Wylie27 wrote:Sounds like it was a protest by the beat cops against the quotas.
If thats the case then Good on them!
bladeracer wrote:What amazes me is their view that there's no fraud involved. These guys sat around for hours taking taxpayer money for blowing bubbles when they were supposed to be out doing police work!
They didn't sit around doing this for the giggles, they did it because it benefited them to do it.
No1Mk3 wrote:OK Folks,
To be blunt, there are no such things as quotas. Period. But having said that, and this comes from a Senior Sergeant with Traffic Operations, every type of offense has an average, and if a patrol or operation falls below average so be it, a quiet shift. But if anyone consistently turns in a below average their Sergeant is going to ask them to explain, are they working or parking up for a snooze? The pressure is on to perform to or above the average,
Ziad wrote:I think... yet again we (media especially) is looking at the symptom not the real issue. I suppose it's very easy for a manager to make kpi and keep "stats" to say how wonderful they are doing things even though the stats are meaningless. It gets worse when the kpi are made by outside agencies or ppl who don't have any real world experience. (In this case apparently TAC).
In the case of cops it's all too easy to blame speed or drink driving (or similar simple reason) for the cause of every accident and then create rules where cops waste their time doing speed checks or breath tests when the real reason will always be more complicated like not driving to the conditions or fatigue (I suppose fatigue is harder to detect).
Added to that instead of serving and protecting the public or governments have made cops more into tax collectors.
Thus these ppl under pressure from management to do XYZ number of breath tests... do what any normal human will do...fudge or skimp. Yes you can call them dodgy but I think I rather blame their managers and politicians getting them to do this work instead of what they should be doing
No1Mk3 wrote:OK Folks,
To be blunt, there are no such things as quotas. Period. But having said that, and this comes from a Senior Sergeant with Traffic Operations, every type of offense has an average, and if a patrol or operation falls below average so be it, a quiet shift. But if anyone consistently turns in a below average their Sergeant is going to ask them to explain, are they working or parking up for a snooze? The pressure is on to perform to or above the average, such pressure comes from Gumbiment making statements to the public about how many tests are being done, to Command pushing this nonsense of "Productivity", to Regional Inspectors looking to polish their performance with an eye on the next Assistant Commissioners job. Ziad's post is on the money, Cheers.
darwindingo wrote:Ziad wrote:Thus these ppl under pressure from management to do XYZ number of breath tests... do what any normal human will do...fudge or skimp. Yes you can call them dodgy but I think I rather blame their managers and politicians getting them to do this work instead of what they should be doing
Should they not be testing drivers and trying to get drunk drivers off the road ? Seems like a fairly reasonable thing to be doing to me.
If not, who do you think should be tasked with that job ?
Or is it just the balance of this task vs other important tasks that you are getting at ?
bladeracer wrote:darwindingo wrote:Ziad wrote:Thus these ppl under pressure from management to do XYZ number of breath tests... do what any normal human will do...fudge or skimp. Yes you can call them dodgy but I think I rather blame their managers and politicians getting them to do this work instead of what they should be doing
Should they not be testing drivers and trying to get drunk drivers off the road ? Seems like a fairly reasonable thing to be doing to me.
If not, who do you think should be tasked with that job ?
Or is it just the balance of this task vs other important tasks that you are getting at ?
The entire point of the article is that these officers are not doing the job at all, they're sitting on their arses fudging figures to make it look like they're doing the job...
Ziad wrote:What I meant was instead of having KPIs (say quotas) that they are judged by... decrease the bureaucracy and let them actually spend more time doing real policing.
What we need is more visible police presence. OB the road and when requested. A good example, a couple years ago we'r were having a party and a friend was turning into our driveway and got hit by oncoming car. We called the cops and told them that the outthey person was drunk, and guess what no one showed up
bladeracer wrote:Ziad wrote:What I meant was instead of having KPIs (say quotas) that they are judged by... decrease the bureaucracy and let them actually spend more time doing real policing.
What we need is more visible police presence. OB the road and when requested. A good example, a couple years ago we'r were having a party and a friend was turning into our driveway and got hit by oncoming car. We called the cops and told them that the outthey person was drunk, and guess what no one showed up
The problem is that our current Police force no longer serves the community, they're all tied up trying to turn ordinary people into criminals because it's far easier to convict us and they make more money out of us. Real criminals cost too much to chase down and prosecute, and if they convict them then they cost money to house. The rest of us get busted for speeding 2km over the limit, parking five minutes too long, having a loose .22LR rolling around the back of the ute, etc, pay our fines (to pay the prosecutors' salaries) and save up for the next ridiculous offence to be enacted. Last year Victoria brought in a law to make it legal for a motorcycle rider to take one foot off the footpeg to stretch his leg - WTF? The implication is that Police have been busting so many riders for stretching their legs that they had to make a new law!
Daddybang wrote:No1Mk3 wrote:OK Folks,
To be blunt, there are no such things as quotas. Period. But having said that, and this comes from a Senior Sergeant with Traffic Operations, every type of offense has an average, and if a patrol or operation falls below average so be it, a quiet shift. But if anyone consistently turns in a below average their Sergeant is going to ask them to explain, are they working or parking up for a snooze? The pressure is on to perform to or above the average,
Fair enough but if they are willing to fudge the figures because the pressure is on what are (some) willing to fudge when the pressure is on to solve a crime
Ziad wrote:And I heard that they can now concre you if any part of your body is outside the car...I like to rest my arm on the window and get a breeze in.... natural air conditioning
Daddybang wrote:Ziad wrote:And I heard that they can now concre you if any part of your body is outside the car...I like to rest my arm on the window and get a breeze in.... natural air conditioning
That's been the law for years. I copped a fine drving through ballina in 98 for having my elbow outside the car!!
Ziad wrote:I think... yet again we (media especially) is looking at the symptom not the real issue. I suppose it's very easy for a manager to make kpi and keep "stats" to say how wonderful they are doing things even though the stats are meaningless. It gets worse when the kpi are made by outside agencies or ppl who don't have any real world experience. (In this case apparently TAC).
In the case of cops it's all too easy to blame speed or drink driving (or similar simple reason) for the cause of every accident and then create rules where cops waste their time doing speed checks or breath tests when the real reason will always be more complicated like not driving to the conditions or fatigue (I suppose fatigue is harder to detect).
Added to that instead of serving and protecting the public or governments have made cops more into tax collectors.
Thus these ppl under pressure from management to do XYZ number of breath tests... do what any normal human will do...fudge or skimp. Yes you can call them dodgy but I think I rather blame their managers and politicians getting them to do this work instead of what they should be doing