a PC could be stuck dealing with a "social" issue, I understand these are important, but is that what they are there for.
One detail is that the precise definition of 'social issue' has not been stated. The reason I was concerned at the original post was the fairly strong sentiment that implied two things: the Police only exist to fight crime and, secondly, that the responsibility for everything other than crime should be borne by other agencies. The implication that 'other agencies' (interestingly, also not clearly defined) simply drop everything at 4pm on Friday evenings and pass it all over to the Police is, I suspect, misleading at best.
In our society crime, neediness and vulnerability go hand-in-hand, and often what is seen as crime can be something quite different. If the police refuse anything they deem 'not criminal' where does that leave the vulnerable, I wonder.
I Watched "999 What's your emergency" last night, which made me think about, what we had been discussing above.
Based in a 999 call centre.... I noticed a lot of calls came in, that initially seemed time wasters, asking for non related emergency help, at first the operator, seemed annoyed, but carried on talking to them, I realized they were looking for signs of "self harm", and the number of calls from people already known to them, that they knew, only wanted to talk to somebody....in the majority,
the police were sent.I said before, that the police felt as if they "were being blackmailed" over social issues, and I got the same impression, that the emergency operators felt the same.
"In our society crime, neediness and vulnerability go hand-in-hand, and often what is seen as crime can be something quite different. If the police refuse anything they deem 'not criminal'
where does that leave the vulnerable, I wonder."I wonder.....Do we need a fourth emergency service?....££££££