‘Pressure Cooker’ Policing

OFFICERS are feeling under more pressure than ever as they face a busy festive season, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Federation Chair Steve Kent said: “I’ve never known officers to feel as low as they do now, in terms of the overwhelming feeling of pressure. We’ve come off the back of a summer surge, which meant loads of officers working lots of days off.

“We had officers up in Scotland at COP26 working long hours, but we also had a lot of officers with their rest days cancelled back in force. It’s absolutely taken a toll on them, so now we’re coming to the winter period and it doesn’t seem to be much of a let up in terms of the demand.”

Steve said the new intake of police officers was to be welcomed, but that “it’s going to take a lot of time for them to bed in”.

The performance culture driven by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) was partly to blame, Steve said.

He continued: “I think we as a Federation need to have conversations nationally, not just locally, about the culture within policing and the relentless performance drive that is driven by HMIC – we need to see that foot taken off the gas a little, because our officers, sadly, are starting to break, in great numbers. We need to see something drastic done about it.

“It’s like a pressure cooker. We need to focus on the quality of our work, rather than just the quantity.”