Police: The Paperwork

As the blog's got the word "paperwork" in the title, I suppose I'd better actually write something about the reams of the stuff we have to get through.

Firstly, it's worth mentioning that absolutely everything in the Police has a piece of paper attached in some way. I don't know why, but somebody, somewhere, decided that without getting through half a rainforest a day the whole system would simply crash and die. So, because of this, everything gets written down. And repeated. And photocopied. And carbonated.

The most paperwork you'll do will be connected to an arrest. Imagine you've stopped a known drug dealer in the street and decided to search him:

• First, a search form. In our Force that'll up to 10 minutes to complete. When they were designed, they expected them to take about half that time. They were probably filling them in in a warm, dry office and didn't have some junkie to keep an eye on at the time.

You've found some "white powder". Fantastic! Drug user is arrested. Tidy little arrest that makes you feel like you've achieved something. Off to custody...

• At custody, you'll fill in a form with the prisoner's details,
• Then one regarding him being searched (in custody, not the initial search) and how in-depth the search was,
• And then a form cataloguing his property.
• There'll be a form detailing the reasons for arrest and why it was necessary to make the arrest (n.b. don't write in here "because he's broken the law". I did that once in a fit of pique and got told off.)
• You'll explain the reasons for arrest to the Custody Sergeant in front of the prisoner (I think we call them "guests" now?). As a reward for being so eloquent, the Custody Sergeant will hand you a number of forms.

The prisoner/guest/person with too many rights will then be popped into his ensuite room. You go to do some paperwork.

• You'll complete an "investigation plan" for your supervisor so that he/she can check you haven't forgotten how to suck eggs.

You'll probably want to search their home address also for further drugs. Of course, you can't just do this. You need to...

• Fill out a form requesting permission to search the house and get it signed by an Inspector.

Right, you didn't find anything so, back to the station.

• You'll write up a crime report as you have discovered the crime of possession of said white substance.
• You'll have to write up your pocket book detailing what happened, what action you took and why. This is seperate from the arrest statement you'll write later. Some forces now use Incident Report Books which have a notes section and a statement section to cut down on replication. However, you'll note that there's still 2 sections that need completing.
• You'll do your interview plan, which is a plan of how you anticpate conducting the interview with your suspect. (We're still allowed to call them suspects).

Prior to the interview, if they want a solicitor then you'll have to meet them to give "disclosure". This is your opportunity to give the suspect a winning hand by letting them know what you know so that they can concoct a decent story. Not all solicitors do this (and I don't bear solicitors any particular ill-will. They're doing a job) but I'm sure that once or twice they've "suggested" possible defences to their clients.

• You're now in the interview room. You need to fill out the form for the interview tapes
• Oh, and fill out the interview seal to go round the master copy when you've finished.

Interview over. The suspect has coughed the lot and admitted what a bad lad he's been. The Police can't be trusted to make decisions any more so, even though he's fully admitted the offence, we have to ask CPS permission to charge him and put him before a Court. Of course, when I say "ask" I mean...

• Fill out form MG3 telling the CPS what's happened to this point, what was said in interview, what the strengths and weaknesses of evidence are.

The CPS decide he should be charged. Marvellous!

• Complete the charging forms (which are computerised normally) and which state what the person's done wrong and where.
• Before they're released on bail, complete a PNC Intelligence Document detailing what's happened (you'll notice, this isn't for the first time) and where etc. Also anything about the person's behaviour, appearance or places they frequent etc.
• Complete the form for taking their fingerprints.
• If you don't want them to get bail you'll have to fill out form MG7 stating why. Remember, unless the person is charged with stealing the Judge's favourite garden gnome, they're very unlikely to be remanded in custody.

The prisoner's gone. Now you have to do the file for Court:

• Write an MG6. This is a sort of confidential memo between you and the CPS telling them stuff like "the defendant has been convicted of 6 drugs offences previously and has failed to comply with Community Based Punishments" etc. It normally runs to two sides.
• The MG5 - The Case Summary. A summary of the offence. For this job it should be faily straight forward.
• The MG16 - Bad Character. There's been a change in the law which means that a persons previous thievery or violence etc might be introduced in Court before sentence is passed. Obviously, if your prisoner's a "bad 'un" then this may take some time....
• Previous convictions record - though mercifully this doesn't need to be hand-written any more. We can just print out the PNC record.
• Your arrest statement, which again should be fairly short for this job. For different offences, you will also have to take statements from witnesses and get other officers to write statements too.
• The file cover, basically just setting out who the defendant is and what they've done wrong.

You'll also have to place the drugs onto the property system and get them locked away securely:

• Complete the paperwork for the property store.
• Then, finally, finish off the crime report to show that you've detected the crime and the public are that much safer thanks to your efforts.

So, for a really simple arrest, that's at least 26 seperate forms that need completing. I've used as simple an arrest as I can think of to stop this long, dull and boring post dragging on even longer. That said, there is a certain realism to it. Things are this bad for two reasons (in my opinion).

Firstly, we have to duplicate everything. An arresting officer will go to sleep being able to recite the facts of the case because he'll have written about them in his pocket book, statement, crime report, MG5 and PNC Intel' Document etc. These could be combined using the computer technology we've already got.

Secondly, every time the Government or Bosses get rid of a form as being "obsolete" (I think the last time they did this was something to do with "Form For Telling People To Turn Out Their Lights During Blitz Blackout") it gets replaced with four other forms. Each of them specifically designed to get the person whose idea they were promoted.

It's probably worth noting that a similar arrest in the USA would go slightly differently:

• officer conducts search and finds drugs.
• officer seizes drugs and arrests suspect.
• he then completes a quick report for his supervisor.
• no interview required: if the junkie's got an excuse he can tell the Court.
• officer goes back out to arrest somebody else.