For the last two weeks I have been bending your ear about law enforcement in Barlick. This week I want to give my view of what I see as the consequences. Let me make it quite clear that I am not intending to be alarmist. On the whole we are a law-abiding lot and I don't see that changing in the immediate future. However, I have some concerns......
If you think back to what I have been saying, one thing stands out, law enforcement has historically been by consent and in cooperation with whatever official structure was in place. It is essentially a partnership and I don't think that any serving police officer would argue with that. I think that any partnership depends on communication, in order to cooperate with the police we need to be able to talk to them. I saw an interview on Sky News recently in which a retired police inspector said that he believed the main reason for the increase in knife crime and other acts of violence in some cities was because the officers weren't on the ground listening to what was happening on the street. I think views like that based on experience have to be respected. Some years ago I was worried enough by the change to a central reporting system by telephone based in Burnley to go and see the Inspector in charge. I put my misgivings to him and he responded by giving me statistics showing the 'level of satisfaction' with the new service..... Losing our front desk contact in January was a further step down that road.
I don't blame the police for what I see as this retrogression. I don't think they want it but have been forced to cut services and costs as their funding diminishes under the effects of the government's obsession with austerity. Like many other manifestations of this policy I believe we are building problems for the future.
When I was a lad we had frequent contact with the police, they were there on the street and I was always told that if I was in trouble at any time all I had to do was tell a policeman (They were all men in those days....) There was even a song, "If you want to know the time, ask a policeman", today I suspect this would be seen as wasting police time, things have changed. If we were tempted to be naughty there was always the thought at the back of our minds that there was a bobby in the vicinity and in those days you could expect a clip on your ear!
I know, I am showing my age, but I think we are in danger of losing something. We are assured by those in power that with modern technology the bobby on the beat is an anachronism, sorry but I don't buy that. We need closer contact with our guardians and what is happening to policing is distancing us from them. This is a bad thing.
SCG/19/03/18
The old police station on Manchester Road in 2018.