Do All Police Officers Start Their Careers As Constables?

[sandyRoe]

When you see some senior officers talking on television news programmes it's difficult to imagine them ever having been PCs.

[andy-hughes]

As I understand it, the police service is the only organisation where promotion is through all the ranks, from constable up to Chief Constable.

[ChillDoubt]

Yes, every single one starts as a PC and must complete 2 years probation.
Some graduates are earmarked though for early promotion/fast tracking.

[mikey4444]

Some of them would appear to start out as wassocks, and fail to progress very far at all.

[andy-hughes]

A little harsh mikey.

I think far more organisations - including the government, would benefit from the police policy of people at the top having a direct understandng of the issues of those under their command, because they have been there first,

[mikey4444]

Harsh ?...you obviously didn't see the Channel 4 "Dispatches" program last night !

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/

[wolf63]

From when I was about eight all that I wanted to do steer wise was to join the police. I applied and was too short - they all seem short these days.

I joined the civil service instead. I don't think that I would have enjoyed being a police officer, unless I was armed and had a big hairy GSD partner.

[mikey4444]

Sorry but what is GSD wolfie ?

[GRUMPY]

The Fire service is also the same as the police force you start as a firefighter and work your way up so the chief fire officer was once a recruit at the bottom of the ladder.pardon the pun non intended.

[mikey4444]

Good pun Grumpy ! Whether you meant it or not !

[kvalidir]

You would think that would breed good helpful officers keen to promote crime fighting to members of the public who seek their help wouldn't you? We did and well, how disappointed can you be? Someone close to us said the best course of action would be to sidestep the police altogether and deal with it in other ways because they would be unhelpful at best and counter productive at worst and that was exactly what they were, plus they were slow, unfriendly, laughed and didn't care. Nice.

[aelmpvw]

german shepherd dog

[wolf63]

Mickey - German Shepherd, they are a little bigger than York is. :-)

[mikey4444]

Ah...a dog ! This list of new words and phrases that I am finding on AB is growing by the day !

WASBIA !

[mikey4444]

Wlfie...but my little Yorkie doesn't know he's a Yorkie ! He thinks he is a Yorkshire Wolfhound and I have never wanted to disabuse him of the notion....hearts of lions, them Yorkies ! They can reach the parts that bigger dogs can't, especially the lower down bits.

[wolf63]

Mikey - they yap. I hate Jack Russells but saw the most adorable JR puppy (about 12 weeks) yesterday. Now that's a huge dog (with attitude) in a small body.

WASBIA ??

[mikey4444]

What a silly b*gger I am.....I can make them up as well you know !

[Peter Pedant]

There has been accelerated entry for some,
with degrees and so on. But they still plod the beat for some of the time.

Letter in the Teleg from experience 50 y ago -
fella used to go into the nick and be greeted with the custody sergeant saying,
and what is the f+cking grammar school boy going to get up to today then ?

They should do media communication courses
and then leave it to pretty younger constables ( gurlz of course )
after all we know - it is the medium and not the message......

[mikey4444]

Didn't Marshall Mcluhan say that the medium IS the message ?

[sandyRoe]

Or the medium could pass on the message?

[mikey4444]

Sandy...see this from wiki...I did try to get to the end of the entry but I'm afraid it was a tad too difficult for me !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message