It has been claimed that some West Midlands Police student officers have been complaining about feeling sick when responding to 999 calls on blue light runs, as reported by The Sun.
One student police officer arrived for his first shift with West Midlands Police with his mum in tow ‘because he was nervous’.
It has been reported that other parents have complained to supervisors about their children being ‘overworked’ and ‘hungry’.
A source within West Midlands Police allegedly told The Sun: “Several new officers are getting car sick at speed on blue lights and asking the driver to stop. It’s shocking.”
They added: “It’s like being back at school. This is a police force and we have people not living in the real world.”
They claimed that a parent once called in demanding to know where their child was because they “should have finished by now and I’m outside waiting to take him home” and one mother in Wolverhampton rang up to say her daughter was upset by a job she was sent on.
The paper reported that the source worried policing was being affected by recruits with little to no life experience, and recruits on a degree apprenticeship were among the worst examples they saw.
The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, Sir David Thompson, said that his force had “outstanding student officers”.
However, many experienced officers are worried that standards are being dropped to meet the government’s target of recruiting 20,000 police officers to replace the ones Theresa May’s government got rid of.
On some 999 response teams, the average length of service of police officers is just two years, with officers who have just come out of their probation being expected to train recruits.
Some police commentators with prior experience of serving in the police feel that the lack of relative ‘life experience’ of some officers is leading to an increase in the number of police officers being assaulted.
One former Police Inspector who oversaw 999 police response teams commented:
‘It goes to show what happens when you use outsourcing companies to recruit; All they are interested in, are the test results not always the person.
‘As a retired Response Inspector, I saw and heard these stories first hand. Students turn up stating they don’t have to work nights. They don’t have to do prisoner watches. The recruitment and information given out need to change.’
Another police officer claimed that a new recruit – from a different force – turned up to work with his ‘companion Giant African Snail’ and that another turned up for their first shift with his ‘appropriate adult’.
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Good. This was bound to happen. Only recruiting graduates was bound to end badly, especially with the cotton wool wrapped current generation. It is very simple. If the graduates cannot hack it, leave.
Then get rid of the idiotic policy of graduates only and get back to recruiting from the forces.
This article is talking about PCDA students who undertake an apprenticeship degree course.
You are talking about DHEP students who are much better and believe meas a trainer, ask some really hard questions. I’m on my fourth class of DHEPs and have managed to weed out the chaff before they get anywhere near the streets.
Totally agree about a lot of the PCDA students though!
I’ve heard similar anecdotes about some recruits from the mass recruiting programme in my force, and that we’re hemorrhaging between 1/3 and a 1/2 of the intakes due to resignations because it’s not what they were expecting.
But. Of what is left that rotates through attachments to my department, I see a lot of very focused and motivated people struggling to balance the demands of the job, the stress of the continual assessment of their probation AND having to juggle obtaining their degrees before you even take into consideration the impact and complications the job has on a private family life.
They are often ill-equipped to deal with the dynamic situations of policing, but that’s because of modular training packages and them not being taught certain aspects at the various points that they hit the streets. They can’t be blamed for shortcomings if they having been taught it. Its akin to sending a soldier into battle but not giving them a rifle!
When I joined, sweats nearing retirement openly told me, “The job’s f***ed” and “Recruiting isn’t what it used to be.” And those new recruits of old are now claiming the same to new starters.
I think there is far more cause for concern amongst already established cops doing idiotic and ill-judged things such as entering relationships with “vulnerable” crime victims, misusing data systems and the macabre trend of messaging/taking pictures/sharing social media posts of crime scenes, despite the Fed and PSDs spending several days drilling into recruits that this type of behaviour will get you the sack, might get you locked up and will always cast doubt on the trust and motivations of the good cops that remain.
Millennials struggling to settle into workplaces is old news and the research speaks for itself. Organisations that seek to harness the potential of young people by meeting their needs have shown they achieve higher efficiency and output per head. Organisations such as the emergency services as a whole who are largely led by old hands who dig their heels in to any change no matter how necessary, have and will continue to suffer and will continue to chew up and spit out amazing young candidates with so much to offer. Also we NEED to stop equating life experience to age. 54 year old Terry who joined aged 35 after working in his local butcher for 20 years doesn’t necessarily have as much “life experience” as 21 year old Kylie who has independently navigated South Asia at 18, went to uni and lived independently on a loan which barely covered her rent, and has worked 18 part time jobs whilst juggling school work and straight A’s. She might stand up to Terry when he talks down to her and tries to grope her ass not because she’s a snowflake but because she knows her worth and she sees that Terry is the one with a problem. If treated properly, Kylie could learn the ropes and develop into an incredible copper who leads a tight knit division, or pioneers a new community building strategy, Terry has sat at his desk for forty years knowing he will retire on a lovely pension without really making a dent or achieving anything. Ambition is valuable, and millennials are here to stay, stop moaning and get with the times.
CJ your naive comments, attitude and opinions make me so glad that Im retired. Cheers fella.
and that is exactly why we need to recruit from selection, training, interviewing and then shortlisting , not just on grades, the same in the nhs and hmp, entitled kids coming through who ” i have a qualification so i can have a job” when someone spits in your face and covers themselves in shit what are you going to do? complain? run away? cry and take a year off…. or debrief accept its part of working with the public and you are there to do a job….. everyone can do a qualification not everyone can “be” that role because of it
Chris D you’ve contradicted yourself there buddy, you’re saying “anyone can get a degree” and also “making it degree entry stops ex military and other people getting in”. If degrees are so easy as you seem to imply then why can’t vets and others get them? Maybe degrees aren’t actually that easy and take a great deal of skill and dedication and resilience and intelligence and maybe just maybe those attributes will help people manage the dynamic problems on the beat?
And as for you Andy, are you a Terry? I think you are, enjoy your retirement, the force is pleased to be shot of you
Because a decision was made by the home office to go for degree entrants and other recruits having to obtain a degree in policing ( at their own expense) so a two tier system it immediately excludes many people with life experience including ex military what the home office did isn’t new there was a scheme called the Trenchard scheme and that failed as will this method of recruitment and so leaving police forces across the country scratching for new officers
It’s the same as people who’ve never been caught in a rain downpour designing a raincoat this is a repeat of the late 1960s when the was a huge shortage of recruits until the ‘ Edmond Davies report’ when as a result pay and conditions were improved what few know is since the 1990s the home office have eroded those benefits and went down this ludicrous road of recruitment