those nice police people
I haven’t given much of an account of my interview after my arrest – after all, it’s all on video and audio, so I won’t try to best the technology. I should say though, that after all that was switched off, I was DNA-tested, finger-printed, shot in the mug and searched all around the inside of my pants by a plain-clothes man (the same who had questioned me) wearing a very threatening pair of rubber gloves.
Although all this was humiliating of itself, there was no nastiness directed toward me, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were coming round to the idea that they might’ve made a mistake. Hard to read the minds of the more important players. The lesser figures were just struggling to get the procedures right, and to figure out the technology. They had a geewizz fingerprinting machine that was giving a policewoman the gyp. I had to try and help her, which meant that she had to acknowledge me as a human being.
Of course I’d just been charged with rape, and it’s true, I suppose, that these people are often faced with the nastier side of humanity, but at the same time it seems to me that police culture seems to encourage a hostile or at least disdainful treatment of the general public, and this has always raised my hackles. For example when, some days after all these humiliations, I brought in a letter for the investigating officers, the letter mentioned on June 12 (the dates are wrong of course), I was forced to wait for ages at the front counter. Nobody was at the counter but I could see a couple of people sitting around in the open space office behind the silver striped glass. They were chatting desultorily, and could clearly see me through the glass. Finally, a dishevelled, middle-aged woman shuffled around to my side of the glass and asked me what I wanted in a distinctly gruff tone. I gave her the envelope, hand-addressed to constable Welsh and asked for a receipt, so that I could be sure that it had reached its destination. This business of the receipt I’d only just thought of, and the woman instantly took umbrage. We don’t give receipts, she said surlily. I tried to explain that it was a major case and I wanted to be sure… We’ve never given receipts, she repeated. I’ll put it in his pigeon-hole, but we don’t give receipts. My name is Barb. He’ll get the letter.
So I accepted that, having no alternative (and maybe I was being a bit cheeky), but during the time I’d been waiting I’d read a poster behind the counter, a poster that was presumably deliberately posted there to catch the eye of the public. It criticised the government for their meanness with regard to the pay and conditions of police. It was a public servants’ union poster, which finished with some such remark as ‘the nurses deserved their pay increase – so do we’. This strongly reminded the public that the police were public servants. Servants of the public. And the public – that’s me. Now considering all the modern talk about productivity and performance-based salaries, the question of whether an organisation that treats its wage-payers and customers with such surly disdain deserves better pay really begs to be asked.
Although all this was humiliating of itself, there was no nastiness directed toward me, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were coming round to the idea that they might’ve made a mistake. Hard to read the minds of the more important players. The lesser figures were just struggling to get the procedures right, and to figure out the technology. They had a geewizz fingerprinting machine that was giving a policewoman the gyp. I had to try and help her, which meant that she had to acknowledge me as a human being.
Of course I’d just been charged with rape, and it’s true, I suppose, that these people are often faced with the nastier side of humanity, but at the same time it seems to me that police culture seems to encourage a hostile or at least disdainful treatment of the general public, and this has always raised my hackles. For example when, some days after all these humiliations, I brought in a letter for the investigating officers, the letter mentioned on June 12 (the dates are wrong of course), I was forced to wait for ages at the front counter. Nobody was at the counter but I could see a couple of people sitting around in the open space office behind the silver striped glass. They were chatting desultorily, and could clearly see me through the glass. Finally, a dishevelled, middle-aged woman shuffled around to my side of the glass and asked me what I wanted in a distinctly gruff tone. I gave her the envelope, hand-addressed to constable Welsh and asked for a receipt, so that I could be sure that it had reached its destination. This business of the receipt I’d only just thought of, and the woman instantly took umbrage. We don’t give receipts, she said surlily. I tried to explain that it was a major case and I wanted to be sure… We’ve never given receipts, she repeated. I’ll put it in his pigeon-hole, but we don’t give receipts. My name is Barb. He’ll get the letter.
So I accepted that, having no alternative (and maybe I was being a bit cheeky), but during the time I’d been waiting I’d read a poster behind the counter, a poster that was presumably deliberately posted there to catch the eye of the public. It criticised the government for their meanness with regard to the pay and conditions of police. It was a public servants’ union poster, which finished with some such remark as ‘the nurses deserved their pay increase – so do we’. This strongly reminded the public that the police were public servants. Servants of the public. And the public – that’s me. Now considering all the modern talk about productivity and performance-based salaries, the question of whether an organisation that treats its wage-payers and customers with such surly disdain deserves better pay really begs to be asked.
posted by Stewart at 10:48 am
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