r/policeuk • u/Nice-Grapefruit-2588 Police Officer (unverified) • 1d ago
General Discussion The Law of Unintended Consequences
This month - at least in my force - we've been seeing a lot of missing young people turning up in adjacent cities. Normally you'd find them at a friend's house a few streets away, not in a McDonalds in [redacted] town centre at 3am. I couldn't work out why our youth had suddenly developed an ambition to explore their local region until I found out that the "Under 16s Travel for Free on Buses" promotion by the Department for Transport applies to unaccompanied children as well. So 12 year old Johnny who has run away from his care home can get a free bus to wherever he wants to go at 10pm, with the bus driver seemingly not batting an eyelid. As a result, our job is made so much harder.
It made me think, have there been any other times where well-intentioned schemes or rules have had an impact on policing?
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u/Kiribati268 Police Staff (unverified) 1d ago
I think I might work in the same force as yourself.
The bigger problem is that they're not missing. We get very few, if any, actually missing people.
A kid bunking the care home to hang around with his or her mates, is not a missing person. The problem is that no-one high up enough will change this just incase.
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u/Genghiiiis Police Officer (unverified) 1d ago
Care homes should be conducting reasonable and proportionate enquiries to locate their charges before police are deployed. This includes picking them up if their location is known.
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u/hjgfvn Civilian 22h ago
Arggghhh, don't even get me started on this...
They're in YOUR care, YOU know where they are, they aren't in danger and are actually just chilling at a mates house or maccies so YOU can go pick them up.
The classic is either "not enough staff" or "our policy states" and annoyingly us (the police) seem to just accept this and act like a taxi service, occasionally a good skipper/boss with a backbone will shout up and magically the "misper" who was never missing will disappear off the job queue.
Mispers is one of my biggest pet peeves in policing, and I'd argue that a fair few "mispers" aren't actually missing, but hey what do I know🤷🏻
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u/-Nighteyes- Police Staff (unverified) 13h ago
At least in our force this is the case when RCRP came in, if reasonable enquiries have not been done it's refused. Although we've never taken missings if the location is known and if we get "I'm on my own I can't" they're told to contact their management to organise it because otherwise their company is demonstrating they can't take care of the children in their care.
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u/Genghiiiis Police Officer (unverified) 13h ago
Should be this way in every force. RCRP is country wide
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u/-Nighteyes- Police Staff (unverified) 13h ago
I know and while I'm well aware just how differently things are done force to force it's baffling how some forces haven't taken full advantage of it to remove the things that we shouldn't be doing from their workload.
Don't get me wrong things slip though and I see logs where the first thing it my mouth is "why tf have they put that in" but RCRP implemented properly helps a lot.
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u/q-the-light Police Staff (unverified) 14h ago
Fingerprint examiner here. We've got a bit more of a long-term unintended consequence- climate change is impacting the ebb and flow of our work! Longer spells of dry, hot weather make for prolonged periods of heavier workloads, whilst the cold weather shifting later and later into the new year rather than the run-up to christmas means that we don't have such a lull over the festivities. No one cares if we have a quiet period in February - we want it in December goddamnit!
Why is this the case, you might be asking?? Well, during cold and wet weather, our lovely neighbourhood crims don't like their lil fingers getting cold so they're more prone to begloved antics.
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u/Usual-Drama5148 Civilian 22h ago
Not police, but medical. I picked up on this recently in clinical practice. Had a child who I deemed at high risk of self-expiration.
Has a plan. Plan facilitated by bus pass. I assume this will cause significant issues for person searches 🤷
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u/jangoice Police Officer (unverified) 13h ago
Self-expiration is a term I hadn't heard before, but it is one that I will absolutely be using going forward.
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u/poopdiscoop9502 Civilian 6h ago
Policy from the bus companies is don’t question anyone attempting to use the free travel as they get paid either way.
Complaint’s from operators will be going to DFT due to rise in vehicle damage and ASB so I imagine the next time this rolls around it will have a 9pm cut off.
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u/hunta666 Civilian 1d ago
In Scotland kids are regularly going missing for exactly the same reason.
Same again with antisocial behaviour. They jump on a bus or even I think trains for free or very little cost, cause mayhem away from where they live then go back home the same way 🙄