May 6, 2008
Police officers in Norfolk have come up with a clever scheme to cut crime in the county. Rather than actually stopping criminals commiting crimes, they are reducing the amount of things criminals do which count as crime.
A leaked internal memo from an inspector in East Anglia reportedly read: "We appear to be making things difficult for ourselves by criming [Guru applauds the creation of a new word] things which aren't actually crimes. One example is where a car window is found to be damaged, no entry to the vehicle, no witnesses and no idea how it happened... If there is no evidence of someone intending to destroy or be reckless then there is no crime."
Well, Guru wonders whether there is any evidence of some of these police officers actually policing - perhaps their definition, and pay packet, should be adjusted accordingly.
Guru recalls a tale he was told a few years back by a work colleague who phoned the police to report a large group of youths jumping on his car and generally causing a racket outside his house in the small hours of the morning.
The police operator said a car would be along shortly, but after half an hour with no sign of the boys in blue, Guru's colleague phoned the police again. This process continued without success throughout the night until the exasperated home and dented-car owner phoned up pretending one of the youths had a gun, and a cop car was diverted from Dunkin' Donuts immediately.
Well, perhaps the constabulary have a point. Why waste their time dealing with issues other than the absolutely most serious ones? Should sexual assaults be investigated unless there is evidence of rape? And attempted murder could be scrapped all together.
HR professionals could learn from this as well. When you have three grievances to deal with, just pick the most serious.
"Sorry Laura but we don't have time to listen to you bleat on about being turned down for promotion just because your pregnant - Steve in marketing got punched in the face by his boss at just the wrong time for you."
