Instructed not to arrest?
I had an interesting email exchange with a police blogger, part of which I feel deserves further investigation. He's happy for me to reproduce the relevant part of the email:
"In the past couple of weeks I've had Sergeants and Inspectors telling us not to arrest, but this is because we are so short, Without going into too much details, I've been at places with drunken, aggressive and hugely abusive people and done nothing other than push them away - because I've known that I'm one of only two PCs available, and if I'm gone then 50% of the policing availability for policing a large scale area/event/incident has now gone. This isn't drunken shenanigans I'm talking about, this is large scale disorder or even at the extreme, racial abuse directed towards me and colleagues."
Does this account of the pressures on police ring true for you? If you've some insight into this do get in touch, in confidence, of course. We'll be looking at this issue on a future iPM, but we need your help.
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