Feet on the Beat

The BBC are focusing on the fact that Police Officers spend more time than they should on form-filling for fear of reprisals if they make a mistake.

But deeper in to the story they actually start to get to the meat of the problem - that there are too many forms. Of course, that could be seen as a criticism of the Government, so they won't use that as the headline - especially because the Conservatives have been saying this for years.

We are in an age of technology and police are now starting to use "helmet cams" to record their activity - I hope these can be used to cut down on form-filling - why record on paper what is already on film?

I remain convinced that the main way of solving most of our antisocial behaviour problems is "feet on the beat". Thinking that there is a genuine possibility of a Police Officer walking around the corner, complete with camera, would surely be a deterrent to a great deal of the bad behaviour that we all see and read about. The Government make claims about record numbers of policemen - but the public are still not seeing them, and this is one of the reasons there is shrinking confidence in our Constabulary.