit with you, that your combined efforts to falsify the reduction in crime resulted in your rank and file officers having their professional integrity impugned?
7. Furthermore, how is your conscience now that your remaining officers have no confidence in your command because of your fiddling and those that remain are stressed beyond belief dealing with the level of crime that would have coped better had you not caused the loss of thousands of officer numbers?
8. Have you forgotten you are a police officer, sworn to protect the public and remain steadfastly loyal to your troops, showing them the best level of conduct?
9. How safe do you think your job and pension is right now?
10. How the heck do you sleep at night?

Well, we can dream can't we?

How many Chiefs will admit fiddling? Do Turkeys Vote For Christmas?

How many whistle blowers will it take?

Expecting Chief Officers to actually admit they have orchestrated or even condoned statistical malpractice is perhaps a little hopeful. The activity is after all, as the committee identified administrative corruption, so we should expect a raft of denials, obfuscation, and muddying of waters. As police officers reading this will know, we can expect to see the practised art of "deflection" from ACPO ranks, with even a degree or ordered document shredding and file deleting. 

How many officers would show the same degree of courage as James Patrick, revealing the crooked activity of their seniors? A root and branch exposure of those activities and those responsible might bring forth a few volunteers. Once again we say... we can but dream...